Wind Turbines – Solutions for Achieving Drawdown, Part 3.

Cheaper than new coal or nuclear plants, free fuel and no emissions once built, wind energy is going to be huge!

Note that I used wind "turbines" in the title here instead of wind "power". Picky people might point out that wave energy is also wind power and, in a less direct way, hydropower is linked to wind power since wind did the work of transporting that water uphill in the first place. Really picky people might say wind is really a form of solar power since it arises from temperature and pressure gradients caused primarily by energy from the sun. Not to get too far off track here, but biofuels and even fossil fuels are forms of stored solar energy as are the plants and animals you eat.

Drawdown (a project I helped research) ranks wind as Solutions #2, #22, and #76 since it is divided into 3 solutions (onshore, offshore, and micro) and predicts we may be getting 27% of our electricity from wind by 2050. This project was designed to be somewhat conservative in terms of estimates in order to be scientifically and economically defensible, however it is quite likely they’ve underestimated the impact and potential of this energy source.

Falling implementation costs and the impact wind energy has on grid electricity prices make this a very attractive investment in many parts of the world. With offshore wind just starting to really take-off, wind energy will see additional benefits in terms efficiency, reliability, and cost due to having access to more constant wind sources and being located closer to the world’s populations centers along our coasts.

Wind is already the cheapest form of energy in town. New wind is cheaper (and more modular) than new coal or natural gas: