Wind Energy 1.42
These wind turbines may look like serene sentinels on the horizon,…calmly overseeing vast swaths of land or water,…but don’t underestimate their power or promise. you can’t see it or hold it, but scientists estimate…that the invisible energy source we call the wind…has the potential to supply the world’s electricity five times over. And do so while producing almost no greenhouse gas emissions. Yet today, we get less than two percent of our electricity from wind power. Why? One reason is that wind powered eiectricity form large commercial wind farms…is a relatively new idea. The wind turbine is still a young technology with high costs. But those costs are falling as more and more turbines get built. And here in the us, that’s primarily in the giant winddelt…that stretches from Texas to Montana and North Dakota. But the location of that windbelt brings up another challenge. It’s located far from either coast. To better harness and utilize this source of energy,…new transmission lines would have to be built to connect the windbelt…to more populated areas to the east and to the west. In addition, the wind doesn’t blow all the time. That means either a backup source of energy is needed or we need a way to store wind power…and make it available when there’s no wind blowing. None of that is cheap, so while the cost of wind turbines are dropping,…the problems with the wind’s intermittency, remote location…and an insufficient energy grid will need to be resolved…before this clean and renewable kind of energy…becomes truly competitive with more traditional sources of electricity. With Climate Central, this is Dr. Heidi Cullen.