Wind isn’t just mysterious, destructive and exhilarating – capturing just 2% of it would solve the planet’s energy needs at a stroke. And as the windiest country in Europe, Britain is at the forefront of this green revolution.
In the UK, the wind energy industry is celebrating. Last month, the cost of renewable energy dropped dramatically to undercut by almost half the government’s projections for 2025. At 57.50 British Pound per megawatt-hour (MWh), it is far cheaper than the state-backed price of 92.50 British Pound awarded in 2016 to Hinkley nuclear power station.
The wind energy sector is certainly booming. Across the river from the Siemens factory in Hull, there is the DONG Energy hub. Next month, the company will change its name – short for Danish Oil and Natural Gas – to Ørsted, after the celebrated Danish scientist who discovered that electric currents create magnetic fields, to reflect its near complete shift from black energy to green. Emma Toulson, who works at DONG’s Grimsby office, said that the reason for the falling cost of wind energy is the increase in the diameter of the blades.
Of course, the supply chain has improved, and there have been engineering refinements. But put baldly, wind energy costs less, and will go on costing less, because the turbines are growing taller and the blades longer. The manufacturers of these machines are in a race to produce the largest.
Two scientists from the Carnegie Institution for Science at Stanford University, California, have also recently published a study that suggested a windfarm the size of India, in the North Atlantic, could power the world. One of the scientist, Ken Caldeira said, “The total amount of power in winds globally is something like 50 times bigger than the total amount of power used by human civilisation”.
The challenges facing the wind energy industry remain immense. These include global political challenges: the presence of a climate-change sceptic in the White House, the United Kingdom government’s dislike of onshore wind and the potential impact of Brexit.
There are technical challenges, too, such as the difficulty of storing the energy captured. Batteries for this purpose are still developing and are crucial to securing the supply, making it reliable. But still, the possibilities are immense.
No one thinks that wind alone offers the answer to the world’s energy needs. But for now, at least, the possibilities are boundless.
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Source: The Guardian, 15 October 2017