Wind Power As A Viable Solution To Meeting Alternative Energy Needs
The growth of wind farms
One thing that's attractive about wind turbines is that many electrical companies will pay people for the excess electricity they generate. For a person who owns a bit of land in a windy area, the advantages are obvious. You pay the cost of installation, and before long you recoup your investment by powering your own home (which saves you money on your own electric use), and you sell the excess back to a utility company.
Advantages of wind power
- Wind power is free once you've paid for installation.
- Wind is an inexhaustible supply of energy
- Wind is completely renewable and clean.
Disadvantages of wind power
- Wind is a diffuse energy source. Wind turbines tend to be huge and take up great areas of space
- Wind is not always reliable. Wind as a sole energy source could be problematic
- Maintenance costs can be high because of the giant nature of wind farms
- Wild life can be damaged by the turbines
One basic point is that wind power is very appropriate to certain areas of the world. Windy corridors with a lot of open spaces make excellent candidates for wind farms. The big area of concern for wind energy tends to focus on the cost of the technology as compared to other forms of energy production.
T. Boone Pickens is a wind bull
Pickens unveiled his aggressive science/07/08/pickens.plan/index.html">Pickens Plan in July for a simple reason.
"Our dependence on imported oil is killing our economy. It is the single biggest problem facing America today," he said.
According to Pickens, a giant wind corridor exists from Canada to North Texas that, if tapped, could produce 20% of the nation's electric energy. Pickens and his company Mesa Energy have put their money where their mouths are, investing $2 billion into building the world's largest wind farm in Pampa, Texas.
The wind farm would produce 4,000 megawatts of electricity. That's the same as building two commercial scale nuclear power plants. When finished, the farm should produce enough power for about 1 million homes. This project promises to prove, once and for all, just how competitive of a source of energy wind really is. Of course Pickens is thinking of a whole different kind of green in building this giant project.
"Don't get the idea that I've turned green. My business is making money, and I think this is going to make a lot of money," he said.
Of course the whole project was shelved in November when oil prices slipped. Pickens says the project is delayed until 2010.
Barack Obama is a fan of wind power
At least he's been a fan of talking about wind power in his speeches. As the leader of the free world, he should be in a position to push real changes through. But as always, these decisions will need to make economic sense.
The green tech industry is already calling on Obama to keep his campaign promises. On January 3rd, 2009, Obama excited green proponents when speaking about his proposed $775 billion dollar stimulus package that is supposed to generate 3 million jobs.
"It will be a two-year, nationwide effort to jump-start job creation," Obama said when he first announced the the plan. "We'll put people back to work rebuilding our crumbling roads and bridges, modernizing schools that are failing our children, and building wind farms and solar panels," he said.
The quote certainly makes it sounds as if a large number of the new jobs will be created by huge investments in green technology like wind power. Soon we'll learn if a golden age of alternative energy is upon us, or if the plummeting price of crude oil is leading us backwards in direction.
Courtesy: Our Green Empire
Copyright 2007-2009 by Times of the Internet. All Rights Reserved.
