Earthsky Interviews
Private: Catching the wind to power our world
03-31-2005 - Human World
_Jim Johnson:_ What we’re currently working on is lower wind speed technologies . . .
_JB:_ Until recently, wind energy researchers were focused mostly on designing wind turbines that can handle the highest wind speeds. Most wind farms in the United States – sites with wind turbines that convert wind into electricity – were located in the windiest places. And, in the U.S., the windiest places tend to be in the central states – from North Dakota down to Texas.
_DB:_ Wind turbines that work efficiently at lower speeds would enable wind farmers to build turbines closer to transmission lines that carry electrical power to population centers. And that would let them capture more wind energy at lower cost.
_Jim Johnson:_ A second way to maybe solve this problem . . . is to install machines off the coasts of the United States, both the east and the west coasts . . . within 20 miles of the shore or something like that distance that can produce quite a lot of energy and be consumed in those areas . . .
_JB:_ Johnson thinks that wind energy could someday supply a quarter of all U.S. electrical power needs. Our thanks to the “National Science Foundation”:http://www.nsf.gov/ – where discoveries begin. We’re Block and Byrd for Earth and Sky.
“Low Wind-Speed Turbines”:http://www.nrel.gov/wind/about_lowspeed.html
Author’s Notes:
Twenty years ago, wind energy in the U.S. cost about ten times as much as fossil fuel energy. Now, the two sources of energy cost nearly the same.
Scientists rate wind sites on a scale of one to seven based on their average annual wind speeds. A rating of seven represents the strongest wind speeds possible. Less than five percent of the U.S. has wind sites with a six or seven rating. But well over half of the good wind sites have a class three, four or five rating. These are the lower class wind sites that Johnson hopes to see tapped into.
Wind energy will probably only be able to supply a quarter of the U.S. electrical power needs. That’s because it’s intermittent. The wind comes and goes. So any given site will have times when it can’t generate electricity. Experts say fossil fuels such as coal and natural gas will continue to be a major source of U.S. electrical power generation for a long time to come.
Thanks to:
Jim Johnson
Senior Mechanical Engineer and Site Operations Engineer
National Wind Technology Center of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Boulder, Colorado