Rare metals crucial to green industries turn out to have a surprising origin. Ancient global climate change and certain kinds of undersea geology drove fish populations to specific locations. As remains of the fish fossilized, ...
Earth Sciences
Jun 18, 2020
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4
Despite mocking the idea of climate change, President Donald Trump will preside over one of the country's sharpest drops in climate-damaging emissions on record, as the economic paralysis from the coronavirus tamps down energy ...
Environment
Apr 08, 2020
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6
There may be a global revolt against plastic, but Danish toymaker Lego, famous for its multi-coloured plastic building bricks, remains a raging success, even if it, too, aims to go green.
Environment
Mar 08, 2020
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61
A new web tool, Texas Early Notification Tool, TENT, has been designed for energy industry developers to screen for potential project sites and identify potential issues that should be evaluated by the military.
Environment
Jan 14, 2020
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8
The Russian government has published a plan to adapt the economy and population to climate change, aiming to mitigate damage but also "use the advantages" of warmer temperatures.
Environment
Jan 05, 2020
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240
With countries such as Iceland, Costa Rica, New Zealand, and Norway adopting green energy practices, renewable energy now accounts for a third of the world's power. As this trend continues, more and more countries are looking ...
Environment
Dec 17, 2019
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20
The world's thirst for oil will continue to grow until the 2030s, with climate-damaging emissions climbing until at least 2040—and consumers' insatiable appetite for SUVs is a big reason why.
Environment
Nov 13, 2019
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11
Solar and wind farms are popping up around the country to lower carbon emissions, and these renewables also have another important effect: keeping more water in the ground.
Environment
Nov 06, 2019
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888
California's electric grid was experiencing rapid and unprecedented changes even before Pacific Gas & Electric and Southern California Edison began shutting off power to millions of people in a desperate scramble to prevent ...
Environment
Oct 30, 2019
0
10
From the design of improved batteries to the use of solar and wind power for commodity chemical production, the University of Pittsburgh's James McKone ways that chemical engineering can make the world more sustainable. That's ...
Materials Science
Oct 29, 2019
0
96
Wind power is the conversion of wind energy into a useful form, such as electricity, using wind turbines. At the end of 2008, worldwide nameplate capacity of wind-powered generators was 121.2 gigawatts (GW). Wind power produces about 1.5% of worldwide electricity use, and is growing rapidly, having doubled in the three years between 2005 and 2008. Several countries have achieved relatively high levels of wind power penetration, such as 19% of stationary electricity production in Denmark, 11% in Spain and Portugal, and 7% in Germany and the Republic of Ireland in 2008. As of May 2009, eighty countries around the world are using wind power on a commercial basis.
Large-scale wind farms are connected to the electric power transmission network. Smaller turbines are used to provide electricity to isolated locations. Utility companies increasingly buy back surplus electricity produced by small domestic turbines. Wind energy as a power source is attractive as an alternative to fossil fuels, because it is plentiful, renewable, widely distributed, clean, and produces no greenhouse gas emissions; however, the construction of wind farms (as with other forms of power generation) is not universally welcomed due to their visual impact and other effects on the environment.
Wind power is non-dispatchable, meaning that for economic operation all of the available output must be taken when it is available, and other resources, such as hydropower, and standard load management techniques must be used to match supply with demand. The intermittency of wind seldom creates problems when using wind power to supply a low proportion of total demand. Where wind is to be used for a moderate fraction of demand, additional costs for compensation of intermittency are considered to be modest.
This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA
