Make A Wind Turbine

Wind turbine farms are an excellent way to the tap the energy of wind, as highlighted by the number of installations in recent years.  Considering raw power output, combustion based power stations are capable of much more than wind turbine systems.  The energy stored in combustion fuels is significant, and as long as these fuels can be obtained at reasonable rates they will outperform the wind power market.

This is not as horrible as it might intially seem.  The truth of the matter is we take for granted all the things in life provided by a solid industrial base.  These industries include mining, metallurgy, timber, manufacturing, all the way down to the equipment we use to harvest our foods.  This base of heavy industry requires a concentrated source of energy.  

Let’s be honest, when we have to produce steel, machine metals, and stamp cars a lot of electricity is required.  A large and varied heavy infrastructure like this is hard to power on wind or alternative energy alone.  The motive energy and heat energy is too significant.

Wind turbines do makes sense in a large variety of applications, however.  Wind machines are an age old, tried and true, simple way to tap a source of free energy.  It just means wind turbine are more adept for supplying power in residential applications and for small commercial applications.

As an example, a 500 MegaWatt power plant can fit in a relatively small space, less than a 1/4 square mile without much difficulty.  As a comparison consider a wind power farm of equal capacity.  At 2 MegaWatts per wind turbine, then over 250 wind turbines would have to be put in place.  Think about the amount of space this would require!  Keep in mind, also, that a steady supply of Wind is required which is not always the case.

Clearly, in locations that make sense wind power solutions should be part of our energy portfolio.  But we must not abandon the advantages of our modern combustion technologies; their efficiencies and cleanliness are much better than days before, and combustion is the most potent way to meet the high energy demands of our industrial base.

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