How does wind power really work

How does wind power really work

Прочитайте текст с пропусками, обозначенными номерами 32-38. Эти номера соответствуют заданиям 32-38, в которых представлены возможные варианты ответов вместе с предложениями из текста ниже.

How Does Wind Power Really Work?

Wind power is going to be essential to our planet in the near future. But do you really know how wind power works? It looks easy but there are several components involved 32___________ generating wind power. This type of power can not only save us a good 33___________ of money on our utility bills, but it will also play an important role in saving our planet.

For many of us, wind just looks invisible and does not actually have any properties but in 34___________, air is a fluid that contains particles constructed of gas. We can turn these gas particles into power because as the wind gusts, kinetic energy is created, which then can be harnessed and changed over into power.

Having access to wind is very essential for this operation to work but another indispensable ingredient is the blades that are used. