Archive for Wind

Windians: Gone with the Wind

October 21, 2010 · Filed under Alternative Energy, People, Policy, Wind

WinddddddThe stimulus bill passed through Congress had many alternative energy incentives attached including wind energy. The major fault though, was the production tax credit’s (PTC) lack of language including Native Americans. Reservations are said to contain the most wind potential, but the resources are not being used because Natives receive no benefit in creating wind energy. Luckily, by making the PTC a tradable tax credit, Native populations can slowly wean off of gambling casinos and into a prospering economy. Current populations are considered impoverished because the only source of income coming in are through gambling casinos and uranium mining projects. Unfortunately these industries lead to alcoholism and lung cancer. Poverty stricken reservations are treated as a global underclass and a change in language for the PTC can make drastic changes. By making the PTC tradable, Native populations are able to develop wind farms and receive tax credits, but since Natives do not pay taxes the credits are deemed useless. However, Joint Reservation Projects are willing to trade money for the tax credits, this frees up money in the Congressional treasury and develops powerful wind energy. Including Native Americans in the gradual shift to renewable and alternative energy sources is key to the driving force behind saving the environment and curbing greenhouse gases.

-Nicholas Chan

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Feel the Breeze, Fill you Pocket.

October 6, 2010 · Filed under Alternative Energy, Wind

 

          On hot summer day, most of use rely on two things.  We could rely on an air conditioner which emits green house gases into the atmosphere. Or we could rely on a breeze to come from any direction and cool us off. This action would hurt the environment in no way, and would have the same effect as an air conditioner. The big different between these two things is that the air conditioner works inside your house, while the breeze is only successful outdoors.

            If only we could find a way channel the breeze and move it in doors. Well search no more because I have found the solution (actually this solution has existed for many years). Wind energy! The awesome part is that this energy can be used for so much more than just cooling you off on a hot day. Wind energy can be used to power homes, just like any other kind of energy would.  Wind turbines are used to transform the kinetic energy of the wind into mechanical or electrical energy that can be harnessed for use.

            The amazing part of this all is that there is a huge wind farm located, right, here in Texas. As of May 15, 2007 Airtricity, Inc. announced its largest wind farm. The 209 megawatt Roscoe Wind Farm will provide power to TXU Wholesale under a five year contract. This amazing new development would not only help save the planet, but it would also help economically. The helps our economy by creating more jobs, and also because wind energy are cheaper than traditional energy.

            So next time you walk outside know that the wind that you fill in your blowing in your hair, could also be filling you economy’s pockets.

- Funmilayo Amubieya

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Green collar jobs

June 2, 2010 · Filed under Automobiles, Efficiency, Global, Global Warming, People, Pollution, Recycling, Solar, Wind

Now a days hundreds of Americans are trying hard to find jobs, but without success. The jobs that they eventually get are just one of the reasons why the earth is getting sick everyday. Why don’t we try to resolve this problem by finding a way to help clean up the earth from the dirty polluted air, and at the same time benefiting our selves? Guess what, there is way of doing just that, which is getting green collar jobs. The term green collar jobs refer as a job that not only do you get paid for but you also help the environment. The green collar job started from a woman named Alan Thein Durning, who wrote a book in June 1999, called “Green Collar Jobs”. This book influenced green jobs for the people, and the government paid $125 million dollars to train the people for those jobs. Right now in the U.S. we have the three green economy sectors that growing rapidly, and with that in mind we need more, well trained employees. There are green jobs that need lots of workers, for example, solar companies are growing so rapidly that they need more installers to meet their need. The wind power companies need workers to build the wind fans, and the green building contractors need workers for construction. These are opportunities that we as Americans need to take advantage of, because if we don’t we won’t just be hurting our financial life, but we will also be disturbing our world.

Eghosa Okundaye

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A Rocky 2050

May 15, 2010 · Filed under Kerr's Green Efforts, Technology, Wind

As part of The People Speak contest, I have created a PSA pretending to be in the year 2050 while looking back at all the things that have changed 10 years at a time

~Jay Meza

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Battling Fossil Fuels; Part I- Breezy Back-ups

March 25, 2010 · Filed under Alternative Energy, Fossil Fuels, Wind

Fossil Fuels are used everyday as a primary source of energy worldwide. Fossil fuels are incredibly reliable and efficient, however they are shortcomings as they do not last forever and are nonrenewable resources. In addition, they harm the environment with the large amount of Carbon Dioxide, Carbon Monoxide, Sulfuric Dioxide, and various other gases that could either heat or pollute the atmosphere. Fossil Fuels may be beneficial to us, but are extremely detrimental to the environment around us. We need a new alternative.

