11 Reasons for wind energy (1/3)
1. Wind turbines lessen the risks of climate change
Millions of people suffer from the effects of climate change worldwide. In order to keep further risks of climate change at bay, developing countries need to decrease their CO2 emission with at least 80-95 percent before the year 2050. Climate scientists agree on this fact. In order to achieve this, 80-90 percent of our energy must be generated through the use of renewable methods by 2050.
At the moment, the global energy production by renewable source is about 10 percent wich was 4.6 percent in 2012 . As you can see, the production of renewable energy has positively changed a lot but if we want to change this to 80-90 percent by 2050, we need to invest in renewables right now because otherwise we aren’t going to get by that percentage.
The Global Wind Energy Council calculated that by 2030, 19 percent of all globally generated energy can be generated with wind turbines, and by 2050 that percentage will be 25-30.
2. Wind turbines are cheap
Wind turbines on land are the cheapest form of renewable energy. Wind turbines on land only use about 4 cents subsidy per kWh. For sea wind, that price is currently 7 cents, but that will rapidly decrease. Nowadays, in places along the coast, wind turbines can run almost without subsidy. The fossil fuel industry on the other hand, receives a great amount of subsidy.
Contamination is extremely expensive. The costs of contamination caused by fossil fuels – climate change, air pollution are now paid with tax-payers money. Wind turbines deliver energy cleanly.
Those who think wind turbines are expensive, usually do not consider these factors:
- The air pollution caused by energy generation with fossil fuels, and the costs it brings with it regarding climate change. If you factor those costs into the equation, renewable energy can easily compete with fossil energy, wind energy being the cheapest of those methods. At the moment, the costs for the emission of one tonne of CO2 is a measly 5 euros, while the real costs for the emission is around 67 euros. 13 times as high!
- Job opportunities: Wind energy creates lots more job opportunities than energy plants reliant on fossil fuels.
- The costs of fossil fuel will keep increasing, as the supply lessens. The costs of wind turbines will keep falling as they become easier to install, and the demand grows. And unlike with fossil fuels, the wind supply will never run out.
We need to invest in wind in order to sustain the future economy on only renewable energy. If we do not make the transition now, future generations will have an enormous problem.
3. Wind turbines generate a lot of energy
‘‘I’d rather have a field full of solar panels’’ A fan of wind energy often gets to hear it. Solar energy is indeed an ingenious and the technique is getting better all the time. Unfortunately, the amount of energy generated through the use of solar panels simply does not stack up to amount even a midsized wind turbine can generate. A single 250kW wind turbine can generate the same amount of energy as 2500 solar panels in the same time span. To put that in perspective, that many solar panels could fill a field almost the size of a soccer field!
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