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Last month, President Obama pledged nearly half a billion dollars toward the development of solar and geothermal energies. But what about wind? A team of scientists estimates that wind turbines in the continental U.S. could produce 16 times more electricity than we currently use. They present their data in the current Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
We all know that wind can be harnessed to do work. But this power source can be a bit fickle: today it might gust, while tomorrow could bring barely a breeze. So how much can we count on the movement of air to meet all our energy needs? The scientists used data from satellites, balloons, and aircrafts, to estimate wind speeds around the planet. They excluded cities, forests, and ice-covered areas, which would all be hard to harvest.
Crunching the numbers, they concluded that a global network of land-based turbines could make 40 times more electricity than the world currently consumes—even if they only operated at 20 percent of their capacity.
People may balk at the sight of a sea of wind turbines. And flying wildlife may be bollixed by the blades. But wind power’s benefits may blow away its problems.
—Karen Hopkin
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30 Comments
Add CommentWhy don't they just stay with the development of geothermal power plants? They are clean, safe, and geothermal does not destroy the environment.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIs this study saying that if the planet were literally covered with shoulder-to-shoulder wind turbines that it would produce only 40x more energy than we consume. I find that amazing, but not in the way the authors intend. I find it amazingly little energy. What a ridiculous study.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe premise is that the readers here haven't seen the study but feel confident enough to comment on it. The article points out that many areas of the earth wouldn't be available, no wind farm has turbines "shoulder to shoulder" and the question is whether or not this includes the energy used to power vehicles. If so, this is a tremendous amount of energy. I don't think it was meant to suggest that every spare plot of earth be covered in wind turbines, but the potential is there. Wind is a product of solar energy, we already know the amount of solar is enough to produce many times more the amount of power we use, so is it more efficient to use solar in an area or wind? This should be exciting stuff, not ridiculed by people who haven't seen the study.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@jbairddo:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRereading the article: "land-based turbines could make 40 times more electricity than the world currently consumes", the key word being 'electricity'. So it only includes vehicles that are electric, which is negligible right now.
Another interesting key word is 'land-based', implying that offshore wind farms were not included in the measurements. Offshore wind farms in Europe and other places are already producing significant amounts of energy with less impact on bird life or aesthetics (literally a sea of wind turbines).
I agree that the potential of individual energy sources is incredible, but I think the real solution is always going to be using a combination of renewable and green energy sources. No one source of energy is going to provide enough for the entire world. And while solar is a great source, it can be land-intensive and presents problems in less-than-sunny regions. For places like Michigan, with a lot of open land and not much sun, wind farms might be a better approach than solar. Ultimately, the best solution is going to be finding combinations of green energy that compliment different regions, and to that end all research into green energy is valuable whether it is solar, geothermal, wind, etc.
I did, at your suggestion, go and read the paper, and it deserves to be ridiculed. I suppose, as a theoretical maximum on how much wind power there is world wide, have some amusement value. But the conclusions that it comes to assumes that turbines are packed over the entire usable face as the earth as tightly as possible. Millions upon millions of turbines would be necessary. It is a ridiculous supposition, and therefore a bit of ridicule is called for.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThey excluded cities, but I wonder if it might be possible to design turbines that could safely operate atop skyscrapers, perhaps integrated into radio masts, etc. The power generated probably wouldn't supply the building's full needs, but it would help, and I imagine what it does give would have lower transmission losses.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn order to provide that power the wind must produce it when we need it and in the amounts required. And get it to where it needs to go. Most of the wind in this country is produced in Nort and South Dakata, where few live, and ecven fewer are willling to see their environment toxified with thousands upon thousands of ugly wind machines, all resting on a 40 by 40 169 ton piece of concrete in the ground.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDespite having the most windmills in the country, Texas wind capacity during peak demand hours is less than 2%. Od course, the major silliness of this article is that it claims that the amount of an energy resources determines it value. Nothing could be further from the truth. We couldn't car eless whether there's really that much wind energy or not. The cost and poor value of wind fgenerated power is the issue. And wind is VERY expensive and practically of no value. We can produce 100 times motre nuclear energy than this country needs, and at roughly half the total cost of wind, and without destroying the environment. How about that, wind people?
