What Are the Advantages of Wind Power?
There are many reasons why people start looking into the advantages of wind energy and solar energy. The individual focus of each person probably depends on where exactly they are in their life. For some, the focus is on saving the planet and reducing our dependence on other oil producing countries. This might be though of as the Green Energy group. Many of them are younger and are focused on saving our future. This is a wonderful idea, but many of them are young enough that they have never paid a utility bill. For another group, although they certainly care about the planet, the focus is on trying to find a way to escape, or at least get a break from, outrageously expensive energy bills. Energy costs have reached the point where people are looking for ways to get themselves out from under the enormous thumb of their local utility companies.
Home wind turbines may become more common.
Many people have even started looking for ways to make the change to wind energy or solar energy on their own. Those people might want to check out this page. This site, Earth 4 Energy, was previously seen in Popular Science and Popular Mechanics magazines. They teach people to make their own solar panels and wind turbines (wind turbines are at the bottom of the page). It is an interesting idea, and many people are exploring this option every day. The short video they have on the page is a good summary of do it yourself options.
Evidence of the switch to cleaner fuel sources can already been seen all around the world. Just this past summer I was driving through the rolling hills of Pennsylvania, and was surprised to see long rows of wind turbines at work near the town of Somerset. I mention this because I had always assumed that wind energy would only be feasible in an area with wide open spaces like you might find in the mid-western United States. If nothing else, it brought to my attention how serious the “powers that be” must be about starting to make a switch to alternative energy sources.
This video tells a bit about why wind energy is drawing so much interest (this is a different video than the one linked above)
There certainly has been enough negative talk in recent years about the problems with having such a heavy reliance on fossil fuels. Ignoring for the moment the enormous debacle caused by the massive BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, there are plenty of other reasons to start looking toward alternative forms of energy. Depending on oil from countries with less than stable governments does not seem like the best long term plan. For people who proudly extoll their freedom and independence, being so dependent on a foreign entity does not sit well. Neither does the idea of having our utility bills and the cost of gasoline rising and falling at their next whim.
Some Energy Basics
If you can remember your early middle school or high school classes in physical science, you might recall that energy cannot be created or destroyed. It can however be converted from one form to another. In fact, this is what happens constantly. Here on Earth, we rely heavily on solar energy. You might not realize this, because most people think of solar collectors or rows of solar panels spread across the desert when they think of solar energy. You need to look a little bit further to understand. Let’s say you want to take a ride in your car. What happens? Well, ignoring all of the talk of potential energy, kinetic energy, waste heat and the like for now, your car basically is converting the energy in the gasoline and using it to make your car move. Well, where did the energy in the gasoline come from? It came from the long dead bodies of plants and animals that lived millions of years ago (fossil fuels). To take it further, where did those dinosaurs and prehistoric plants get the energy? The plants got their energy from the sun that shone on them and the dinos got their energy from the other animals or plants that they ate. It can all be traced back to energy coming from the sun. If you want to take it back even farther, you can start tracing where the Sun gets its energy and go all the way back to the Big Bang, but that’s a bit off topic.
Even wind energy can be traced back to the Sun’s energy. The heat that the Sun provides warms the Earth’s surface unevenly. We all know that warm air rises and cooler air falls. This up and down movement of air plays a part in creating the wind that you feel when you go outside or that you use to make a wind turbine turn.
The History of Wind Energy
Making use of the energy of wind is nothing new for humans. People realized long ago that the wind’s energy could be put to practical use. Early explorers used the wind to move their sail boats across water. Farmers learned to capture wind energy with windmills and, through a series of mechanisms, use it to do things like pumping water and grinding grain. Today, wind turbines are arranged in large groups called wind farms. They collect the wind’s energy and put it to use spinning large electrical generators which can provide electricity for nearby communities. Depending on where you live, you may already be putting some of this energy to use.
Wind Energy Today
Today, many areas around the globe have started the switch to wind energy. The United States is not a leader in this field however. Other countries like Denmark and Spain have been ahead of the curve in making the switch. This may change in the future with such a strong groundswell of support from the Green Energy movement in the United States. We are definitely at the beginning of a new era. The threat of running out of oil suddenly seems more real than it ever did before. Perhaps the amazing jumps in the price of oil a couple of years ago opened some eyes. Sometimes paying five dollars for a gallon of gas can get a person’s attention better than a politician’s speech ever could.
Advantages of Wind Energy
The advantages of wind energy are many. To start with, it is clean. Buring fossil fuels, is for the most part a dirty proposition. Although natural gas burns relatively cleanly, both oil and coal produce a worrisome amount of pollution. Wind energy does not bring that worry. There is nothing burned, so no poisonous gases are released.
Wind energy is also a renewable resource while fossil fuels are not. For those unfamiliar, a non-renewable resource is one that will not “renew” itself after it has been used. Because they take millions of years to form, fossil fuels are not considered renewable. Probably the only way they will be renewed is if humans manage to drive themselves to extinction, in which case, we’ll be part of the next batch when it is ready! Wind energy, on the other hand, is constantly renewed by the spinning of the planet and the uneven heating and cooling of the Earth’s surface. No muss, no fuss.
Not talked about nearly enough is the fact that making the switch to wind and solar energy could go a long way toward breaking free of our dependence on other countries. I cannot speak for anyone else, but spending a hundred dollars to fill my gas tank during the last “gas crises” really annoyed me.
Disadvantages
There are still some disadvantages to using wind energy. If you live in an area where there is very little wind, making use of a wind mill might not be practical (solar energy might still be an option). Also, large windfarms can produce enough noise pollution to become bothersome to people living nearby. For now, people who are looking to use wind energy for their own use will probably have to be happy with cutting down their utility bills and not necessarily eliminating them altogether.
People are learning to make their own solar panels.
What About Solar Energy?
I will write more about the benefits and possibilities of solar energy in future posts. Much of what was written above also applies to discussions of the advantages of solar energy. It is clean and renewable. People may make use of active solar heating systems or passive solar heating systems to do things like warm their homes or their water. Residents living in predominantly sunny areas have probably also seen photovoltaic cells popping up as a way to collect the Sun’s energy and convert it directly to electrical energy. As with wind energy, people are also starting to explore the possibilities of building their own solar collectors.
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