Wind energy is a form of clean, renewable energy. Wind energy has many different uses. It can be used for anything from powering boats, charging batteries, or for commercially-used electricity. Wind energy is harvested when wind blows against the blades of a wind turbine and the blades rotate and capture kinetic energy. The rotation turns an internal shaft connected to a gearbox, which spins a generator to produce electricity. This process turns kinetic energy into mechanical energy. Wind measurements are collected to automatically rotate the turbine to face where the wind is the strongest and to angle its blades to optimize the amount of energy being collected. A wind turbine will start to generate electricity when wind speeds reach 6-9 mph and cut off when wind speeds reach around 45 mph or higher to prevent equipment damage. A typical modern wind turbine generates usable amounts of energy more than 90% of the time. Wind energy can provide 20% or more of our electricity without the need for storage, since wind energy storage is often not cost effective.

Wind energy is already being used in much of the Great Plains, the Great Lakes, portions of the Atlantic Coast, Pacific Coast, Gulf Coast, Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, the Pacific Islands, and also exposed ridge crests and mountain summits throughout the Appalachian Mountains and the Western United States. The largest offshore wind farm in the world is Walney Wind Farm in the Irish Sea off the coast of Cumbria, England. It has 102 wind turbines and generates 367 megawatts of power. The largest wind farm in the United States is Alta Wind Energy Center and it has 300 wind turbines. It is located in Tehachapi Pass (between San Joaquin and the Mojave Desert) in California because this area is extremely windy. In China, the Gansu Wind Farm is currently being built. It is predicted to produce 5,160 megawatts of electricity upon completion. Wind energy can be used pretty much anywhere that has open space and lots of windy days.

The cost of wind turbines vary depending on what they are going to be used for. Wind turbines under 100 kilowatts cost roughly $3,000 to $8,000 per kilowatt of capacity. A 10 kilowatt turbine, the size needed to power a large home, might have an installation cost of $50,000 to $80,000 or more, along with the cost per kilowatt of capacity. Utility scale wind turbines range from $1.3 million to $3.2 million per megawatt of nameplate capacity installed. Most commercial scale turbines installed today are 2 megawatts in size and cost about $3-$4 million installed. In the U.S., there were 47,000 megawatts of wind energy capacity installed by the end of 2011. A new study says that for each megawatt of wind capacity, an average U.S. county gains half a job and just over $11,000 in total personal income.

There are many advantages to using wind energy as an energy source. Unlike natural gas, oil, coal, and geothermal energy, wind energy is renewable and doesn’t pollute the environment. According to the Wind Vision Report, wind energy has the potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 14%, saving $400 billion in avoided global damage by 2050. Wind energy also uses no water to generate energy, which is important because water is becoming a scarce resource all over the U.S. Wind power is one of the lowest in cost compared to other renewable energy technologies available today. Wind turbines can be built on existing farms or ranches, but they only take up a fraction of the land. This allows farmers and ranchers to continue to work on the remainder of their land. Wind turbines have the ability to create jobs. In 2015, more than 8,800 technicians were employed to monitor and maintain wind turbines. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, this profession is expected to grow by 108% in the next decade, making it the country’s fastest growing occupation. According to the Wind Vision Report, wind has the potential to support more than 600,000 jobs in manufacturing, installation, maintenance, and supporting services by 2050. Wind energy is a very useful source of renewable energy and we should consider making it more commonly and widely used.

Even though there are many benefits of wind energy, there are also a few disadvantages. Good wind sites are often located in remote locations, far away from cities where electricity is actually needed. Compared to other energy sources wind farms need the most amount of space. Similar to solar energy, wind energy is dependent on weather. Speaking aesthetically, wind farms may cause changes to the view of the landscape and noise disturbances. Wind turbine blades may be harmful to wildlife, and birds have been killed by flying into the spinning turbine blades. Although there are disadvantages to wind energy, the advantages greatly outweigh the disadvantages.

Wind energy has a huge impact on global warming. Since 2001, wind power has displaced more than 683 million tons of carbon dioxide, which is more than a year’s worth of carbon dioxide emissions from the entire country of Canada. In 2013 alone, wind power displaced more than 145 tons of carbon dioxide. In the U.S., nine states (Colorado, Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota, Kansas, Idaho, Minnesota, Oklahoma, and Oregon) now generate more than 12% of their total electricity production with wind power. If America were to set a course for obtaining 30% of their electricity from wind power by 2030, we could prevent nearly 777 million tons of carbon dioxide per year by 2025 and over 1 billion tons per year by 2030. Wind energy has the ability to positively impact the growing issue of global warming if we make a plan to use it in the future more than we do now.

As fast as wind technology has developed within the past 10 years, Albert Fisas-Camanes, research and development director for Alstom Wind North America, is expecting the pace to continue and possibly accelerate. He expects many new advances in the next 10 years, including more onshore and offshore wind turbines that will have increased technological developments in their components and controls. In 2009, the Wind Program, a U.S. department of energy program that focuses on wind energy performance and advancements, installed a General Electric 1.5 megawatt wind turbine at the National Wind Technology Center located on the National Renewable Energy Laboratory campus in Boulder, Colorado. This turbine was the first large-scale wind turbine fully owned by the United States Department of Energy. It serves as a platform for research projects aimed at improving the performance of wind technology and lowering the costs of wind energy. Research being done at the National Wind Technology Center complements the Department of Energy’s Atmosphere to Electrons initiative that aims for significant reductions in the cost of wind energy through improved understanding of the complex physics regarding wind flow into and throughout wind farms.

Wind is a renewable, clean source of energy that should become more popular and more widely used. Wind energy can help reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the air and slow down global warming by replacing carbon dioxide with clean energy. Even though it is currently being used throughout various places in the world, we need to work on wind energy expansion. Wind energy also helps create job opportunities because more wind turbines and farms are being built and used. Many wind energy advances have already been made and many more need to be made in the future.