The Pros And Cons Of Wind Energy

Discover The Pros And Cons Of Wind Energy

Wind energy is right up there with solar power as one of the fastest-growing sources of energy in the world. The United States is actually aiming to produce 20 percent of its electricity through the power of the wind by 2030. In the coming decade, the wind will help to reduce dependence on fossil fuels and help put a stop to the release of greenhouse gases polluting the environment. Here are some of the pros and a few of the cons associated with wind energy.

Pro: It’s Green

Wind energy is known as a green energy source. That’s because it doesn’t pollute the environment in the way that fossil fuels, nuclear power, and coal do. While it is true that the process to build a wind turbine has a slight impact on the environment, the impact is minuscule in comparison to that caused by dirty energy sources and far counterbalanced by the environmental effect of using green energy over dirty.

Pro: It Has Huge Potential

The potential of wind energy is enormous. Harnessing wind energy can be done from anywhere there is wind, and if humans keep creating better and more efficient ways to produce energy from the wind, then the sky is literally the limit for what we can do with wind energy!

Pro: It’s Renewable

Renewable energy will never go away. You will simply never run out of wind energy because it renews itself. As long as the sun shines and the wind blows, humans can collect the energy from it. This is certainly not the case for oil, coal, and other fossil fuels.

Pro: It Uses Space Efficiently

The largest wind turbines in use today can generate enough energy to meet the demand of 600 average homes in the United States. And since they’re built up, they’re far more space efficient for the amount of energy they produce when compared to other renewable sources.

Con: It’s Unpredictable

The availability of wind energy isn’t constant because the wind is simply unpredictable. So, that means that wind energy all by itself is not very well suited to be the only source of energy provided. One day, however, energy storage techniques could change this con so that we’re able to rely on wind energy.

Con: Risk To Wildlife

Flying creatures such as birds and bats have had some unfortunate run-ins with the rotating blades of wind turbines, but the number of flying animal deaths from wind turbines is actually quite small. Collisions with buildings kill far more birds every year—about 976 million.

Con: Appearance

Not everyone likes the way that wind turbines look. But they actually have a smaller footprint than a majority of other sources of energy such as solar panels or nuclear power facilities. The visual problem is mitigated by simply placing wind turbines outside of urban areas.

There are pros and cons to every type of energy available, but weighing these pros and cons carefully with the good done by the energy produced is important. Wind energy is a great renewable energy source that is being utilized more and more each day, and, with improved technology, will become even more ubiquitous.