Four Winds

Four Winds

The future of wind power

f you're one of those people that each winter brings out 10,000 Christmas lights and summer each keeps air conditioning cold enough to make ice cream is on the kitchen counter - or if you're like all the others who simply like the convenience of modern electricity - then you should it matter how we generate electricity in the future.

We are not in danger of running out of coal, the main source of fuel for generating U.S. electricity and many other parts of the world. And we could have so many new nuclear power plants as bright as we want. However, the reality is that pollution and safety impacts of these technologies to generate electricity prognosis of his death is necessary:

1) The problems with coal power plants power include sulfur (acid rain) and mercury pollution in coal-fired power plants are the main source of greenhouse gases in the world, and coal mining scars the land and people alike.

2) Nuclear power stations are very clean in terms of emissions of pollutants typical including carbon dioxide (the main greenhouse gas), but has the potential for accidents and terrorist attacks most people doubt the wisdom of more than nuclear energy. And do not forget that we still do not know what to do with the tons of long-term nuclear power stations produce radioactive waste.

So What does the future as the generation of electricity? We must start making strides toward cleaner technologies such as wind, solar, wave and biomass. Today wind power is spoken in an article is adapted from materials made available by Lester Brown and Earth Policy Institute.

People have been using wind power for centuries. The concept of wind energy is simple: the wind pushes against angled blades, causing them to move (like sailing in a boat); the blades are connected to a hub and make it turn, which in turn can drive other components.

In ancient times - back when the power devices Wind were called windmills - the rotational movement of the center was transferred to the mechanical, such as grist mills or pumps groundwater. graph wind turbine in a modern wind turbine, the center of an electric generator units and the output is electricity.

The modern wind turbine has come a long way in terms of sophistication, and the designs of today's wind turbines are elegant and very efficient compared to wind turbines to one or two decades. Designers have also solved some problems associated with early wind turbines, such as birds die by flying into them. Additional progress has been made for the location of technology - wind turbines can also be located off the ground now.

With wind-generated electricity, the cost main production is capital investment for the initial construction. Since wind is a free fuel, the only ongoing cost is for maintenance. Given the recent volatility in natural gas prices, the stability graph of the cost of wind energy, shows the cost has dropped 38 cents per kilowatt hour in 1982 to 4 cents per kilowatt hour in 2002 prices for wind energy is particularly attractive. With the possibility of higher costs of natural gas in future natural gas plants may be used increasingly as a backup electricity generated by wind.

When the wind industry first began to develop in California in the 1980s, the cost of wind-generated electricity of 38 cents per kilowatt-hour. Since then it has reduced to 4 cents or less on the major sites of wind. And some supply contracts have been signed long term by 3 cents per kilowatt-hour. In 2020, many wind farms Europe will be generating electricity at 2 cents per kilowatt-hour, which is cheaper than all other sources of electricity.

in Worldwide wind power capacity is growing at over 30% per year and has grown from less than 5,000 MW in 1995 to 39,000 megawatts in 2003 - an increase of nearly eight times. The fossil fuel with the highest rate of growth - natural gas - grew by just over 2% annually during the same period. Oil grew by less 2% per year, and coal to less than 1%. nuclear generating capacity grew by 2% annually.

The wind is attractive for several reasons. It is abundant, cheap, inexhaustible, widely distributed, clean and climate benign - a set of attributes that no other energy source can match. When the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) released its first wind resource inventory in 1991, noted that three wind-rich states - North Dakota, Kansas and Texas - had enough to appeal meet all the electricity the nation needs. Those who had previously thought of wind as a marginal source of energy potential, obviously, they were surprised for this result.

In retrospect, we now know that the 1991 data was an underestimation of the potential of this renewable energy source because it was based on technologies available in 1991. Advances in wind turbine design since then have allowed turbines to operate at lower wind speeds, to convert wind into electricity more efficiently, and to develop a system much larger wind. Such advancement may have tripled the amount of harvestable wind. Thus, while the Department of Energy could say in 1991 that North Dakota, Kansas, and Texas had enough wind energy potential to supply all the electricity of national needs, which now can say they have enough to supply all domestic energy needs. (See sidebar for more information.)

