Brandon.Bianchi.wiki.spring.2011

**Saving The World With Wind Power** By: Chris Brandon & Jimmy Bianchi

The world is running out of fossil fuels and clean, fresh water. Once we run out of these we will not have any electricity leaving us in complete darkness No cars,showers, or even drinking water. The main reason we are running out of these is the world’s high demand for oil and the necessity of water for people to survive, which has caused the supply of both to plummet to the point where it is almost gone. Sure, people are trying to solve this problem by increasing fuel efficiency in vehicles, cutting down on the amount of water used in each flush of a toilet, and even some cases ( Mass Maritime) having urinals that require literally no water at all. This is all heading in the right direction but is not nearly enough to solve the crisis we are facing. We believe that wind power is a very practical possible solution to help solve these problems. __**What is wind power?**__ Wind power is derived from a wind turbine. A wind turbine harnesses the energy of the wind and turns it into mechanical energy. Wind turbines are tall towers that look like fans. Unlike a fan which uses electricity to create wind, a wind turbine takes wind and creates energy. Wind has a lot of kinetic energy and this energy is what pushes the blades of the wind turbine around. When the fan blades of the tower rotate, the shaft of the blades is connected to gears that spin the turbine. The spinning of the turbine is what creates the electricity. Here is a closer look at the inside of a wind turbine. You can see the shaft connected to the propeller has a gear at the end of it. This gear is connected to the main turbine which generates the electricity. The anemometer is what calculates how much wind is blowing and from which direction. This tells the turbine which way to turn to get the maximum amount of wind to hit the blades.



Below is a video explaining how a wind turbine works

media type="youtube" key="mcNCXIUfJlY" height="349" width="425" align="center"

__**Why choose wind over other types of power?**__ In power plants lots of water is used in either the steam cycle or as coolant. So much water is used that power plants use up a significant amount of the USAs fresh water. The USGS says that thermoelectric powerplants (nearly all coal and nuclear) use 49% of the water withderawn in the US. That sounds like a lot, and it is. For coal plants, water is also used to clean and process fuel. Wind power however goes through very little to no water consumption at all. The only reason wind turbines need water is to clean the blades and this is done 4 times annually. From the tables below it is shown that wind power uses as little as 1/600 as much water as nuclear power would, 1/500 as much as coal, and 1/250 as much as natural gas (the preferred source of energy for newly constructed power plants.) Turning to wind power will help save the world massive amounts of fresh water. As seen in the US, today's power plants use up almost 50% of the country's fresh water. This would also mean that wherever else there are power plants in the world, excessive amounts of water are being used. If the world somehow replaced power plants with wind turbines there would be more than enough fresh water to go around, thus solving our problem of a fresh water drought.

The following tables were found on the web page [|http://www.solarrochester.com/Wind%20Turbine%20information.as]

** WATER CONSUMPTION--CONVENTIONAL POWER PLANTS **


 * =  Source ||= gallons/kWh ||= liters/kWh ||
 * = Nuclear ||= 0.62 ||= <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">2.30 ||
 * = <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px;">Coal ||= <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px;">0.49 ||= <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">1.90 ||
 * = <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px;">Oil ||= <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px;">0.43 ||= <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">1.60 ||
 * = <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px;">Combined Cycle Gas ||= <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px;">0.25 ||= <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">0.95 ||

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">** WATER CONSUMPTION--WIND AND SOLAR **


 * <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px;">Source || <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px;">gallons/kWh || <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px;">liters/kWh ||
 * <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px;">Wind || <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px;">0.001 || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">0.004 ||
 * <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px;">Solar || <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px;">0.030 || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">0.110 ||

**What do critics say?** <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">An argument that wind power critics use is that the US does not have a large enough amount of land to support the needed space for windmills because of cities. As you can see in the image below, the best places to put the wind farms are not in populated areas, but rather just off shore, and out of sight from the general public. With the extensive shorelines we have in the US, there will be plenty of space to put these turbines out of the way of existing structures. This eliminates yet another argument that the turbines would interfere with the current buildings and roadways in use today. Critics of wind power focus on the fact that the wind is not reliable as a source of energy due to its random gusts and the possibility of a day without wind. But with enough wind farms built, the supply will be able to handle demand, especially if some can be stored in large batteries. Yet they still argue with no wind there will once again be no power. Another argument they have is the fact that the nature of windmills requires maintenance frequently. This doesn't seem too much like a problem though because it would create jobs for workers to help maintain a healthy productive system.

More criticisms and backup for wind power can be found at this link. []

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">An argument that wind power critics use is that the US does not have a large enough amount of land to support the needed space for windmills because of cities. As you can see in the image above, the best places to put the wind farms are not in populated areas, but rather just off shore, and out of sight from the general public.

<span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;">**How much of the world's energy does wind power produce?** <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Wind power makes up only 1.3% of the worlds energy. Why so low? Wind power, despite how available it has been ever since humans stepped foot on earth, is an energy source that is just catching on. The United States has increased its production of wind turbines tremendously over the last few years. Every year the number of wind turbines in the US increases dramatically. The country that uses the most energy from wind turbines is Denmark. Denmark’s wind turbines produce a staggering 19% of the country’s energy. Denmark, the leader of wind energy, is followed close by Spain’s 9% of supplied wind energy and 6% of Germany wind energy. <span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;">This graph shows that the amount of wind power we produce each year is growing rapidly. This shows that as a race, humans are already taking the steps toward cleaner energy.

**Conclusion** Wind turbines are an excellent source of clean renewable energy and a great way to save fresh drinkable water. Wind turbines are becoming more and more common as the years go on. People are starting to see the obvious benefits that come from wind power, hence the increase in the use of wind power over the last few years. Not only do wind turbines produce clean renewable energy but they save a large amount of fresh water while doing it. Wind turbines require no water at all to run and only very little to clean the turbine blades annually. Compare this to the overwhelming amount of water used in power plants and you can see that wind turbines will save a tremendous quantity of fresh drinkable water. Combining these properties we believe that wind turbines are the future of clean energy and helping to conserve fresh water.