I've been looking into the idea of wind power, originally with the intention of blowing it off, but I have to admit I'm more impressed than I thought I would be. Supposedly, wind produces five times more energy than that used by current human consumption worldwide. Even if this is true, of course, we will never be able to tap into all of that. We can conceivably, however, potentially produce enough to account for eighty percent. Of course that's on paper. Think roughly the equivalent of six wind turbines per ever two miles of land on average-or thirteen percent of the earth's surface.
The economics of the production, storage, and distribution of energy created by wind probably makes this impractical on several different levels. This is more complicated than simple supply and demand. The more people who use wind power, the more wind farms there must be constructed and the more land that will have to be purchased for their construction, and then there are the maintenance concerns. Moreover, a good deal of the energy created by wind will have to be used to power the systems that interconnect the various grids.
Bear in mind also, the more power plants that are built, the greater necessity for oil, or some kind of petroleum product. I don't care how much technology advances, the wind can only do so much. There are some things it can't do at all. Think in terms of your automobile. Some day in the future you might be able to pull into a service station and tell the attendant, "I need some new hydrogen fuel cells." You will never see the time when you will tell him, "oh yeah, by the way, I also need a tune-up and a wind change."
On the other hand, even those things that wind can be used for are rife with limitations that technology will never be able to completely overcome.
Even with off-shore sites added into the mix, I doubt you'll ever see wind power developed that will achieve more than seventeen percent of human energy needs, and that's a liberal assessment. Reaching into the upper atmosphere to tap into the energy would be cost prohibitive, assuming that would even be possible under some futuristic scenario we living now will never live to see. Also, assuming the world population continues to grow at its current rate, you see this as an added burden.
I do not say this as a way of discouraging wind energy. I am just saying that it its use potential is not so unlimited as the energy it produces. It is not a "renewable" resource, for one thing. You do not create wind, or replace it, you just take advantage of it where it exists. Abundance does not always equal availability, especially in this case.
The Great Plains states and the Upper Michigan peninsula and other areas around the Great Lakes supposedly produce enough energy to supply eighty percent of the current US energy needs. Of course, it would be impossible to achieve that level of energy without some considerable disruption of food production.
The only way you could produce enough energy from wind to account for appreciably more than half of the US energy needs you would be required to flatten every mountain in the country and remove every forest. That or cover the Plains and Great lakes States with wind turbines, and import what food we lose as a consequence.
Of course, none of this is an option. We would be at the mercy of foreign nations for our food sustenance, just like we are under the gun now regarding oil. Mountain and forest removal would be wholly impractical and cost prohibitive, to begin with, and in the second place, who wants to live in a world without forests and mountains? Finally, it would defeat the purpose of reducing the effects of Global Warming. Trees are needed to replenish the oxygen in the air to balance out the carbon dioxide we sentient beings produce by merely breathing, and the more of us there are, the more balance we need. As for the mountains, they provide a break from the wind, and while removing them would make for greater and more extensive wind availability, who wants to have to put up with constant tornadoes, or for that matter hurricanes extending far up into the interior of the country?
Science and technology can only advance so far in certain regards, and there is always some kind of trade-off we could all do without. Wind makes for a valuable and attractive supplementary energy option, but will never produce even close to half of our energy needs. If it could account for a fourth, I would be very surprised. Any more than that and the disruptions to other aspects of the economy, and the other problems that would arise from too great a dependency on wind, would not be worth it.
