Is Wind Energy Worth It?

 
The air around you right now can be on the other side of the world in a week, so any damage done to our atmosphere is truly a global issue.

We do take advantage of the wind to an extent with wind turbines, but is wind energy actually worth it?

Could wind be used to power in the entire world?

The city of Munich has pledged that by 2025 the city will be running on a 100 percent renewable energy.

 

This video visits the GE Global Research Centre in Munich to talk about the future of wind energy.

 

The first windmill built for producing energy was built in 1887, but for more than two thousand years we’ve been using wind energy to grind grain and pump water so the technology is old.

Nowadays windmills are mostly used for power – they don’t rely on fuel and make less air pollution.

How much energy do wind turbines actually generate?
In today’s world wind energy represents around four percent of our consumption, which is a huge difference from the late 90’s when only 0.1 percent of our energy came from wind.
A modern wind turbine can power over 1,000 homes – If you want some hot water it can actually power 28 million kettles! It’s the equivalent of up to 16,000 solar panels. Industry experts think that by 2050 we could be getting as much as one-third of our power from the blowing wind.

How do we make wind energy more efficient?
Instead of having individual wind turbines trying to maximize their their own performance, wind farms have a farm control system that is computer controlled to optimise the performance of all the turbines. This can increase the efficiency by one percent, which may not sound like much, but can result in a saving of hundreds of millions of dollars.

How do wind turbines affect birds and bats?
To put this into perspective, the glass windows on buildings are actually much more detrimental to bird populations. Moving forward with the placement of wind turbines, future focus will be on putting turbines outside of bird migratory patterns.
As for bats, scientists have been experimenting with a special type of paint that actually show up for bats during a echo location to help avoid collisions.

What about cost?
Surprisingly wind turbines are able to compete with other energy sources when it comes to cost per energy output, although this has come after years of improvement in efficiency and in technology.