Wind energy or “Tempest Energy” as I will dub it the rest of the blog, is incredibly efficient and does not damage the environment in any way. The basis of Tempest Energy is creating a system of specialized windmills that when spun activate a generator that gets energy for us to use.

Tempest Energy is extremely useful because the wind blows every single day and therefore we can get energy every single day; All by the power of Mother Nature. However, what about the days when the wind doesn’t blow? We would be up the creek without a paddle and be without energy that day, thus slowing our businesses, homes, and schools. Even if Tempest Energy is extremely reliable, we should not focus solely on it. There are many other alternative resources that we can use for energy. Stay Tuned for Part II in our quest to combat Fossil Fuels.

-Flaviu Delczeg

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A BREEZY SOLUTION

October 6, 2009 · Filed under Emissions, Wind

wind-farm

The thing that I like the most about autumn aside from pumpkin pies and Thanksgiving turkeys and free candy, is the breeze. Imagined yourself walking down sidewalk covered with crispy golden leaves, the wonderful smell of cinnamon apple pies teases your nose and all of a sudden a cool breeze embrace your body, guiding you towards paradise. Now you might be asking, how does help the environment, well wind is an inexhaustible resource meaning it won’t run out but how can we covert wind into electricity? Have no fear, Wind Turbines are here. Wind turbines are designed to use wind energy to spin the blades and axels creating kinetic energy then store that energy(potential energy) converting it into electrical energy. By installing wind turbines depending on the size can decrease a huge amount of electricity generated from nuclear power plants. Small wind turbines can generate 100 kilowatts and a large wind turbine can generate up to several megawatts. The cost of wind turbine is about 5 cent per kilowatts hour compare to the cost of the kilowatts hour that you would have to pay if you used nuclear generated electrical energy which is 5.7 cents up to 16.48 cents per kilowatts hours. But the cost of wind turbines does vary depending on the size of the wind turbine, the wind speed of the place that the wind turbine was installed in and the size of the wind farm. What is a wind farm? A wind farm is a power plant that generates electricity through wind power. So if we replace every nuclear power plant with a wind farm, we can better the environment of our planet and make the air more, BREEZY.

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Thanks to all

June 6, 2009 · Filed under Agriculture, Alternative Energy, Architecture, Automobiles, Biofuels, Efficiency, Emissions, Energy Grid, Geothermal, Global, Hydrogen, Kerr's Green Efforts, Nuclear, People, Policy, Pollution, Recycling, Solar, Technology, Tidal, Trash, Wind

Thanks to all the people who contributed to the blog in order to make it a success. All these posts help keep us high up inside of the competition this was made for, and so now we have made it to the top 10 because of it. The team is now able to send some students to New York to the United Nations Headquarters in order to learn more about helping out the environment.

As such, this is most likely the last update until late into the next school year, when we continue to all work together on these green activities. Until then, thanks once more to all the people that have contributed. We wouldn’t have been able to do it without you guys.

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W is For Wind

May 5, 2009 · Filed under Wind

windpowerWind energy can be great energy resource. Imagine homes being supplied electricity without having to burn any fossil fuels. Wind energy is highly beneficial for it can be used to power many things, it is renewable and doesn’t run out, and most of all it produces no carbon dioxide. This form of energy requires windy areas to make the wind blades move. This form of energy might not be applied in the entire world but could cover some parts of the world.

Wind energy is generated from big wind turbines. The wind makes the wind blades turn which makes friction and converts the wind energy into kinetic energy. Then, the kinetic energy causes a rotor inside the generator to spin, making electricity. The electricity then moves through cables, down the turbine tower, and then goes to local electricity networks to supply homes and buildings with electricity.

Wind energy can be used to power a variety of things. And most of these things can be powered by one small wind turbine or a system of turbines that work together. Houses, businesses, farms, and ranches can be powered by this alternative energy resource. It can also be used to pump water, make ice, and even powering telecommunication sites. A small wind turbine that can be kept in the back yard can produce up to 50 kilowatts, enough to power a home.

This alternative source of energy never runs out. Wind energy only uses the wind to produce electricity, and the wind supply doesn’t run out. These wind turbines can be working day and night without running out of wind to supply it with. Unlike fossil fuels, which create harmful gasses and on top of that have a limited supply, wind energy doesn’t run out and doesn’t pollute the air.

