Blowhard

Last weekend's episode of energyNOW! was all about wind energy. It delved into some very good areas of the growing wind power industry. It also reminded me of one of the reasons I started this blog - my belief that wind energy needs to be spread across the nation.

Wind power  is a great clean energy technology that makes use of the winds that are abundant here on planet Earth. It uses a very old technology of capturing the wind with an arm with "sail-like" qualities. The wind turns the arm which then turns a generator to make electricity. With the combined effort of all the wind turbines that have been erected thus far, 430 Terawatt hours (TWh) of electricity have been produced. That's a lot of energy.

There are some flaws with the technology though. The most notable of those is that when the wind doesn't blow, electricity isn't being produced. Also, currently, when electricity is produced it must be used in real time. You can't store the electricity for later. The energyNOW! show talks about a new project which is trying to bring about storable wind electricity.

There are people who claim that there are additional flaws and try to prevent wind turbines from going up near their towns.  An article dealing with a proposed wind farm in Lake Michigan provides a good example of the silly arguments people raise in order to try and stop wind farms from being erected. The list includes noise, unsightly, flickered light at certain times of the day, and more dead birds.

Now, I've heard all these arguments before. The only one that is slightly considerable is the one about the birds. People claim that birds get chopped in half by the spinning blades. Yes, some do. However, more birds die from getting hit by cars or flying into windows or sitting on existing power lines than they do by flying into the spinning turbines. The argument that I had heard time and time again was that they were noisy. I've been around them and never heard them make a sound. This summer, I was visiting friends in Sweden and we took a trip over the Oresund Sound to Copenhagen and I got to stand under a newly erected wind turbine. It wasn't until I was directly under the spinning blades that I could actually hear anything. When I experienced that, I just shook my head in disbelief that people would buy that argument.

I would much rather look at the graceful, sleek windmills of today than the smokestacks and oil refineries of yesterday. I know different people have different aesthetics, but this is another one where I can't help but think that the argument was introduced by the fossil fuel propagandists. Whatever. There are facts. Here is a link to the facts about wind energy. It is time we all considered and recognized the facts. Please arm yourself with the facts. If you find someone opposing wind power, give them the facts. If you don't think wind energy is good, look at the facts. The facts are amazing and the facts are undeniable. It's amazing what facts can do when they are looked at.