Research Say’s it is a Reality Wind Energy Can Meet Future Energy Needs

November 25, 2012 Editor 0

The next 20 years could see the world’s energy needs being filled by wind power, was announced by Stanford University.

A climate model has been developed by The University’s School of Engineering and the University of Delaware and was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). It was claimed that it might be possible to generate seven-time energy excess accessible, blowing in the wind even with drops in wind speed when turbines steal the energy from each other. In the past it has been assumed that only oil, coal nuclear and gas-powered generation would generate large amount of waste energy as heat, whereas in their model, heat production from generating electricity was also taken into account.

So is there a catch? Yes. Regardless of any factor except the power available, the wind turbines could be installed in any position. This latest computerization uses boxes for the winds that can lie over and alongside each other. Two earlier models proclaimed that there is insufficient wind to make this work but the new model says otherwise.

Global temperature effects as well as changes in moisture, clouds, climate and several related aspects is one extra available from the studies. Lower wind speeds affects temperature, and evaporation. This model minimized such factors as downdraft and drag from turbine blade rotation turbines

There is ultimately a point where no further turbines could be usefully erected considering these hundreds of terawatts. With 250 terawatts being used up, no more energy could ideally be extracted at this saturation wind power potential (SWPP).

Though the 80 terawatts provided would still be seven times the estimated energy requirement of the human species. This could be achievhed by using only land and coastal turbines. Up to 380 terawatts could be extracted if we harnessed the powerful jet-streams that power planes at high altitudes. This might be another possibility in the future!

The power needed for half of our needs in the year 2030, was calculated by Mark Jakobsen and Cristina Archer. They found the reality of the situation was that 5.75 terawatts are available from 4 million wind turbines at 100m high. Without having any negative effect on climate, up to 7.5 terawatts more, would be possible. Leaving only half percent of our valuable land surface to erect the terrestrial turbines, half would be constructed over the water.

Alaskans have done nothing that bad to warrant it even though the paper states half of Alaska. More effective locations have been suggested such as deserts, American plains, etc. Owing largely due to the wind farms, Scotland is already self-sufficient in energy. We can only hope other countries can now see the light or even the electricity to power it.

Source: Earth Times

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© Jimmy Eriksson for Renewable Power News, 2012. |
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Tags: Energy, model, turbine, Wind power