Impact of wind energy on the environment
There are some environmental impacts of using wind energy. These impacts do not come from the operating of the wind farms but from the construction and installation of them. One of these possible impacts is that the farms can harm wildlife. The building of new wind farms can destroy natural habitats and living areas of the animals. The turbines themselves can also affect animals like birds as they might run into them or get their habitats destroyed by them. Wind turbines do not produce any emissions or contribute to climate change because wind is a clean, free, and renewable energy source. Wind farms however to account for a visual impact on people. Wind farms can sometimes be disrupting to people’s views or their landscape. Wind turbines can also sometimes cause a malfunction in electromagnetic fields and telecommunications as well as radio frequencies. These are some of the many minor effects wind energy can have on the environment.
Where is wind power used?
How does wind power work?
Currently there are two operating wind power facilities in the state of Vermont. Wind farms in the USA are most prevalent in the Midwest. States with a multitude of wind farms include; Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois, Oklahoma, Texas and Nebraska. The United States is currently the top country where wind power is used, others include; India, Germany, France, and Spain.
Wind energy works when wind spins a large turbine which uses a generator to convert that mechanical energy into electricity. The turbines are often among a large group called a “wind farm”. The wind farm gathers energy from all the turbines on the farm and distributes it much like a power plant. A wind turbine works the opposite way of a fan in the way that a fan turns electricity into blowing air and a wind turbine take blowing air and turns it into electricity. The wind has kinetic energy which is turned into mechanical energy by the spinning turbine. After this step that mechanical energy is run into a generator which turns it into electricity which then runs in with all the electricity gathered from the other turbines on the farm. Single wind turbines can also be used for private or residential use but are much smaller than the ones on the wind farms. Even though there are different kinds of wind turbines they all work the same way.
Useful/interesting informantion about wind energy
Cost efficiency of wind energy
The costs for a utility scale wind turbine in 2012 range from about $1.3 million to $2.2 million per MW of nameplate capacity installed. This cost has come down dramatically from what it was just a few years ago.
#1.At the current growth rate, U.S. wind energy developers install two new wind farms per week.
Wind mills have been in use since 2000 B.C. and were first developed in China and Persia.
#3. Wind power is currently the fastest growing source of electricity production in the world.
#4. Google has invested $5 billion in a new underwater transmission line to connect offshore wind farms in the Atlantic Ocean with 1.9 million households on the East Coast.
#5. A single wind turbine can power 500 homes.
#6. Roscoe Wind Farm in Texas is the world’s largest wind farm with 627 turbines generating 781.5 MW of electricity.
#7. More than one-third of all new generating capacity installed in America since 2007 is from wind power.
#8. There’s enough on-shore wind in America to power the country 10 times over.
#9. U.S. wind power produces as much electricity as nearly 10 nuclear power plants.
#10. Most wind turbines (95%) are installed on private land.
Wind Energy