I took this photograph from the inside of a moving bus, yet it is one of my favorites from my year in Spain. It is a snapshot of a wind farm at La Muela, which is located in the province of Zaragoza, about thirty kilometers outside of the city of Zaragoza (the city in which I lived). Passing the windmills at La Muela was my favorite part of the five hour bus ride to Madrid; yet, only recently did I realize that I know very little of the wind farms in Spain—or in the United States as well as other parts of the world—and their impact on making the world a “greener place.” So, in researching them, this is what I found:
A wide variety of factors go into the planning of a wind farm, most specifically in their location. Sometimes, wind farms are constructed near the shore of a lake or ocean to take advantage of the winds generated by such an area, but often this leads to the disruption of a picturesque landscape. Although frankly, this is the biggest complain of wind farms today.
Yet the benefits of wind farms greatly exceeds their small drawbacks. According to Mark Diesendorf in Why Australia needs wind power, published in Dissent, “The impact made on the environment is very little when compared to what is gained.” It only takes a couple of months once a wind farm is operating before the energy consumed to build the farm is reproduced by the farm.
As of today, there are three types of wind farms: on-shore, near-shore, and off-shore. (This list does not count airborne, yet those are not in commercial operation yet). On-shore wind farms are those set typically in hilly regions on land; near-shore farms are those between three kilometers from a body of water to ten kilometers from a body of land; and off-shore farms are those at least ten kilometers from land (i.e. fully within a body of water). Floating wind turbines, just as their name implies, are set in off-shore locations where winds are strong but water depths make mounting them impossible; these generate, for the most part, more wind than those closer to shore; energy then travels back to shore through underwater cables.
Up until 2008, the United States came in second place for the most energy produced by wind farms in the world; now, the U.S. ranks first, Germany follows in second, and, ironically, Spain comes in third.
10 comments:
Interesting post, and gorgeous picture. Taken from a moving bus? I'm thoroughly impressed. Anyway, it's really interesting to think about yet another way the world is working to conserve. It's amazing even with so many different way we conserve energy and reduce waste we still need more. I'm curious though if there are any negative effects to these wind farms. I have heard before that they may mess with birds migration patterns and birds can fly into them and get killed. I am curious whether or not these are just myths or not.
I do not know much about wind farms so my question is why can't we use them for all of our power? Is it because they only create energy in certain locations where there are frequent high winds? Or is it because some people consider them eyesores? Or is there another reason altogether? I am curious because wind farms seem to be such ideal forms of power. They are entirely sustainable or so I would assume and they are not harmful in the ways that many other power sources are. Yes, they do have a few negative effects but that is true of most everything.
Hi Annie! Cool post and amazing picture. I had no idea that there were different types of wind farms. I've never had the chance to see a wind farm in person, but I'm sure that it's a fascinating sight. I was wondering if you could share a little more about how exactly these wind farms work and where the energy produced is used?
Lots of feedback! Well Katelyn, that's interesting that you mentioned the possible interference with bird migration patters. I'll look that up and get back to you! And Tiffany, both of those are contributing factors as to why that wind power cannot be used for all forms of power; not everywhere provides the resources necessary to power them and make them produce enough energy to counteract that which they use. And Jill, I'll see if I can find some more information about how wind farms function and what they help to power. And thanks for the picture comments!
Hi Annie,
Great post. I've driven past the wind farm in south-central California several times- it is one of the eeriest, most beautiful, landscapes I've ever seen!
While it's true that the U.S. now leads the world in total wind-produced energy, I think it's also important to look at that amount in the context of total energy production. Currently the U.S. depends on wind for about 2% of its power. Denmark, on the other hand, derives 20% of its power from wind farms, the most of any other country.
That is a fantastic picture, by the way!
Annie, this is a funny topic you decided to choose, because i was actually just looking and pondering upon windmills last sunday with a friend while i was going down to central valley. While in centrall valley i saw a bunch of them just on a hilltop and lined up, they werent moving tho, but yeah they were there. Wonderful picture you have tho, if i didnt know better and if you have not of mentioned it, i would of thought a professional took that picture. Like Tiffany said, i never knew either there were different types of windmills. Very interesting, thank you for the post.
Annie, your picture is amazing. I would love to hear more about your year in Spain sometime. Windmills seem like such a great tool for making energy that is sustainable, and that does not produce harmful by-products. They remind me of solar power because the energy is produced from Mother Nature and is all natural. I have seen some windmills while driving through the Central Valley, however there are not too many in California. I hope that in the next few years as President Obama leads the Nation in refueling America, wind farms will be implemented throughout the country. Windmills can be a critical tool in sustainable energy in the future.
Nice post Annie! I knew a little bit about wind farms from my environmental science class in high school. It's a great alternative way to produce energy. I drive by a wind farm every time I travel from home to San Francisco. The windmills aren't always turning though, and lately I haven't seen then working at all! It may be because there is no wind but when I do see them working it's a really cool sight to see!
I agree with everybody, great post! That picture is amazing, it captures this whole idea of man's effects on the environment not being categorically negative because there's definitely some odd kind of beauty there. As for wind energy, it's certainly a viable means of reducing our use on foreign oil and use of fossil fuels. And it definitely reduces our impact on the environment, but your post also reminded me of a fishing guide I worked for one summer in Oklahoma. He'd literally grown up in the woods and owns a hunting and fishing service in Oklahoma. I remember asking him how he felt about the wind farms we passed on the way to the lakes, figuring he'd like how they helped the environment, but he blew up. He spit out several statistics, none of which I can remember, but they were about the massive amounts of migratory birds that wind-farms kill every year. It seems that every step in the right direction has negative consequences elsewhere...
Good point, Patrick. There are certainly many critics who oppose wind farms for various reasons. The other negative effect of wind farms I've recently read about is the noise they make. In rural Kansas, a farmer installed a single wind turbine in his field, and his adult children, who all lived nearby, all moved because the noise drove them nuts. The turbines do make quite a whirr/hum, and no one knows, of course, the long-term impact of that on the human nervous system. Others object to wind farms because they will typically produce energy in one location for consumption somewhere else. For example, there are big plans afoot to create huge windfarms in the midwest to produce energy for big cities elsewhere--one more example, from these critics' point of view--of wealth being siphoned from rural areas to "feed" the energy greed of cities (much like agribusiness, in this view). Concerns like this made me wonder if anyone was objecting to the Sahara solar energy project that Mailyng wrote about. It seems so like Europe to be involved in producing energy in Africa for exportation to itself. More things to think about....
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