What
is wind energy? How is it generated?
Wind
seems to be the most overlooked potential source of
power even in this 21st century era. However, a number
of facts about wind energy need to be addressed before
it is too late! Wind is a form of solar energy.
Differential heating of the irregular earth’s surfaces
and earth’s rotation and the uneven distribution of heat
in the atmospheric layers cause wind flow. And the flow
patterns of wind are again regulated by the water bodies
and the vegetative covering of the earth. This wind flow
produces a kinetic energy which is actually captured and
harvested by using modern techniques as wind energy. The
modern devices involved in harnessing wind energy are
wind energy turbines and wind
mills.
Facts
about wind energy: Myths
resolved
In
spite of all the awareness worldwide about power saving
and regeneration, there still persists a lot of
misconception about wind energy amongst the common
people. In this article we will be discussing some very
important and reliable facts about wind energy which
will be helpful to clear out our various doubts
concerning the subject. Firstly, wind being a form of
solar power is a renewable source of energy that will
never get exhausted. Thus wind does never ever need to
be produced and there will always be a perpetual supply
of it. There is a myth among many people that a wind
power plant is highly expensive to set up and it takes a
lot of monetary capital to establish wind energy plants.
But the nude fact is that once started up and the
initial investment is done, a wind energy plant is the
cheapest option of electricity generation. The
maintenance cost is also quite negligible. Thirdly the
saddest part of the misconception about wind energy is
that people look down upon this wonderful proficiency as
a very weak source of power that can hardly support even
our household requirements. And here is another of the
various amazing facts about wind energy. Wind power can
become a massive source of renewable power if properly
managed. But studies indicate that till 2005 we have
used wind for only 1% of the total electricity
generation in the world. But the fact is that wind
energy alone has the tremendous potential to support the
entire world’s requirement for
electricity.
Facts
about wind energy: environmental compatibility,
economics and
development
Talking
about the environmental compatibility of the wind
energy, we can strongly claim that the electricity that
is generated is clean and non-polluting considering that
the source being wind itself is clean. To add to this,
wind energy generators have lots of advantages over the
conventional power plants that are worth mentioning in
this context. Compared to the conventional modern power
plants wind energy converters never produce any
greenhouse gas or air pollutants. Apart from saving
power, wind power plants are also easy on the economy as
compared to the fossil fuel plants since the former have
a minimum life-cycle cost like no fuel purchasing and
minimum operating expenses. However, the concerns like
visual impact and avian mortality (bats and birds being
killed while flying into the rotors) and noise pollution
(generated by the rotor blades) are been taken care of
by simple solutions like wisely locating the wind power
plants and technological
developments.
The economic facts about wind
energy clearly convey a very clear idea that wind as a
resource is the cheapest and can be renewed ‘n’ number
of times! The development of the wind energy generators
has seen quite a steep growth rate across the world till
date.
