Wind Power For Large Industrial Users

Wind turbine farms are an excellent way to the tap the energy of wind, as highlighted by the number of installations in recent years.  Based on raw output, however, wind turbine systems do not compete well with our modern combustion based energy stations.  Combustion fuels have high energy density at low cost and in most cases outperform the cost of installing and maintaining wind power.

This is not as bad as you might intially think.  The truth is, most things we’ve grown to take for granted in life require a solid industrial base.  Industries that include timber, manufacturing, metallurgy, mining, all the way down to manufacture of the equipment we use to harvest food.  A heavy industrial base needs very reliable power in very large quantities.  

Let’s be honest, when we have to produce steel, machine metals, and stamp cars a lot of electricity is required.  Large and variable infrastructures are difficult to power on wind or solar energy alone.  The heat energy and motive power required is far too significant.

Wind turbines do have their place, however.  Harnessing wind power has been around for centuries and the basic design is a simple piece of machinery that taps an energy source that is free.  Wind turbines are great for supplying residential power and for smaller industrial applications.

To illustrate, a commercial size power plant capable of 500 MegaWatt output will fit in the area of 1/4 square mile without challenge.  As a comparison consider a wind power farm of equal capacity.  With large industrial wind turbines rated for 2 MegaWatts over 250 turbines would have to be put in place.  Imagine the area this would require!  Also consider a consistent supply of wind is required which is not always the case.

There are excellent locations and conditions for wind power and it should be part of our energy portfolio.  But we must not abandon the advantages of our modern combustion technologies; their efficiencies and cleanliness are much better than days before, and combustion is the most potent way to meet the high energy demands of our industrial base.