The Power of Wind Energy
Even as the environment’s integrity is increasingly shaken, humans continue to require huge amounts of electricity for their technology. Fortunately, unlike the fossil fuel-consuming and greenhouse gas-producing energy generation technologies of the past, new technologies allow us to generate electricity by using the wind itself. While wind turbines are costly to build and gusts are sometimes unreliable, wind energy is greener than other energy sources and cheaper to maintain. Additionally, since the wind is always blowing somewhere, as long as we create a suitable power grid of turbines, we can reliably tap wind energy. When we balance out wind energy pros and cons, we can assess wind energy as a viable 21st-century energy solution.
Why Wind Energy?
Since the industrial revolution, we’ve produced electricity from coal, oil, natural gas, and other fuels. However, these fuels often pollute the environment when they are extracted from the earth and when they are combusted to produce energy. This combustion releases greenhouse gases, which accelerates global warming.
However, as the Massachusetts Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs affirms, wind power cleanly produces energy without burning any fossil fuels. Since 1990, the wind energy generation industry has grown at 25% per year, making wind energy a rapidly budding industry.
How Wind Energy Works
National Geographic describes the wind turbine as a massive tower with large, rotating blades that blow in the wind. The blades look like a giant airplane propellers and can measure as long as two hundred feet. When the blades turn, a turbine inside the tower turns. This turning produces electricity, which is then captured.
Wind Energy Pros and Cons: The Upside
When considering wind energy pros and cons, we can quickly see that wind’s most notable asset is that it is cleaner than most other energy production systems. To produce wind energy, we need not burn fuels, which means that we do not pollute when we operate wind turbines. Another positive to consider when weighing wind energy pros and cons is that wind turbines don’t cost much to maintain once they have been built.
Wind Energy Pros and Cons: The Downside
On the other hand, when weighing wind energy pros and cons, one must consider the high costs of erecting massive wind turbines. These initial production costs mean that large governments and corporations are the only entities that can build these energy facilities. Furthermore, wind is fickle and doesn’t always blow in some places. However, this supposed con of wind energy is negated by the fact that the wind always is blowing somewhere, and therefore can be tapped by any well-planned grid.
