Hobbies And Interests
Wind Energy Benefits
The good news is that wind farms, when operating, will produce electricity without carbon dioxide. A wind turbine has large blades that catch the wind. As the blades turn, the rotational force is translated to the turbine below the tower, which turns a magnet inside a coil of wire, producing electricity. The kinetic energy of the wind becomes electrical energy, without the burning of fossil fuels or any other source of carbon dioxide.
Low Efficiency
Wind energy may harvest power from the wind, but the wind itself is not reliable. A power source's capacity factor is the percentage of the plant's full theoretical generation capacity that it typically produces in reality. The problem of the wind not always blowing at sufficient strength and in the correct direction means that wind turbines often operate at low capacity factors: on average, wind turbines in the United States reach a capacity factor of 35 percent. Compare this to a coal plant's capacity factor of 71 percent or a nuclear plant's nearly 90-percent capacity factor.
Fossil Fuel Backups
Due to their low efficiency, wind farms often require the aid of "peak plants" -- backup energy sources that fill in the gaps in production that slack winds can leave. These plants must be both reliable and powerful enough to supply the power consumers need. For these reasons, the backups are usually fossil-fuel plants that contribute significant amounts of carbon to the global warming problem, especially when they must continually rev up and down to match wind output. Depending on the plant, and the type of fuel it uses, the cycle of bringing the plants to production capacity and back down again as demand requires often produces more emissions than running steadily.
Wind Land Use
Considering the problems wind has with reducing carbon levels, it is worth thinking about the amount of land that wind farms require. The American Wind Energy Opposition estimates that an optimal wind farm on a mountain ridge would require 45 to 90 acres of land per tower, to ensure that towers do not interfere with each other. Clearing that much land has an environmental impact, especially if the land had plant life, which acts as nature's carbon sink by fixing and holding, or sequestering, carbon. Land used for windmills is land that cannot sequester carbon. The Tribal Energy and Environment Information Clearinghouse estimates that cropland can sequester 0.2 to 0.6 metric tons of carbon per acre per year. Forests can sequester 0.05 to 3.9 tons per acre per year, grasslands 0.12 to 1 ton per acre per year, and wetlands, 2.23 to 3.71 tons per acre per year.