I think wind energy is the simplest renewable energy to understand and it is. However there are various conceptions about what gets the wind industry turn.

There are about 17,000-MW of wind power installed in the United States that can give approximately 1.2% of the country’s demand for electrical energy. That was published in a recent report from the Department of Energy (DOE). These figures will rise in the future. It might be good to know some myths that are blowing in the wind.

1. Wind is cheap

nobody is owning the wind, therefore it seem as if wind energy would cost less than other means that want pricy fuel, such as coal or natural gas, to run. Even so, the initial investment for wind energy is heavy.

Wind turbines built on large scales cost a few million dollars per megawatt to set up that at nominal value seems competitive with latest coal-fired power stations, but the wind does not blow all of the time. Effectively, wind turbines normally just create electricity approximately 30 pct of the time; therefore it requires longer time to pay back the construction costs.

Held together with government incentives and maintenance costs, during a wind turbine’s 20-year lifespan, wind energy finishes up costing approximately 4 cents per kW-hr, as estimated by DOE. That is somewhat high than coal, but the two are becoming closer.

2. U.S. is way behind the others in the world

Denmark produces 20 per centum of its power from wind. Germany owns the most wind turbines of any other. China is set to almost twice its wind energy capability in only one year. You could say the America is dragging its heels, but in case of the raw total, America makes more power from wind as compared to any other country; it is windier here even than Germany is. And a lot investment is going on.

One latest headline grabber is the world’s largest wind energy facility in Pampa, Texas, suggested by oil big businessman T. Boone Pickens. This is the so-called Pickens Plan to spend 1 trillion USD on wind turbines across the wind corridor from the Dakotas down to the Texas geographical region.

3. Wind turbines are loud

Wind turbines are always loud, but latest designs are not so much. One of the big raps on noise is often attributed to a wind turbine made in 1978 outside of Boone, N.C. it produced low pitch sound waves that rattled windowpanes and made people sick in surrounding areas.

From that time, most new rotors become slower and are put on ahead of (not behind) their columns. These and other modifications have greatly brought down the noise, stated Pat Moriarty of the National Renewable Energy Lab in Golden, Colo. However, few neighbours complain, and the wind industry keeps going to seek for even quieter innovations.

4. Wind turbines kill birds

This one is really fact, but the issue is not as big as many claim. The belief that wind turbines are life-threatening to birds is from Altamont Pass Wind Resource Area in California. This was among the first big wind farms. Unluckily it was constructed in a migrant bird route, Moriarty told.

Additionally, Altamont’s 4,800 small-scale wind turbines — several established in the early 80s — feature rotors down to the base and carried close together. That may be the reason wherefore more than a thousand birds (one-half of which are raptorial birds) die there every year.

Latest wind farms are causing less bird deaths perhaps because the turbines are above from ground and placed further apart. And just for comparison’s sake, analyses indicate that a lot more birds die hitting cars and constructions than go in turbine blades.

5. Any home can have a windmill

Unless you’ve a good chunk of estate around your home, it is perhaps not a right idea to have a wind turbine. If it is too near to constructions or trees, the wind will be riotous and will not create the power that it is supposed to.

But what do we know. The small- scale-wind-turbine-market developed by 14 pct in 2007. A few of these are for boats, but rest of them render homeowners who live away from the power houses.

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