Once we get cheap electricity from wind, we have the option of electrolysis of water to produce hydrogen, which provides a way to store and therefore efficiently transporting wind energy. At night, when electricity demand falls, the hydrogen generators can be activated to increase reservations.

Once in storage, hydrogen can be used to fuel power plants, in much the same way that natural gas is used. This hydrogen can be used as backup for wind power as an alternative to natural gas, especially if the increase in natural gas prices are prohibitively expensive to generate electricity.

Hydrogen is also the fuel of choice for fuel cell engines that manufacturers are working around the world for our cars every day. While hydrogen-powered vehicles may still seem far away in the future, if push comes to shove on the weather front - ie, once it becomes more obvious that we must stop burning so much oil and pumping CO2 in the atmosphere - cars with engines burning internal combustion gasoline can be converted to hydrogen.

Europe leads the world in the age of wind power, driven in part by concerns global warming. The heat wave in Europe in August 2003 that scorched crops and claimed 35,000 lives has accelerated the replacement of climate-threatening carbon clean energy sources.

The European Wind Energy Association projects that wind, based on the electricity generating capacity will nearly triple for 2003 to 2010. By 2020, wind-generated electricity to meet projected graphical wind energy capacity by country, shows a tendency continued upward for all countries, with Germany leading, followed by Spain and the U.S., then Denmark and India needs 195 million residential Europeans - half the population of the region.

After developing most of its existing 28,400 megawatts of capacity on land, Europe is now seize the offshore wind resources as well. A 2004 assessment of the potential of Europe's offshore wind power came to the conclusion that if he moves more aggressively in Europe to develop its vast offshore resources, wind could supply all residential electricity in the region in 2020.

Many European countries are pushing hard to bring more wind energy. Here are some examples.

1) The United Kingdom is requiring an investment more than $ 12 billion in off-shore wind farms must meet the residential electricity needs of 10 million 60 million inhabitants.

2) Small Denmark, which led Europe into the wind was developing its own wind resources, now gets an impressive 20 percent of its electricity from wind.

3) Germany overtook the U.S. in terms of wind generation capacity in 1997. Now Spain is close to reaching the United States.

European leadership in wind energy has been a great economic advantage: nine of the ten world's largest wind turbine manufacturers found in three countries - ENMARK, Germany and Spain. These happen to be the three countries that have had the strongest and most stable market incentives for the development of wind energy.

In the U.S., wind energy has grown 26% annually on average during the last 5 years, but the U.S. is lagging development of wind energy. This is not because we can not compete technologically with Europe in the manufacture of wind turbines, but because of the lack of leadership in Washington. The most wind production tax credit of 1.5 cents per kilowatt-hour, which was adopted in 1992 to establish parity with subsidies fossil fuels, have been allowed to lapse three times in the last five years, most recently in late 2003 when Congress failed to pass a new law energy. Such uncertainties disrupt the planning of the entire wind energy industry.

The United States, with its advanced technology and wind resource wealth should be a leader in this field, but, unfortunately, still picture of the wind farm to rely heavily on coal - an energy source nineteenth century - for much of its electricity at a time when European countries are replacing coal power with wind power.

Europe not only is the world's leading wind was also leads the world in the post-fossil fuel - the age of renewable energy and stabilization climate. By demonstrating the potential use of wind energy in Europe is launching the new energy economy for the rest of the world.
Lester Brown is the founder and president of Earth Policy Institute. It has been described by the Washington Post as "one of the world's most influential thinkers" and as "the guru the global environmental movement "by The Telegraph of Calcutta. His most recent book is Plan B: Rescuing a planet under stress and a civilization in trouble.

One final note about wind energy. There are pessimists out there who say that you should cover the country with "the wind meels" to replace all our coal and nuclear. Do not believe it. Remember that in a wind farm, the "footprint" of the operation - the base of the tower, plus the service roads - occupies only 5% of the earth's surface. That makes wind power a perfect partner with operations in the area such as agriculture and livestock.

And oh, by the way, our current technologies for electricity generation are blanketing the country with pollution!

About the Author

James Nash is a climate scientist with Greatest Planet (www.greatestplanet.org). Greatest Planet is a non-profit environmental organization specialising in carbon offset investments.

James Nash is solely responsible for the contents of this article.

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