Wind energy is a very important energy source with huge reserves. It is safe, clean and abundant. Its several major advantages are: huge reserves; clean, pollution-free and reproducible; widely distributed; wind energy facilities are mostly non-three-dimensional facilities, which can protect the land and ecology; wind energy facilities are improving day by day, mass production reduces costs, and in suitable locations, The cost of wind power generation is already lower than that of generators.
Compared with other energy sources, wind power has little impact on the environment. As long as the necessary wind-collecting power generation devices are built, it is not necessary to build dams to store water for power generation like hydropower. It will inevitably make some irrecoverable effects on the environment. Changes will affect the local ecological development and the original natural landscape, and sometimes even affect the lives of the aborigines. Regarding the greenhouse gas emissions caused by power generation, coal-fired thermal power is the most serious, followed by oil-fired thermal power, nuclear power is less, and wind power is the least. From an economic point of view, wind power generation has a huge advantage. It only needs the power generation equipment invested in the early construction and the lower maintenance costs in the later period. It does not require the indefinite investment in the increasingly high cost of thermal power and nuclear power. Reasonable use of wind energy can not only reduce environmental pollution, but also reduce the pressure of energy shortages. Someone has calculated that 2% of the solar energy reaching the earth can be converted into wind energy. Only 1% of the ground wind power can meet the global energy demand for power generation. At present, the use of wind power generation has become the main form of wind energy utilization, which is highly valued by countries all over the world, and has the fastest development speed.
Wind energy is considered to be a clean energy without pollution and a new energy that can reduce the threat of global warming. However, some experiments and phenomena are also showing that a large number of excessive wind power generation may also affect the natural environment.
In some areas, the economic efficiency of wind power generation is insufficient: in many areas, the wind power is intermittent, and the worse situation is that in Taiwan and other places, during the summer and day when the power demand is high, the wind power is less time; you must wait for the compression Only air and other energy storage technologies can be developed. Wind power generation requires a large amount of land to build a wind farm to produce more energy. During wind power generation, wind turbines will make a lot of noise, so find some open places to build them. The current wind power generation is immature, and there is still considerable room for development.
In other words, there are some limitations and disadvantages in the use of wind energy:
(1) The wind speed is unstable and the energy produced is unstable;
(2) The use of wind energy is severely restricted by geographical location;
(3) The conversion efficiency of wind energy is low;
(4) Wind energy is a new type of energy, and the corresponding equipment used is not very mature.
Ron Pulin, Ph.D. of Atmospheric Sciences of Tokyo Electric Power Company, and Wang Chien, chief research scientist of the Earth Department of Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, used a set of climate models to analyze the impact of wind turbines. In an article published in "Atmospheric Science and Physics", Wang Chien and Pulin stated that in 2100, wind turbines will provide 10% of the world's energy, and the temperature in areas where wind turbines are installed will rise by 1°C. In addition, the temperature in the tuyere area under the turbine will also rise slightly. Their analysis report also pointed out the counter-effects of offshore wind turbines; the temperature in these areas will drop by 1°C. The researchers also said that the intermittent nature of wind energy requires considerable back-up support, such as natural gas power plants.
Professor Li Bailian from the University of California, Riverside also warned: “Although wind energy is a clean energy source, the world's available wind energy cannot exceed 5%. The effect of excessive use of wind energy is equivalent to deforestation.” Li Bailian believes that it is now large-scale. All wind power generation equipment is concentrated along the coast, which will bring negative ecological effects. The water vapor circulation system on the earth relies on wind movement. The water vapor on the ocean blows into the coast, including the inland, which is a natural circulation system. If wind energy is over-utilized and the operation of water vapor is disrupted, the earth’s desertification will become more serious.
The use of windmills to generate energy has a history of more than 100 years in Kansas. But now residents of Kansas have discovered that the local grouse has gradually disappeared after a large number of windmills appeared. Although there is no scientific evidence to prove that a large number of windmills will change the natural ecology or weather patterns of the area, the residents of Kansas believe that wind power will cause alternative damage to the environment.