Wind Energy: Facts and Fiction
Electric power is a cornerstone of any country’s economy and standard of living. The uninterrupted availability of electric power, from second to second all year around, determines every opportunity associated with that economy and living standard. Most people take for granted that electric power is generally always at hand with unfailing reliability, unaware that complex technical measures and the disciplined co-operation of many large interconnected power stations are necessary to achieve and to maintain that situation. Fervent discussions and enthusiastic articles about new ways to produce electric power currently abound. And wind energy in particular features in these alternatives for a sustainable production of electricity, especially in the light of global environmental concerns. It is remarkable, however, that the most important information concerning the factors necessary for a reliable consumer supply is almost always withheld. Like the fact that all the properties and inherent disadvantages of wind turbines are caused by one single law of physics, a Law of Nature. That is the law that determines the kinetic energy of wind as being the source of the driving force of wind turbines: E = f. m spec..v³
This is the reason that you will continuously be confronted with this formula when its miserable consequences for wind turbines come up in this dissertation. Some of these unpleasant but unavoidable consequences are: its minuscule but always unpredictable kilowatt-hour production, the hundreds of equally randomly occurring variations and power interruptions in the course of a year and resulting form all this, the risks for a save operation of the grid and the minute substitute of wind energy for conventional electricity production.
