What are some environmental benefits of Wind Energy?

What are the benefits of wind energy?

• Answer:

  The benefits of wind power are that it is clean, produces no emissions, and is a renewable energy source. The greatest benefit of wind power is that the energy (i.e. the "fuel") component of the delivered power is FREE. Wind energy is provided ultimately by the sun and the rotation of the earth. The sun's radiation creates pressure differences in the atmosphere, and the rotation of the earth creates Coriolis forces. Together, these produce winds. Because wind energy comes from the sun and the earth's rotation, it is "FREE" in another aspect: it is completely non-polluting. Wind power, delivered to where people need it, is not free of all cost however. This is because we must build expensive windmills to turn the wind energy into electricity, and transmission lines to get the power where we need it. Also, the environment in the immediate vicinity of windmills will suffer in various ways, and with the suffering is associated an additional cost. Arguably, however, the environmental costs are usually much greater for other modes of power production, such as coal fired thermal power stations. Wind power does not require the burning of fossil fuels (beyond initial manufacturing and installation) to create electricity.