“Just five nations account for 80% of the world’s wind power output.”
Clean, Domestic, Renewable, and Sustainable Design Just what is a wind farm? A wind farm is a grouping of wind turbines in the same location for use in production of electrical power. A big wind farm may consist of several hundred individual wind turbines, and cover an extended area of hundreds of square miles. Many of these wind farms are built upon agricultural areas that use the land in between the turbines for crops and other purposes. Other wind farms are located off shore, and these wind turbines are less conspicuous than their turbine counterparts on land, as their noise and apparent size is lessened by distance. Wind Farms provide a clean, domestic, renewable resource that helps many countries, including the United States, meet energy, ecological, and economic challenges. Wind power consumes no water, no fuel, and emits no air pollution.
2
“Wind Speeds on average are roughly 20% greater over water than over land.”
As noted in Essential Environment by Jay Withgott and Scott Brennan: “Most of the world’s wind-power-generating capacity is concentrated in a handful of countries, currently lead by Germany(23.6%), the United States(17.9%), and Spain(16.1%).” The potential of wind power remains largely untapped as less than one percent of the world’s energy is derived from wind power. “Just five nations account for 80% of the world’s wind power output.” The Wind Farm industry is growing quickly but like solar energy, wind provides only a small portion of the world’s power needs. As newer technologies are making the extraction of wind energy much more efficient and cost effective it seems like now more then ever its a good idea for the United States to further invest in clean and renewable energy sources like Wind Farms.
FULL BLEED
VOLUME 5 • ISSUE 5 • MONTH 2011
SUSTAINABLE DESIGN |
Wind Farms