Wind Power at the Industrial Scale
Wind turbine installations are a wonderful way to put the energy in the wind to work. The proof is in the pudding as far as all of the new installations popping up everywhere. When you look at raw output wind turbines can’t put out the power modern combustion power stations can. Combustion fuels have high energy density at low cost and in most cases outperform the cost of installing and maintaining wind power.
This is not as horrible as it might intially seem. The reality is that the things we have grown to love are provided by a solid industrial base. Industries that include timber, manufacturing, metallurgy, mining, all the way down to manufacture of the equipment we use to harvest food. This base of heavy industry requires a concentrated source of energy.
Let’s be honest, when we have to produce steel, machine metals, and stamp cars a lot of electricity is required. Large and variable infrastructures are difficult to power on wind or solar energy alone. The motive energy and processing is too significant.
This does not mean wind turbines don’t have their place, however. Wind machines are an age old, tried and true, simple way to tap a source of free energy. It just means wind turbine are more adept for supplying power in residential applications and for small commercial applications.
As an example, a 500 MegaWatt power plant can fit in a relatively small space, less than a 1/4 square mile without much difficulty. As a comparison consider a wind power farm of equal capacity. Estimating 2 MegaWatts per turbine would then require over 250 wind turbines be placed in service. Imagine the space that this would take! Keep in mind, also, that a steady supply of Wind is required which is not always the case.
Clearly, in locations that make sense wind power solutions should be part of our energy portfolio. But we can not abandon our combustion technologies where efficiencies and pollution controls continue to improve, combustion is the heart of our economy driving our heavy industry.
This article was written by admin on February 10, 2010