@Johnay
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis planned building in Dubai is supposed to be powered by 79 wind turbines between its floors. An interesting variation on what you suggested.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7472722.stm
http://www.flixxy.com/dubai-dynamic-architecture.htm
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOne of the common fallacies about an energy technology is to
claim that it is worthwhile because it is so "plentiful." Well, just about
every energy source we have is plentiful. We can produce not 16 but
100 times the electricity we need using nuclear. And it will be cheaper
by far and will not ruin the visual environment either. So why aren't
those wind folks rushing to embrace nuclear? Why do they want to
rape the consuer with electric rates twice that of future nuclear and 6
times that of current nuclear? Of course, that 16 times figure is totally
fraudulent. Most of our electricty usage occurs during peak demand and
experience in Texas demonstrates that often the wind energy occurs
exactly when it is not needed - windfarms in Texas last year were only able
to produce at 2% capacity during the peak demand hours. In other words, they
had zero ability to repace any existing controllable (i.e. fossil and nuclear fueled)
power plants. So, at best, when you build wind, you also need to build duplicative
controllable and reliable power generators as well.
The upshot is that energy sources are not valued simply because they are "plentiful"
(just imagine the amount of ocean energy touching our shores.
See article on site http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/06/24/mcelroy_globo_windfarm_paper/ "Just a 100m-tall windmill tower for every twenty families and we're set"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thistomgray, how ironic that you omit the nuclear waste that is produced from nuclear energy, which takes thousands of years to decay into non-radioactive waste. That has no effect on the environment or people, right? The fact that energy is plentiful is not the issue, it's how we get the energy, what by-products it produces, and so forth. What environmental effect does mining the uranium to produce nuclear energy have? None? No one is saying that wind power is the be all end all of energy, but a piece of the pie to clean, renewable energy. We need to be more open minded to all sources of clean energy, not bashing them with biased views and a closed mind.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIs anyone considering the effect of wind farms on the world's weather? As we have learned from chaos theory, the flapping of a butterfly's wings can affect weather half a world away. What would be the effect of thousands of wind turbines? Just wondering.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI agree with "tomgray" concerning the usage of energy. Wind generation is sadly lacking in being available when it is needed, and is very expensive.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI agree with Science-rules-eternal that nuclear does have a downside concerning its nuclear waste, but all energy production facilities have downsides. Wind has low efficiency compared to nuclear, high maintenance due to the geographical dispersion of thousands of towers, short life span compared to most energy facilities, bad aesthetics, and kills birds and bats. However, it is a renewable resource with zero emissions. Therefore, as "Science" stated; we have to be more open minded; and more aware of the various trade-offs for the various energy producing facilities.
And in conclusion, "redredred" is correct in the fact that this article should be ridiculed, along with the original paper, which is written like a science thesis by a senior in college. The paper does not relate to the real world scenario of energy production. Stating theoretical facts about an energy production source, which could never be implemented, does not benefit anyone.
Promoting wind power to stop a climate disaster is rather like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic Yet, once again we have another so called "green" group extolling the virtues of wind power. One wonders why it gets so much press.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe are all aware of how the most vicious drug war supporters in the political and law enforcement areas get major amounts of financial support from the drug cartels. Every increase in sentences, every law enforcement crackdown means more customers and more profit to them.
Similarly Big Oil/Coal knows that wind/solar has no chance in the foreseeable future of making any significant dent in their profits while nuclear could with an all out effort put them out of business within 10 years. Accordingly they are known to dump enormous amounts of funds into anti nuke self styled "green" organizations and politicians.
Wind farms would require 300 square miles of land to replace a one acre one Gigawatt nuclear plant. Wind Power requires 60 times the steel and green house producing concrete of a nuke per kwh. It can be shown that because of the rapid ups and downs of wind turbines, replacing the windmill and its associated fast spooling low efficiency gas plants required to load balance, with high efficiency slow spooling gas plant actually produces less green house gases (GHG) at a lower cost than if the wind mill was never built.
Because they cannot provide baseload power, solar and wind are of no use in GHG's reduction until there is a cost effective storage solution. There are none on the horizon at a reasonable cost. Energy authorities in Canadian states Alberta and Saskatchewan both with extensive wind resources have concluded that nuclear is their only solution to GHG elimination.
Nuclear can save us it so many ways and do it within ten years. It would require a massive World War Two kind of effort with hundreds of new low cost generation 3.5 and 4 reactors (2 cent a kwh) mass produced every year to have any effect. That's versus 6 cents a kwh for low value unreliable wind power. Ten years now we'd be off oil/coal and deCO2ing the atmosphere. GM would as they did in World War 2 retool and reemploy building the nukes. Nobody would be out of work - except in Saudi Arabia.
Perhaps, for Michigan that might be an idea! However, under the current Energy Bill passed and signed by Goobinor Jinny, Consumers Energy has the "exclusive right to production" in Michigan.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat means no smart meters. No chance of homeowners having the ability to "sell" electricity to the grid.