The most beneficial reason of all is that wind energy doesn’t need any sort of fossil fuels or petroleum. You may think that all alternative forms of energy don’t produce any sort of harmful gasses but that is not always the case. Take ethanol for example, in some ethanol mixtures, 15% contain petroleum, which eventually pollutes the air.

Wind power can make a big difference in our world. It can also save people some money. These wind turbines can generate electricity for an estimated five cents per kilowatt hour, and the price is estimated to decline as this new technology improves and becomes more common.

by Ricardo Romero

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Blowing in the Wind?

April 9, 2009 · Filed under Alternative Energy, Technology, Wind

wind

There are many forms of energy that are used to combat global warming. One of the sources of energy is wind energy. Wind energy makes up about 75% of the renewable energy used. The best things about it are that it doesn’t emit any CO2 emissions and is quite developed. Still, it isn’t exactly as good as people make it to be.

Wind turbines are very noisy. Families living near wind turbines think that their choice to move near wind turbines was a terrible mistake. Residents around wind turbines said they are not able to sleep or concentrate on work. The owners said that they didn’t realize how noisy wind turbines were before they purchased them. Horster, for example, was one of the people that purchased a wind turbine. According to Horster, it sounds like a “fighter attacking the house” and so he “can’t sleep.” Now, Horster turns the turbine off at night. His wife is more opposed to it and so she exclaimed, “I hate the thing. Just get rid of it.” Another example would be a farmer named Charlie Porter “They sound like giant jet propellers,” said Porter. “It just drives you crazy, especially at night when you’re trying to sleep, you’ll wake up with a headache.” Porter has been trying to sell his house. Another farmer has the same problem as Horster and Porter. Every weekend he goes with his family to a hotel to get some decent sleep.

Despite the fact the wind energy doesn’t emit any CO2, it is so annoying that families themselves do not want to use wind power. There doesn’t seem to be any point of advocating wind energy and building wind turbines if residents, themselves don’t want to live by wind turbines or use them. Before wind turbines can provide a major source of energy, the irritable loud noise caused by wind turbines must be addressed.

Not only that, the best sources of wind for wind turbines such as coastlines and mountaintops happen to be the routes birds use when they migrate. Study shows that thousands of bats and birds can die from wind turbines. Not only do bats and birds die as they run into the wind turbine blade, they die because wind turbines cause their lungs to explode. This concerns many wildlife experts because bats have very low reproduction rate, and so even a small decrease in their population could cause them to become extinct.

It seems ironic that people are advocating green energy, and are trying to save the environment through wind energy. While people are trying to save the animals in the coral reefs and are trying to stop deforestation, by advocating or using wind energy they are causing the death of other animals. It doesn’t help to save some creatures and kill others.

 

It is true that we should be looking for renewable energy, but wind energy doesn’t seem to be the answer. There are many other sources of energy that we can use such as nuclear and solar. Although they may not be as developed, they each have their own benefits.

 

- Muskan Agarwal

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Wind for the Win

March 29, 2009 · Filed under Alternative Energy, Wind

windMany of us know that wind energy is a popular source of alternative energy. Wind energy in many ways is very beneficial to the earth and those that live on it.

Although wind energy is intermittent, or doesn’t blow at all times, there are battery storage technologies that exists and that can be used to store the energy for future usage. This makes wind powered turbine very efficient. Also along the lines of efficiency, wind energy can be found where the wind is blowing, including the U.S. Because the United States imports oil from overseas and spends almost $70 million dollars of it every year, converting to a free source that can be provided on its home front is not a bad idea.

Wind energy is very cheap seeing how it exists throughout the world. Turbines can be placed on the shores of the United States to capture wind. Because it is very abundant, Boone Pickens believes that for 4-6 cents a kilowatt of energy could be given. In the economic crisis that individuals are in, switching to wind energy could save lots of money.

Because the earth’s temperature is continuing to increase, there must be a reduction of carbon dioxide emissions. That means reducing the usage of our cars, materials, and electricity. If energy did not involve burning fossil fuels then our lifestyles would not be forced to change. Although wind turbines may use some fossil fuels, it is still less than oil, petroleum, or gas.

This green movement calls for alternative energy and wind energy is the answer. Wind energy is the key to an efficient source of energy for the people; it’s cheaper, and can help solve global warming.

- By Jessie Ho

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