Environmental Impacts of Wind Energy

Abstrac t—Man has harnessed the energy in wind for thousands of years, both for sailing boats and powering wind mills at land. Of all renewable energy sources, wind power is the most mature in terms of commercial development. This energy source is interesting because of its renewability and its availability. Potential for development is huge, and the world’s capacity is far larger than the world’s total energy consumption. Worldwide, a total capacity of about 60 000 MW have been installed, with a yearly production of about 100 TWh. The major challenges for further development are connected to economy, land usage, environment and grid capacity. The growth of renewable energy has been unprecedented over the past 25 years. Wind and solar have maintained double-digit growth rates since 2000. No other segment of the energy sector has grown this fast. Wind power is the most economic new power plant technology, due to reduced installations costs, no fuel costs and construction time of less than one year, compared to over 10 years to construct nuclear power plants. The effects of wind energy on the environment often are considered to be positive, through the production of renewable energy and the potential displacement of mining activities, air pollution, and greenhouse gas emissions associated with non-renewable energy sources. As a result, a more complete understanding of the environmental and economic effects of any one energy source depends on a more complete understanding of how that energy source displaces or is displaced by other energy sources, and it depends on a more complete understanding of the environmental and economic effects of all other available energy sources. This paper provides analyses to understand those environmental effects, both positive and negative.