Availability of Wind Energy in the United States, Canada, Europe, and the Rest of the World by Evangeline Cortez
The availability of wind energy may be measured through resource inventories conducted by the respective departments of energy in various countries. For instance, in the United States, three states namely Kansas, North Dakota, and Texas have been identified as rich sources of wind power by the US Department of Energy. Although this inventory has been released over 17 years ago, it must be deduced from the facts that by now - considering the modern technologies available - the potential in these states may have increased even more. Back then, the wind power produced from the three states could well supply the electricity needs of the entire country.
Europe, on the other hand, is the leader when it comes to the availability of wind power. According to the European Wind Energy Association, the energy producing capacity of Europe can meet the electricity needs of half the population when the year 2020 approaches. There are several countries in Europe which make a lot of monetary investment in these projects. The United Kingdom invested more than $12 billion dollars in order to finance projects that will supply electricity to one-sixth of its country's population. Germany and Spain also increased their wind power projects and has been getting electricity from the wind more than the United States does. Denmark gets twenty percent of its electricity from the wind.
This is also an endeavor looked into by Canada. They also have organizations that look into the energy producing capacity of Canada. These groups include The Canadian Wind Energy Association in Ottawa, Canada, the Solar Energy Society of Canada in Winnipeg, and the National Research Council of Canada. Projects supporting these types of energy, more particularly the so-called Windmill Projects, are pursued globally. The United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada are the three leaders in this endeavor. There are many reasons why a lot of countries choose to explore its availability. For once, it is cheap and renewable. Moreover, it is pollution-free. It also has a high energy-conversion efficiency.
It is unfortunate, however, that there are some regions in the world where the availability of wind energy is poor. Their wind speeds are unreliable and poor. Countries with an annual wind speed under 3m per second cannot sustain wind power system. Therefore, there are regions around the globe which cannot explore this potential, nor can they rely on windmills and wind turbines to supply electricity to their households. On the other hand, regions with annual wind speeds of more than 4.5m per second are those which have much potential for wind energy systems. These projects that they may assume are promising to be economically competitive.
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Maybe not in YOUR terms, but in terms of damage to areas of natural beauty, general intrusiveness and noise, to name just a few problems, wind power is one of the most poluting sources of energy we've tried so far on this planet. Furthermore, it's nothing like as successful as it's champions would have us believe, nor is it reliable. To cap it all, kilowatt for kilowatt, when ALL costs are taken into account, it's one of the most expensive and least efficient ways of generating electricity.
ReplyDeleteThanks for you comment CWEP.
ReplyDeleteI appreciate alternative views especially from knowledgeable people and that's what this blog is about. This is an open forum for a discussion on these issues.
Thank you.