What is Wind Energy?

Through the ages, we have been constantly searching for sources of energy. Our dependence on electricity to power up our businesses, homes, appliances, and devices have made us seemingly desperate to look for continuous supply of energy.

We oftentimes buy electronic devices such that our demand for uninterrupted source of electricity has increased. Check out, for instance, nomorerack.com, an online shopping destination that offers a wide range of products from clothing to electronic gadgets. Nomorerack reviews its products in order to attract customers to patronize their shop.

Ever since we discovered the use of electricity, we looked for ways to harness the energy of the sun, water, fossil fuels, coal, and wind. Let’s take a closer look at one of the cheapest but more sustainable sources of electrical power: Wind energy.

A combination of the Earth’s atmosphere, heat from the sun, and the movement of our planet generate movements in the air called wind. The wind’s speed and direction are further amplified by the Earth’s uneven surface as it is marked with trees, man-made structures, bodies of water, and mountains.

We have been using wind energy since ancient times when our ancestors ventured into the open seas with sailboats and sailing ships. Houses and buildings were also designed with wind-driven natural ventilation. The wind wheel, invented by the Greek engineer Heron of Alexandria in 1st century AD, is the earliest known wind-driven wheel to power a machine in recorded history.

By conceiving ingenious ways to convert wind energy into a useful form of energy, we have invented wind turbines to generate electrical power, windmills to produce mechanical power, wind pumps to assist in water pumping or drainage, and sails to navigate ships.

Realizing the potential of wind energy, some countries have constructed large wind farms containing hundreds of individual wind turbines that are connected to a network of electric power transmission plants.

Wind power is a great alternative to other sources of energy, such as fossil fuels which take hundreds of years to replenish. Furthermore, wind power is abundant, renewable, clean, and distributable. It utilizes minimal real estate area and doesn’t emit by-products harmful to the ozone layer. Probably one downside of wind energy is that it is only available in areas where the wind speed is constant enough to generate useful energy. Every country has some regions with strong winds, so small wind farms could perhaps be setup there, store the captured electrical energy, and pass on to other nearby communities.

Many countries have already tapped the power of the wind as an alternative source of electricity. In a Wikipedia article on wind power, the top 10 countries by wind power electricity production in 2011 are the following: United States, China, Germany, Spain, India, Canada, United Kingdom, France, Italy, and Denmark.

The world has clearly taken notice of the viability of wind energy to continue our present way of living. Further research and development are currently done to improve and look for more creative ways to harness Mother Nature’s raw power.