Oh, and we're paying, in advance, for TWO new generation plants! But didn't Goobinor Jinny just "freeze" all new plant construction? Yes, she did. Leadership.
While the world is progressing on energy--we in Michigan have been frozen in Democrat Stasis. Leadership.
In response to tomgray, especially "And wind is VERY expensive and practically of no value."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTell that to the town of Hull, MA, which has done very well financially by producing its own power using wind, without certain subsidies it would have received had it been in a deregulated-utility-served area.
The sense that any one silver bullet can be our total energy supply is certainly ridiculous, but it is also ridiculous to swing the opposite direction and say we should have no wind. Totally ridiculous, and telling of an unscrupulous agenda. Shame on the idea that wind can solve everything, and shame on the idea that wind can solve nothing.
On duplicative generation to meet load, wrong again. Studies within the industry (!) have shown that coal plants, contrary to outdated arguments, can ramp output to match load without so much inefficiency by intelligently moving the center of the flame. Therefore, coal can be partly load-following, allowing for a significant amount of wind. Whether coal plant operators in Texas read the latest updates and get training on modern methods, I don't know, but don't blame wind for their anachronism.
We already have plenty of wind and coal power, they don't need anybody arguing for them. Those of us who would like to experiment with more wind power, it's not like we're dead set against using any coal and nuclear; notice how I'm writing this using a computer powered by coal natural gas hydropower nuclear oil and a little wind and solar. Arguing for nuclear and coal is like arguing for Newton in the face of relativity and quantum dynamics. Newton doesn't need defending, it still is there, just not quite as universally useful as newer models. When appropriate, newer models should be used. When appropriate, renewable energy should replace fossil and nuclear. As renewable applicability increases, please allow it to thrive.
As my students would say, "Don't be such a hater, it's bad for your heart."
redredred makes a good point about the ridiculous nature of the suggestion. I'd like to also ask if the paper says anything at all about the resources needed to build that many turbines or the effect on our habitat from trapping and diverting so much of one of the earth's natural energy systems?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou'll be interested to know that solar hot water collectors can drive steam turbines that produce all the electricity that the world needs on a square area which is only ca 550 x 550 km. Nicely distributed along the equatorial perimeter of the earth, of course... So who needs wind power ??
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou'll be interested to know that all the electricity the world needs can be solar heat produced with steam turbines collecting sun from only ca 550 x 550km - nicely distributed around the equator deserts, of course.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe really do not need wind farms at all...
For a b
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFor a comprehensive analysis of the practical potential of different energy sources in a developed nation see Prof David MacKay's book "Sustainable Energy without the Hot Air" available on line:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.withouthotair.com/Contents.html
He shows what would be necessary to provide for the United Kingdom without requiring everyone to become bicycling vegans living in communes. As some have already commented, this involves a mix of energy sources, including some imports.
It is nothing short of astounding whenever I see people using the 'Middle Eastern oil dependency' argument whenever they talk about going nuclear.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGet the facts straight! Saudi Arabia barely supplies a twentieth of our oil intake from forgein nations. That's 5%. You want to know who the biggest supplier is? Canada. That's right, America's back yard. Now quit griping about the oppression of the Middle East.
Getting on topic now, this report on wind power may be ridiculous or it may not. I haven't read it yet. But whatever the case, this is still an idea that needs to be explored seriously. No token once-over passes to declare infeasability, or else everyone will play right into the hands of those who stand to profit from our current power sources.
To everyone who is preaching for the nuclear revolution (and that's exactly what it is, preaching), open your eyes and take a long hard look at exactly what you're asking for. How can you possibly believe that the impact of thousands (to be millions and maybe even billions if you get what you want) of tons of radioactive waste each year is less than what is dumped by coal-based plants worldwide? What does a half-life of several thousand years mean to you anyway? I'll tell you what it means to me. It means if we go through with it, not only will we burn the world around us, but we'll burn it for all life for an eon. You want to call that a better alternative?
Yes I know there are ways to mitigate that risk. I am aware of underground storage, Yucca mountain, reharvesting fissionable material, etc etc. These are not solutions. They are stopgaps. It has already been shown that underground storage has a dozen problems - we haven't even gotten it to work for thirty years, nevermind a thousand. Yucca doesn't even have the space to store the waste we have right now, and it's being shut down anyway, or so I heard. And reharvesting for fissionable material has an efficiency on the order of solar cell generation.
There is only one way you can ever solve the problem of nuclear waste - launch it into the sun on a one-way rocket. And I guarantee you'll never get the funding for that. So why don't we take a look at some of the other alternatives?
I really thought that the readers of Scientific American were not the flames I am reading here.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe problem with nuclear is that it generates extremely dangerous and deadly waste that we do not have a clue of how to deal with it. This waste is deadly for 20000 years.
Wind can help us for the next 20-25 years. It works now and is competitive with many of the fossil fuels because it does not harm the environment as much.
Solar is still many years away from being the answer, but eventually it will provide most of our energy.
Geothermal is limited and the EGS systems need a lot of study and engineering before we can really expect to generate 30% of our energy from this source.
The way to go is :
Ground source heat pumps for most residential and commercial buildings. This is mostly a conservation move because it uses less energy than fossil fuels. This should be extended to make our refrigerators and clothes driers more efficient.
Wind should be used where it makes sense. I think a good deal of effort should be put into making small wind more efficient and work on the ease of maintenance and educate people to ease the NIMBY problems.
Solar can work in the South and West now and in 20 years the technology will be developed enough and the costs reduced enough that it will be our major source of energy.
The big questions to work on are can we work out a good way to store the energy so that it is dispatchable(on demand),
or do we net to build a really smart network so that energy can be transported efficiently from where it is generated to where it is used.
A guy in Europe built a model that shows this is possible and we could have a networked world with energy flowing from where it was generated to where there was demand and this looks like it could work
I just expected more rational and intelligent discussions on Scientific American than many of the previous posts.
The REAL problem is storing any electricity that is being produced by ANY sporadic source.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe REAL problem is storing the electricity8 that is produced from ANY sporadic source.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGranitet
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI agree that "Wind can help for the next 20 to 25 years", but it cannot furnish the amount of power the U.S. needs. Wind presently only produces 21,000 MW (about 1% of the U.S. electricity), hydro produces 98,000 MW (about 7% of the U.S. electricity), solar produces about 0.2%, and geothermal is less than solar.(Reference IEEE Power & Energy magazine, Nov/Dec 2008) Consequently, if you add up all the renewables produced in the U.S., they amount to less than 10%. The remainder of the power is produced by coal, gas, and nuclear. Therefore, you have to choose your poison to supplement the renewable sources because renewables will never furnish the amount of power required.
And your argument for ground source heat pumps for residential and commercial buildings is sound technically, but could never be implemented quickly (within the next 20 years) even if there was a full-scale government program initiated right now. And even if all new buildings were required to install these systems, the main problem would be retrofitting all the "existing" buildings.
Further to your argument that "A guy in Europe built a model that shows a networked world is possible..." ; this is still theoretical (means it could not be implemented practically in the next 30 years if everyone agreed to start now), and could not possibly work across oceans. Therefore, you have to go with storage of the energy where the wind generators are located. Iberdola (largest wind energy producer in the world) is now installing a 852 MW pumped storage plant in Spain, with plans for three more pumped storage plants, to store the excess wind energy produced. (Reference HRW magazine, July 2009 issue) This allows the utility to produce electricity when it is required. Both the wind generation and pumped storage are renewable, zero emission generation sources.
And further to wind. It is a valuable renewable, zero emission resource, but has its own problems which are as follows:
1. Low efficiency (maximum is 59.6% or the Betz coefficient). Present generators are in the 50% efficiency range.
2. High maintenance costs due to the thousands of geographically dispersed generators
3. Requires energy storage facilities to furnish electricity when required and/or significant transmission line upgrades. Both the aforementioned increase the cost.
4. Bird/Bat kill for the tens of thousands of towers installed to increase the amount of energy generated to a significant amount (over 20% of the U.S. grid)
5. Aesthetics concerning tens of thousands of towers.
Since no one here has yet mentioned Peak Oil... Perhaps it is TABOO to mention Peak Oil in such esteemed company... Well fooey -- Peak Oil, Peak Oil, Peak Oil... Get it? Or are we stuck in denial? "Nuclear Energy" or more properly, uranium, is also a finite, non-renewable fuel. All economically usable ores would be gone in just 4 years if all the world's current electricity - ONLY the electricity were produced with traditional fission. And that is just one of the 'little' problems with uranium... Oh, what's that you say? Breeder reactors? You mean make more plutonium? The most toxic substance known to humanity? The stuff of thermonuclear bombs? Of permanent Police States? No thanks... I'd rather see us return to Cave Culture than go (further down) that route. Meanwhile, because we have already or will soon reach Peak Oil (all time global peak of rate of extraction), we simply don't have sufficient fossil fuel resources left to make the switch and replace all of the energy we currently get from fossil fuels. A small reminder -- it takes oil to make windmills and solar panels. It takes oil to mine and process uranium, for that matter. Even if we had enough extra fossil fuels, and embarked on an all out effort to try to replace as much of our current energy consumption with renewable alternatives, how long would it take? Well unfortunately, we don't have that much TIME either. Conclusion: Grow your own food, lift your own water, and get ready to power down. The "fortunate ones" probably only have about 2 years left of "civilized" "normal" lifestyle. The billion or so human beings who live (who know HOW to live) without fossil fuels will be far better off than the rest of us techno/oil addicted fools very soon. If I had to bet which group has a better chance of survival, you can safely bet I wouldn't be putting my money on the technoholics!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.rmi.org/sitepages/pid185.php
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"It's too expensive. Nuclear power has proved much more costly than projected and more to the point, more costly than most other ways of generating or saving electricity. If utilities and governments are serious about markets, rather than propping up pet technologies at the expense of ratepayers, they should pursue the best buys first.
