Wind energy – A sustainable alternative #GreenEnergy source

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“Earth has enough resources to meet people’s needs, but will never have enough to satisfy people’s greed,” said the father of our nation ,Mahatma Gandhi’.

 

India with its developing economy and burgeoning population , is  the fourth largest consumer of energy in the world.

Our ultra modern living is causing increased toxic emissions, rising greenhouse effects and more carbon footprints through out the world. In order to tide over the energy crises without wrecking more havoc on our ecosystem we are forced to look at unconventional (read renewable sources of energy ).

 

Global temperatures have increased by 0.9 degrees Celsius since 1880 with over two thirds of the increase happening in the last 50 years. If no action is taken to mitigate climate change, global temperatures could increase by a massive 5 degrees by 2100.

 

According to scientists global temperatures must stop rising soon to prevent catastrophic harm to the planet.

 

UN Climate Change Conference 2022 (UNFCCC COP 27) is to be held in November 2022 this year in Egypt

The participating countries are expected to take measures to prevent global temperatures from rising by more than 2ºC.

 

In 2015 the United Nations General Assembly (UN-GA) has set 17 SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals) to be achieved by the year 2030
    1. No Poverty
    2. No Hunger
    3. Good Health and Well-Being
    4. Quality Education
    5. Gender Equality
    6. Clean Water and Sanitation
    7. Affordable and Clean Energy
    8. Decent Work and Economic Growth
    9. Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure
    10. Reduced Inequalities
    11. Sustainable Cities and Communities
    12. Responsible Consumption and Production
    13. Climate Action
    14. Life Below Water
    15. Life On Land
    16. Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions
    17. Partnerships for the Goals

Already , in the Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs), the Indian government has pledged to reduce carbon emissions relative to its GDP by 33% to 35% from 2005 levels by 2030 ( Associated Press). India also vowed that 40% of the country’s electricity would come from non-fossil fuel-based sources, such as wind power and solar power, by 2030.

The wind program in India was initiated towards the end of the Sixth Plan in 1983-84 .

The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy has set a target of 60,000 MW capacities for the Wind Energy sector to achieve the SDG set by the UN-GA.

Wind power is a sustainable alternative to fossil fuels for the following reasons :

 

1. Plentiful – India is blessed with strong South-West summer monsoons in May-June  and its relatively weaker North Eastern winter monsoon .From March- August the whole of Indian Peninsula gets strong winds which can be harnessed for producing power .

2. Renewable 

3. Widely distributed

4. Clean, produces no greenhouse gas emissions during operation

5. Uses little land

 

The net effects on the environment are far less problematic than those of non-renewable power sources.

Wind farms consist of many individual wind turbines which are connected to the electric power transmission network.

Wind turbine is suitable to install in remote rural area, water pumping and grinding mills etc. In fact there is talk of vertical wind turbines for homes too just like solar power.

Onshore wind is an inexpensive source of electricity, competitive with or in many places cheaper than coal or gas plants.

Offshore wind is steadier and stronger than on land, and offshore farms have less visual impact, but construction and maintenance costs are considerably higher. Small onshore wind farms can feed some energy into the grid or provide electricity to isolated off-grid locations.

 

Micro-turbines are capable of producing 300W to 1 MW and large wind turbines have typical size of 35 kW-3 MW .

 

Except for concern  over the noise produced by the rotor blades, aesthetic (visual) impacts, and birds and bats having been killed (avian/bat mortality) by flying into the rotors ,Wind Energy seems to be a very good alternative to meet our energy demands .Anyways most of these problems can be resolved or greatly reduced through fine tuning the technology …


For more information on Wind Energy , you can visit the following links WindEnergyFacebook
Wind Energy India -Youtube

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