JOCET 2013 Vol. 1(3): 251-254 ISSN: 1793-821X
DOI: 10.7763/JOCET.2013.V1.57
Abstract—Man has harnessed the energy in wind for
thousands of years, both for sailing boats and powering wind
mills at land. Of all renewable energy sources, wind power is
the most mature in terms of commercial development. This
energy source is interesting because of its renewability and its
availability. Potential for development is huge, and the world’s
capacity is far larger than the world’s total energy
consumption. Worldwide, a total capacity of about 60 000 MW
have been installed, with a yearly production of about 100
TWh. The major challenges for further development are
connected to economy, land usage, environment and grid
capacity. The growth of renewable energy has been
unprecedented over the past 25 years. Wind and solar have
maintained double-digit growth rates since 2000. No other
segment of the energy sector has grown this fast. Wind power
is the most economic new power plant technology, due to
reduced installations costs, no fuel costs and construction time
of less than one year, compared to over 10 years to construct
nuclear power plants. The effects of wind energy on the
environment often are considered to be positive, through the
production of renewable energy and the potential displacement
of mining activities, air pollution, and greenhouse gas
emissions associated with non-renewable energy sources. As a
result, a more complete understanding of the environmental
and economic effects of any one energy source depends on a
more complete understanding of how that energy source
displaces or is displaced by other energy sources, and it
depends on a more complete understanding of the
environmental and economic effects of all other available
energy sources. This paper provides analyses to understand
those environmental effects, both positive and negative.
Index Terms—Environmental effects ecological impacts,
renewable energy, wind energy.
Suaad Jaber is with Institute of Urban and Regional Planning for
Postgraduate studies, Baghdad University, Irap (email:
j_suaad@yahoo.com).
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Cite:Suaad Jaber, "Environmental Impacts of Wind Energy," Journal of Clean Energy Technologies vol. 1, no. 3, pp. 251-254, 2013.
