WIND POWER:
Wind is the movement of air from an area of high pressure to an area of low
pressure. In fact, wind exists because the sun unevenly heats the surface of
the Earth. As hot air rises, cooler air moves in to fill the void. As long as the
sun shines, the wind will blow. And wind has long served as a power source to
humans.
Ancient mariners used sails to capture the wind. Farmers once used windmills
to grind their grains and pump water. Today, more and more wind turbines
wring electricity from the breeze. Over the past decade, wind turbine use has
increased more than 25 percent per year. Still, it only provides a small fraction
of the world's energy.
How it Works
Most wind energy comes from turbines that can be as tall
as a 20-story building and have three 200-foot
(60-meter)-long blades. The wind spins the blades,
which turn a shaft connected to a generator that
produces electricity.
The biggest wind turbines generate enough electricity in
a year (about 12 megawatt-hours) to supply about 600
U.S. homes. Wind farms have tens and sometimes
hundreds of these turbines lined up together in
particularly windy spots. Smaller turbines erected in a
backyard can produce enough electricity for a single
home or small business.
The Booming Wind Energy Industry
Wind is a clean source of renewable energy that
produces no air or water pollution. And since the wind is
free, operational costs are nearly zero once a turbine is
erected. Mass production and technology advances are
making turbines cheaper, and many governments offer
tax incentives to spur wind-energy development.
Drawbacks include complaints from locals that wind
turbines are ugly and noisy. The slowly rotating blades
can also kill birds and bats, but not nearly as many as
cars, power lines, and high-rise buildings do. The wind is
also variable: If it's not blowing, there's no electricity
generated.
Nevertheless, the wind energy industry is booming.
Thanks to global efforts to combat climate change, such
as the Paris Agreement, renewable energy is seeing a
boom in growth, with wind energy leading the way. From
2000 to 2015, cumulative wind capacity around the world
increased from 17,000 megawatts to more than 430,000
megawatts. In 2015, China also surpassed the EU in the
number of installed wind turbines and continues to lead
installation efforts.
Industry experts predict that if this pace of growth
continues, by 2050 one third of the world's electricity
needs will be fulfilled by wind power.
WAVE POWER:
wave power, a form of renewable energy in which electricity is
generated by harnessing the up-and-down motion of ocean waves.
Wave power is typically produced by floating turbine platforms or
buoys that rise and fall with the swells. However, wave power can
be generated by exploiting the changes in air pressure occurring in
wave capture chambers that face the sea or changes in wave
pressure on the ocean floor.
The areas of greatest potential for wave energy development are in
the latitudes with the highest winds (latitudes 40°–60° N and S) on
the eastern shores of the world’s oceans (which border the western
edges of the continents). For instance, the world’s first operational
wave power generator is located off the coast of Aguçadora,
Portugal, producing as much as 2.25 megawatts from three huge
jointed tubes that float on the surface of the Atlantic Ocean;
individual power generators are located at the tubes’ joints and
activated by wave motion. In addition, a large potential for wave
power systems exists in the British Isles and the Pacific Northwest
of the United States. Estimates of the annual wave energy potential
along the continental shelf of the U.S. coasts range between 1,170
and 2,640 terrawatt-hours, equivalent to 33–65 percent of U.S.
electricity demand in 2015.
Despite the enormous energy potential of wave power, technical
challenges remain. Research funding is low compared with that
supporting solar, wind, and other renewable forms of energy, and
thus the process of experimentation and refinements with different
wave energy collector designs is not as well developed. The
development of massive machines for use in the oceans is
expensive; salt water in the oceans corrodes steel and other metals,
and the physical force of the waves fatigues wave energy collectors,
transmission wires, and other infrastructure over time.