- As early as 200 B.C., wind power was used in China, and later, in Persia.
- Pumping water and grinding grain were the first recorded uses of wind power, but the iconic early windmills of Europe differed from their forerunners in Persia and China in that they turned on a horizontal axis instead of a vertical one.
- Wind energy actually relies on solar energy! Wind is caused by the uneven heating of the Earth’s surface by the sun.
- In the mid-1980s, the diameter of the typical wind turbine rotor, including the hub and the blades, was about 65 feet (20 meters). They are now five times larger!
- The wind energy industry achieved major advances in power and efficiency with rotors that measure about 330 feet (100 meters) in diameter. By 2011, prototypes with a diameter of about 420 feet (128 meters) were the largest turbines developed.
- The Roscoe Wind Complex, with more than 600 turbines on 100,000 acres (40,468 hectares) of cotton farmland south of Abilene, Texas, was the world’s largest wind farm in 2011. It generates enough electricity to power 265,000 homes.
- Large systems are generally said to require wind speeds of 6 meters per second (13 mph.) Stanford University researchers estimate that suitable areas are widespread enough globally that if just 20 percent of potential were captured, it would satisfy the world’s electricity demand seven times over.
- According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, building window strikes is responsible for the most bird deaths!
- Building window strikes may account for 97 million to 976 million bird deaths each year; cars, 60 million; communications towers, 4 to 5 million, the agency says. Wind turbine rotors kill an estimated 33,000 birds annually.
- Reduction in turbine rotations has been shown to significantly reduce bat deaths at wind turbine sites.
- A slight increase in the speed at which turbines are programmed to begin rotating reduced rotations and cut bat deaths by as much as 93 percent with less than a 1 percent power loss, a published study by researchers at Bat Conservation International found.
- The world’s first commercial offshore wind facility was built in 1991 off the coast of Vindeby, Denmark, in the Baltic Sea.
- The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) estimates that more than 900,000 megawatts, close to total current installed U.S. electrical capacity, of potential wind energy exists off the United States coasts. But as of 2011, the U.S. had no offshore wind installations.
- In 2010, China overtook the United States as leader in installed wind energy capacity, with a building spree that increased its wind power base by 73 percent in just one year.
- Denmark leads the world in reliance on wind power, which provides 21 percent of its electricity. The next most wind-dependent nation is Portugal, at 18 percent
- By 2010, there were enough wind turbines to generate 2.5% of the world’s power demand and more than the total electricity demand of the United Kingdom.
So is wind a winner?
Its fuel is free and it is the only source of electricity that can offer 20-30 year fixed prices. This is a great hedge against fossil fuel price volatility. It offers the same peace of mind that a 30 year fixed rate mortgage offers homeowners.
Alabama Power, a subsidiary of the Southern Company (a major electric utility), just saved its customers money by signing a purchase agreement for wind power. As they have stated, “The delivered price of energy from the wind facility is expected to be lower than the cost the Company would incur to produce that energy from its own resource, with the resulting energy savings flowing directly to the Company’s customers.”
So after reading this if you are thinking about installing a wind turbine in your back yard, check out the forecast and historical weather where you are first, we wouldn’t want to see any sad looking turbines!