Wind Power: Advantages and Drawbacksby Dharmendra Kapri | 17-07-2016 03:33 |
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You may well have already seen big modern ?windmills? with their massive blades spinning slowly round and round in the wind. Well they?re not windmills at all (mills grind grain into flour) these are called wind turbines and they use the wind to produce electricity. The spinning of the blades is converted into electricity via a series of gears and generators at the top of the tower. The electricity is then transferred to a cable which leads to the National Grid and is then sent onwards to local houses, schools, offices and heavy industry. At the moment just 1% of electricity around the world is produced using wind turbines. Here are the good things about wind power: * It is very clean. Once built, the turbines produce no greenhouse gases. * As long as the sun exists to create the wind, the wind won?t stop forever. This is called renewable energy. * The land below the turbines can be used for other purposes, such as the grazing of farm animals or growing crops. * Small wind turbines are available to put on houses so you can produce your own clean, renewable electricity. Once installed, no more bills! So why doesn't all of our power come from wind turbines? There are drawbacks: * A lot of turbines are needed to produce enough energy for our needs. Large clusters of turbines are known as wind farms. * The wind doesn?t blow all day, every day, so a back-up power supply is needed for calm days. * Many people think wind farms are ugly and spoil nice views. Turbines can be 80 metres tall (nearly as tall as the Big Ben clock tower) with two or three rotor blades that are 35 metres long. And the windiest places tend to be in open countryside. * The turbines can be noisy, especially for people who live near them. * Birds and bats can be killed when they fly into them. This is a problem for migrating birds like geese which regularly use the same flight path. The cost of producing wind power has dropped by more than 70% since 1980 which means it is becoming a very popular 'green' energy source. |
