Positives and negatives of Wind power and wind farms?

6 Comments

1. poiromaniac says:

   November 7, 2009 at 5:14 pm

   Positives, – low maintainance, no by product (think nuclear) energy. flexible locations, long term, sustainable and consistant.

   Negative – affects local landscape, doesn’t work in slow wind OR too faster winds(!), no jobs provided, the oil companies barely get anything from it.
2. Here To Help says:

   November 7, 2009 at 5:14 pm

   In my opinion there are no negatives, when they are placed in the right position.
   But some good points are sustainable energy. there’s an endless supply of it and if many are placed it can provide electricity for whole villages and city’s.
   Some of the negatives could be it destroys views, scares of wildlife, and makes the environment around it un-natural.
3. Mirriam M says:

   November 7, 2009 at 5:14 pm

   No real negatives except for noise, but it’s easy enough to get them away from people’s homes. Don’t forget that can be put quite effectively over water.

   Modern directional dome turbines can yield large amounts of energy.

   I find it interesting, if not a bit ironic, they are being built in the areas of the south and midwest that recently have been flattened by tornados.

   Wind will a big player in the energy mix, unless the legislators (I’m looking at you Ted Kennedy) don’t block it for absurd or selfish reasons.

   To work, our new energy mixture needs to grow out from local resources. Transmission of power over long distances is terribly inefficient. Various locales should tap energy that is locally abundant. That means hydroelectric, tidal, wind, dry bed and traditional geothermal. It will lead to an infrastructure that’s cheaper and easier to repair, and not so prone to monopoly pricing.

   Do the coal and oil companies like this? No. They will fight it with their corrupt influence in Washington.
4. JOHNNIE B says:

   November 7, 2009 at 5:14 pm

   Not too good for us in Texas . When the sun goes down and U need lights the wind stops.
5. Stephen M says:

   November 7, 2009 at 5:14 pm

   Positives- can supply some power, fairly easily and is enviromentally friendly

   Negatives.
   1. exspensive
   2. We have to produce to much electricity through the night as we can not take our boilers offline, that energy we try to store, but is hard to do. Wind will only be most useful in peak conditions, and is not reliable enough to be counted on. We also have natural gas peaker plants. In other words we would have to increase our storage capacity for it to have a real effect.
   3. Land area used by wind. The power available in wind is the mas flow rate times velocity squared. wind blowing at 15 km/hr or 4 M/s. Use a density of 1.2 kg/M^3. The mas flow rate is = the V*A(area)*density=5*A The power is mdot V=20*A. One Mw facility = 1000000 = W=20*A
   A=50,000 Meters square. The windmill is 2 meters high, that would mean windmills stacked end to end 25 Km long. We can not get that efficiency. Using the 2 meter windmill that is 12500 windmills. In actuallity everything I have listed has been a theoretical view, throw in an efficiency of 50-60% and see what happens.
   3. Cost, it costs more to use air from the reasons above than coal. Mainly because when dealing with electricity you need to know that the 4 MW station will be online and when. You would need an infrastructure to go with it.
6. smashing ash says:

   November 7, 2009 at 5:14 pm

   Positives:
   -It’s a good natural resource, and we aren’t taking away anything from the environment by harnessing it.
   -There is wind EVERYWHERE in the world. Like the problem with sun is that it isn’t always sunny, but there is almost always a bit of sun. And all throughout the year.
   -The wind turbines aren’t hard to make, and can be put anywhere.

   NEGATIVES:
   -They don’t look very nice. LIke solar panels look kind of spiffy and sleek, but wind turbines are ugly and disrupt our view and nature.
   -I’m pretty sure it takes a lot of them to produce enough energy.

   Hope that helps!!!