Hello all! Just like I promised, today I will tell y’all about wind power! If you learned about solar yesterday and realized it might not work for you, wind power could be the solution! Like before, I will share the pros and cons to help you make an informed decision on whether or not you should implement it in your own home.

Wind energy is another renewable power source. One typical wind turbine stops around 4,000 to 4,500 tons of CO2 annually, the equivalent of removing 700 cars from the roads.

Wind energy is captured from turbines which power a generator to produce electricity when they are spun around during windy periods.

Keep in mind that wind power doesn’t only come from the large turbine fields we’ve all seen while driving down the highway. Wind turbines also exist off the shore, either fixed to the bottom of the ocean in shallow waters or placed on flotation devices in deeper waters. 

Offshore turbines minimize the amount of land required, and also aren’t as much of an eyesore, one of the biggest complaints surrounding wind power. 

You might remember when President Donald Trump claimed that offshore wind turbines were killing whales and causing them to go “loco.” Rest assured that this claim is false. In fact, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration responded to this saying, “There are no known links between large whale deaths and ongoing offshore wind activities.”

Not to mention, he seems insistent on saving the whales through stopping windfarms, but does not seem to care about oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico that puts the endangered Rice’s whales at risk. Seems a bit hypocritical to me, but I digress.

This is not to say the wind turbines aren’t entirely undisruptive to animals. One of the biggest cons of wind power is that it can be dangerous to some wildlife, for example birds and bats that fly into the blades. 

However, when considering this con, we need to put it in context. The adverse effects that come from wind turbines is far lower than those that come with oil drilling and other forms of fossil fuel usage. Far more animals are killed extracting nonrenewable energy sources than those that are killed from wind turbines. 

There are also so many scientists that are currently working on innovating wind turbines to make them safer for wildlife. I feel confident that we will be able to harvest wind power in a way that has minimal impact on the environment in the coming years/decades. 

One of the most appealing things about a wind turbine is how cheap and quick it is to install. You can install an offshore wind farm in only two years, while installing a nuclear plant that produces the same amount of energy can take over a decade. 

In addition, once the wind farm is paid for upfront, there are no longer high costs associated with running them, similar to solar panels. For this reason, wind power is extremely cost effective and a valuable solution when it comes to transferring over to clean energy.

Wind turbines also save space, and the land that hosts them can be used for other things, for example farming. Around 90% of the wind farms in the United States are multipurposed, many utilized for agricultural use or animal grazing. 

One drawback of wind turbines is that they can also be noisy, causing an inconvenience for locals and wildlife. However, this constant hum isn’t very loud; in fact, a turbine 300 feet away has the same sound level as a refrigerator, which isn’t very loud.

However, similarly to solar, wind turbines don’t work all the time. If you don’t live in a windy place, the investment will probably not be worthwhile. For this reason, places like the Pacific Northwest are great areas for wind power and should continue to develop this infrastructure. 

Hopefully these pros and cons helped you get a greater understanding of whether wind power works for your area or not. Tune in tomorrow to learn about geothermal energy!

Elena