Random Facts From "Ten Technologies To Save The Planet"by Chris Goodall

Canada consumes about 540 terawatt-hours of electricity every year and the U.S. about seven times that amount.A terawatt is 1,000 gigawatts and a gigawatts is a 1,000 megawatts.One megawatt is 1000 kilowatts while one kilowatt is the amount of electrical power to light ten old fashioned 100 watt lightbulbes.

Wind turbines are now a routine sight in the western hills of Spain,on Danish islands,on New Zealand's moorlands and in the Atlantic provinces of Canada.Hundreds of thousands of turbines now provide power to the national electricity grids.The U.S. and China are presently providing much of the growth in this industry even if they were latecomers.All the U.S. wind farms are on land,but developers are looking to the coastlines for the big opportunities presented by offshore turbines.

Cape Wind promises to be the first offshore wind farm in the U.S. They will have 130 large turbines that would provide enough electricity for the needs of the most of the communities of Cape Cod and the islands off the southern coast of Massachusetts.Cape Cod once had over a thousand working wind mills providing mechanical power to small communities.A small fraction of 1% of the light and heat energy that the earth receives gets turned into the moving or "kinetic" energy of the wind.A wind turbine cannot capture the full power of the wind(60%).The wind turbines generate electricity but they are only 70% efficient.Even with these disadvantages,they compare favorably with solar photovoltaic panels which turn less than a fifth of the energy they receive into electricity.

Only 1% of the world electricity demand today is met by wind,but the figure varies greatly around the world.Some areas of Germany generate more wind energy than their total power needs.20% of Danish electricity comes from wind and the figure is similar in Prince Edward Island(Canada).The U.S. and Spain are adding the largest amount of new generating capacity every year.Wind energy in India and China is becoming important with China doubling generation every year.One study put the average power in the global winds at any one moment at about 72 terawatts-around thirty times the world's electrical requirements.The trade body for European wind thinks that by 2020 about 13% of its electrical needs will be generated by wind.Getting to that level would require capital expenditure of 15 billion per year.(one B-2 bomber cost 2 billion)

Denmark's early support for wind has had several important repercussions.Among the benefits,the country became the world's leader in the manufacture of turbines.Suzlar is one of the world's leading companies and it is well placed to supply China's insatiable need for power and its wealth of windy locations,such as Inner Mongolia.

More from this book soon.