What are some risks/benefits of wind energy?

4 Responses to What are some risks/benefits of wind energy?

1. T500 says:

   September 3, 2010 at 00:03

   risks…
   it costs over $1 million USD to put up ONE… windmill… so.. when you see 500 or 600 or 800 of them in a big field, you can calculate the cost…

   One of them produces enough electricity to power, what…. 5 houses? of all of the windmills we have ALLLL OVER the us…. thousands….. it only accounts for 1% of our energy.

   also, they are cool, but… it sucks having millions of 400 foot tall windmills dotting the what would otherwise be a beautiful landscape.

   also, there are only certain places in the world, certain types of landscapes that are truly conducive of having windmills. and of those places, most of them have them already. and even there, they don’t ALL – ALWAYS spin.. when they aren’t spinning, they aren’t producing.

   benefits…….

   that’s 1% less coal that we have to burn.

   but realistically, there doesn’t HAVE to be ANY coal burned at this point. it could all be nuclear. meltdowns are very very very very very very very very very very very unlikely. the only reason they’ve ever had one was because the staff there didn’t keep up with the equipment because they didn’t feel they had to.. and of course there was a meltdown.

   The problem is the waste it produces.

   germany subsidizes solar power… they allow the sale of solar energy by the public. because of that, there are TONS AND TONS AND TONS of solar panels all over the place, and about 46% of their energy COMES from solar……… whereas 2% of the US’s power comes from solar.

   problem is, if it’s dark, it’s not producing…

   there are ways to convertt water into electricity, but governments won’t allow it.

   sea water could be filtered, have electrolites added, hydrolicized to an "unstable" liquid, and burned by machines that generate electricity… there’s an over abundance of sea water, and hell… the level is getting higher each year is it not? the only biproduct of such a thing would be atomized water…

   not co2.
2. SmackPie says:

   September 3, 2010 at 00:03

   There’s quite some benefit to it. Saves me a lot for my billing expenses. I go hybrid-ing my power usage with wind power and cuts an average of $250 a month. Sure it takes a lot of time to gain back your capital installing the system, but they sure are promising if you own a property.

   Risk-wise, ONLY if you try to use it someplace not so windy. Normally beach houses or hillside residents won’t have problems though.

   Try http://www.enhancegreenenergy.com. These are the guys that helped me reduce my monthly expenses.
3. MIKE L says:

   September 3, 2010 at 00:03

   Here is a risk Tornado’s what if one decides to plow through some windmills .
   How long before power is normal.?
4. John W says:

   September 3, 2010 at 00:03

   The wind doesn’t start blowing just because you turned on a switch so you’re gambling that wind energy would be available when you need it. There’s a capital investment in both land and in the generator itself, there’s maintenance, there’s transmission costs, basically it amounts to a high startup cost, a constant operational cost but results in a variable uncontrollable generation of energy. The risk is that you won’t have the power when you can sell the power and you may have too much power when you can’t sell the power.