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 Windfarm in England. Photo from Wikimedia Commons (courtesy of Charles Cook)
That energy can be harnessed from the wind is not a new discovery. The first practical windmills were developed in Persia in the 9th Century and large windmills used for grinding grain were common in medieval Europe. It is, though, first with the development of modern wind turbines that significant amounts of energy can be produced. Today wind energy is widespread and still growing in use throughout the world. However, the fraction of energy being produced by wind turbines is still very modest. Denmark is one of the frontrunners in the development and usage of wind generated energy, but even there wind energy only contributes with around 20% of the country
Wind energy is a renewable energy source and therefore do not contribute to the release of CO2. A higher use of wind energy is thus important to reduce global warming. However, is it at all realistic that wind energy will ever be able to contribute enough energy to meet the global energy requirement?
Scientists from Harvard University in the United States and the Technical Research Centre in Finland have provided some answers to this question in a theoretical study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The scientists developed a model of available wind energy throughout the world by using meteorological data. They then incorporate all non-forested, non-inhabited and ice-free land area and estimating the energy production generated by employing 2.5 MW turbines assumed to extract around 20% of the available wind energy.
They find that if all available land areas are used, the energy that could potentially be extracted amounts to 40 times the current global requirements in electricity and 5 times the total energy requirements. If all available near-shore water areas are included this number increases even further. Especially countries such as China, Russia and the United States have a large potential. By building large wind farms in the central plain states, the United States could produce 16 times the electricity required for the entire country.
There is therefore a huge potential for wind energy to meet much of the world
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