Wind Power

Wind is a valuable renewable energy source. Limitations like cost and space needed to build make it hard for some wind turbine projects to get off the ground. Hopefully, advancements can be made so that there is a way to store the energy that is produced via wind turbines in the future.

Play the Energy Lab: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/labs/lab/energy/

Find discussion questions for this video and other resources in the Energy Lab collection on PBS LearningMedia: http://www.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/nvel.sci.tech.wind/wind-power/
Video Rating: / 5

20 thoughts on “Wind Power”

  1. Wind Power turbines all over the US are most powerful through the winter. In the summer the solar panels carry the loads. That's why its important that you do hybrid wind/solar. Without solkar a wind power system is unbalanced seasonally.

    Reply
  2. Why doesn't joe public benefit from this then…. still paying ridiculous amounts of money for our electricity…. What's it all about? Greed as usual, and ruining the environment

    Reply
  3. "The wind will alway be blowing somewhere." Although this is true you have to factor in how strong it is blowing. An average industrial wind turbine startup speed is about 3m/s. A 2MW turbine at 3m/s will produce virtually nothing. At 4 or 5m/s (which just happens to be the average wind speed at a wind farm) the output will be roughly 200kW. That amount of energy is only enough to run approximately 80 vacuum cleaners. Seriously? Only 80 vacuum cleaners from a $4 Million turbine. Such a waste of time.

    Although wind farms emit barely any carbon emissions in operation they are causing a number of other environmental issues. One of the main ones is the emission of infrasound. Infrasound is a type of sound that is inaudible to humans. However people who are exposed to infrasound report experiencing high levels of stress for long periods of time. Even though humans can't hear the sound, things like you Outer Hair Cells are being violently stimulated, yet your brain does not register the effect on your OHC since the frequency is too low to be considered sound. The same logic works for light. UV light is light you can't see but your skin is still affected, i.e sunburn.

    Studies have shown that wind turbines emit sounds as loud as 110dB (decibels) which is about as loud as a car horn from 1 meter away. Like I said earlier your OHC are being stimulated but your brain does not register it. A lot of people/companies tend to A-Weight the sound level (dBA) rather than use dB. This is wrong since dBA cancels out infrasound altogether.

    Reply
  4. the most powerful element in this planet and its a good thing that we could convert that power into electricity… 

    Reply
  5. We need wind, (cheaper) solar and closed cycle, molten fuels (melt down proof) nuclear in order to prevent fossil fuels depletion and continued excess CO2.

    Reply
  6. I did some calculations based of eia capital cost for power plants witch list the cost per kw or mw for capital cost, maintenance and fuel. the cost per kw to make 1 kw of electricity from a plant operating at 100% full power for 95% of the year wile paying a 20 year 3.14% loan from coal is 2.8 cents, natural gas combined cycle 1.1 cents nuclear 5.1 cents now since wind operates at around 20% at full power for one year it cost 9.5 cents solar runs at 40% full power (desert) at 7 cents kw but that's ok because the cost for power during daytime/ peak hours cost more around 10-13 cents
    nuclear cost 5.15 cents kwh increase that by 35% for 7 cents kwh you can get fuel/ uranium from seawater using high cap depending on the cost of the plants (fast breeders) and when the power use goes down you came make hydrogen fuel during the night but to offset gas you would need dedicated plants making hydrogen and their is enough uranium in seawater for 1-3 million years of energy  

    Reply

Leave a Reply to fireofenergy Cancel reply

five × one =