A scene from Global Wind Day last year
By Jessica Anania
On 15 June, thousands of people will gather at over 200 events across the globe to discover wind energy as part of Global Wind Day. Global Wind Day offers both wind energy enthusiasts and novices opportunities to visit wind farms, discover the technology and its benefits and to have fun at one of the many festivals and open days on offer.
While the events of Global Wind Day are widespread, all involved are united by a belief in the importance of advocating for green energy.
In Tamilnadu, India, over 320 students at the Everest KenBridge School aged 3-13 will spend 15 June examining the structures of wind turbines and learning how to calculate wind speeds. Mr. Jayaganapthy, the school’s principal, describes how their area has already faced severe energy shortages and remains heavily reliant on diesel fuel. After installing solar powered lights and realising their efficiency, he became even more interested in renewable energy options. And he realised that his students were too when involving them in Global Wind Day.
“For every social cause, we need to promote awareness programmes amongst students, which will in turn become a revolution,” Mr. Jayaganapthy explained.
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Anti-wind power lobbyists have long contested claims by the wind industry that wind power is competitive with fossil fuels. But technological advances, making wind turbines bigger, smarter, and more competitive in all situations, mean the wind is fast being taken out of the naysayers’ sails.
Both EWEA and GWEC, the Global Wind Energy Council, agree that “onshore wind power is competitive once all the costs that affect traditional energy sources – like fuel and CO2 costs, and the effects on environment and health – are factored in”. Taking CO2 costs alone, “if a cost of €30 per tonne of CO2 emitted was applied to power produced, onshore wind energy would be the cheapest source of new power generation in Europe,” states EWEA. Moreover, wind is already “directly competitive with conventional sources in many places around the world, such as Mexico, Brazil, New Zealand, parts of China and the US,” according to GWEC.
Australia also seems to have been added to this list after a report published by Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) in February stated that wind is now cheaper than fossil fuels in producing electricity in Australia, a story reported on this blog at the time. continue reading »
Wind power generated more electricity than nuclear power in China last year and will likely continue to do so in the future, according to a new report by the influential Earth Policy Institute (EPI).
The report, released last Tuesday, added nuclear power generation in China has risen by 10% annually since 2007 but wind power during the same period experienced “explosive growth” of 80% per year.
“China’s overall wind energy resource is staggering,” the report said. “Harvard researchers estimate that China’s wind generation potential is 12 times larger than its 2010 electricity consumption.” continue reading »
