Renewable Energy: Wind Turbines

According to Renewable Energy for America, in 2011 wind turbines generated enough electricity to power 11 million homes and 3,464 new turbines were built. The article also states that wind turbines are able to pay for themselves after three to six months in a windy environment. Turbine farms usually consist of about 100 turbines and creates an average of 250 megawatts (MW). To put this in perspective, it takes less than 10kW for residential energy supply. Additionally, wind energy produces no polluting emissions, and that is a huge move in the right direction for sustainable energy production. As with any source of energy there are advantages and disadvantages. Within the Wind Energy movement, wind energy seems to cause little to no environmental damage. The most pressing concern is the affect on bird and bat populations, due to the turbine’s blades and the other issues are associated with cosmetics (noise and visual impacts). Wind power use wind’s kinetic energy, to turn the blades, which spin the shaft generating mechanical energy that can then be used for electricity. With greater technological advances, the costs of producing wind farms have been lowered by 20% and continue to be refined.

Solar energy converts solar radiation into heat that is used in turn to supply …show more content…
However, it seems to be the least sustainable. Biomass can produce air pollution, damage ecosystems, and contribute to global warming emissions. Biomass can be produced in several different ways, it can be burned, fermented, digested by bacteria to produce methane gas for powering turbines or gasified, which is then burned. Biomass is mostly used in the United States, and has not proved to be better than fossil fuels, in terms of long term pollution reduction. An advantage of biomass is mostly to agriculture industry, because they are able to use residual plant materials for