Nuclear power plants are not only expensive, they're also financially extremely risky because of their long lead times, cost overruns, and open-ended liabilities.
Contrary to an argument nuclear apologists have recently taken to making, nuclear power isn't a good way to curb climate change. True, nukes don't produce carbon dioxide but the power they produce is so expensive that the same money invested in efficiency or even natural-gas-fired power plants would offset much more climate change.
And of course nuclear power poses significant problems of radioactive waste disposal and the proliferation of potential nuclear weapons material. (However, RMI tends to stress the economic arguments foremost because they carry more weight with decision-makers.)"
Commenter D. Clemen lists the following as a problem with wind power:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"1. Low efficiency (maximum is 59.6% or the Betz coefficient). Present generators are in the 50% efficiency range."
Um, how is this a problem? What is being wasted? In the case of coal, much thermal energy stored by the coal is lost to the coolant, released into the environment. In the case of wind, nothing is wasted, since nothing was conjured up in the first place. The wind blows where it listeth. It blows whether we put the turbine up or not. In contrast, coal doesn't, without man, just dig itself out of the ground and burn itself. (Although there are a few natural flares of fossil fuels here and there). So, considering the efficiency out of 100% of available energy in coal is very important because of all the resources that went into extraction transportation and emission control. But with either source, we can only compare our current state to what is possible.
If it's physically impossible for turbines to extract more than 59.6%, then a turbine that extracts 50% of the energy in wind is (50/59.6) 84% efficient at what it does, really.
Some of Clemen's other concerns, unlike the first, are quite real. I learned recently that maintenance is difficult because, say to change the oil, a crew or soloist must climb the ladder inside the tower many times during the lifetime, and a specialist can only climb a few towers a day.
Some large amount of installed wind does not require energy storage. I have seen multiple studies of models and real situations in the past year, and the message is manifold: Demand side management is helping, and this is the way the utilities are going. DSM is a multi-billion industry now. Coal plants can vary their output without such a hit in efficiency as historically recorded, by controlling the flame. Other supply side management is available, but pumped storage stabilizes prices best.
In society, I have seen that diversification only scares those who have aggregated power, and they are fear-mongering to keep that power.
As I said in my first comment, nuclear and coal already have enough momentum, they don't need help, advocacy. Wind and solar, fighting upstream among the fear-mongers for decades, need help, but I agree that the article here is not the kind of help it needs; as other commenters noted, the message is too pie-in-the-sky. Pie-in-the-sky causes backlash.
Inquiring Constructivist
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe point on energy efficiency is that lower efficiency units, for example wind generators; require more units to be built to produce the same energy. Hydroelectric plants(also a zero emission, renewable energy source) have an 85 to 90% efficiency versus wind generations realistic maximum of 50%.(Theoretical maximum is the Betz coefficient of 59.6% This means that you have to build almost twice the amount of wind generation to obtain the same amount of energy. Therefore, efficiency is important concerning the amount of installed KW required to produce electricity, which is also directly related to the high cost of wind generated electricity. The wind is not being wasted, it is just a lower efficiency process than hydropower that costs more.
The point you make about a "large amount" of installed wind does not require energy storage is true only to the point that the existing electrical grid can support it. With wind generation being only 1.5% (about 21,000 MW)of the total U.S. grid, and day ahead forecasting assisting; it is not yet a problem in "many" areas. However, the goal is to make wind generation 20% of the grid; and then energy storage becomes a very large problem. The reason there are permits/applications for 22,000 MW more of pumped storage is because of the estimated increase in wind and solar generation. Wind generators only have a 25 to 35% capacity factor (this also makes their electricity more expensive); and usually don't generate when you need them. Therefore, you must have some means for storing the energy when you implement wind generation on a large scale. DSM only works to minimize the energy used, but will not generate additional energy when you have already minimized the use, and need more power.