Who knew passing wind would be so exhilarating?

Last month we discussed a few basic aspects of wind as a source of clean energy. We showed what wind was, how it forms and where it goes.  Then after going on a tangent about the history of turbines, we showed where on the Earth we could recover the highest amount of wind energy and how this potential changes with altitude. Today’s post offer the pros and cons of wind energy while touching upon several topics discussed in the previous post before diving into the optimal where and when.

Getting into the “What”

With an established worldwide potential of more than 400 TW (20 times more than what the entire human population needs) and a clean, renewable source wind is definitely attractive to the current and future generations. In terms of harvesting it, over 99% percent of wind farms in the USA are located in rural areas with 71% of them in low-income counties. Indeed, the more land is available (and the fewer buildings), the higher the possibility and interest to transform this kinetic energy into mechanical work and then most likely electricity.

Where one would see sporadic turbines on the side of the highway, these stand-alone equipment have begun to turn into actual modules (farms) that can work as an overall unit instead of individual ones. This strategy of creating a network of turbines follows the philosophy of “the Whole is Greater than the Sum of its Parts”. What this translates into is that by having 20 (arbitrary number) wind turbines working together to determine the best orientation, pitch, etc. of their blades in such a way that it least negatively impacts the downstream units we can produce more energy than if each of them were live-optimized individually (some interesting A.I. work is going into this). This means that the overall system is more efficient at converting energy and therefore it is more cost effective to provide bulk power to the electrical grid. This is similar to the concept in the post on solar energy comparing PV panels and CSP. Read the full post here. 

In terms of power production per wind turbine, the utility-scale ones range from about 100 kW to several MW for the land-based units (Offshore wind turbines are typically larger and produce more power – getting ahead of myself here but check out the figure below for wind potential in Western Europe that clearly showcases coast vs. non-coast data). On the low-power end of the spectrum, we find some below 100 kW for some non-utility applications like powering homes, telecommunications dishes, water pumping, etc. Solar power (PV) is generally regarded as the first choice for homeowners looking to become energy producers themselves, but wind turbines make an excellent alternative in some situations. It would take a wind turbine of about 10 kilowatts and $40,000 to $70,000 to become a net electricity producer. Investments like this typically break even after 10 to 20 years.

Onto the “Where”

One of the elements of wind formation we covered in the last post here was a different in pressure (and therefore temperature). This simplification works rather well at the macro-scale, but as we zoom in closer to the surface we can see that wind flow speeds and patterns vary quite significantly based on more than just the general location of Earth. On top of the altitude we already discussed, factors like vegetation, presence of high-rise buildings or bodies of water come into play.

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Choosing how to start something is often the most challenging part since the rest is usually about moving with the flow (turbomachinery pun intended). So, now that we got that out of the way let’s talk about our next topic after we do a quick flashback on the previous episodes of this Clean Energy series.

In the first post in this series, we discussed clean energy as a whole. After describing what it is and what it is not, we pointed out some of the energy sources we would analyze in subsequent articles.

The second post in this series took us on an extraterrestrial journey for two reasons: we looked at solar energy and we also went on a tangent about the rovers operating on planet Mars. I got so many “Likes” on these little droids that I figured I would keep going with them (that or I found a cool article that I’ll be sharing here) for this current post on one of the fastest-growing energy sources in the world: Wind Energy. What’s the link between Mars equipment and wind? See this recent discovery – https://www.space.com/41023-mars-wind-power-landers-experiment.html

Side note: ever wondered what would happen if the sun just blinked out? Check it out here – https://what-if.xkcd.com/49/

The wind we are looking at in today’s post is somewhere in between bovine flatulence and hurricanes in terms of intensity. Wind as we know it is created by air (or any fluid) moving from a zone of high pressure to one of low pressure. This high-to-low concentration migration might sound tricky, but it is easy to understand if you think of cars on a highway. It is more likely that cars stuck in a slow lane on the highway would move on to a lane with less traffic rather than the other way around.

Pressure varies with things like irregularities on the Earth surface, AKA altitude (“in case loss of cabin pressure occurs, oxygen masks will drop […]”), but also with temperature. This means that two people at the same altitude but in areas of different temperatures would experience different pressures. For example, think of standing at the North Pole vs. standing on a Caribbean beach vs. standing on a paddleboard in the Great Lakes. This example of standing at different places demonstrates the uneven heating of the Earth from the sun due to its shape (not flat), its rotation and its tilt, as we introduced in the previous post. But which location is under the most pressure? Colder temperature equals higher pressure.  Let me explain with another analogy, (even though this example has nothing to do with pressure, it will help the information stick).  When people get stressed, we say they are under pressure.  We can imagine somebody above the Arctic Circle is more stressed (cold, where to find food, shelter, etc.) than somebody enjoying a Mai Tai on the beach at an all-inclusive resort in Aruba. So here is your mnemonics; colder equals higher pressure.

Now that we have seen what wind was and the theory behind how it forms, we can start thinking about how to utilize this energy. Today we will talk about the aerodynamic aspect of wind turbines while in a future post we will be focusing on the assessment of such technology as wind power; pros, cons, where, what, etc.
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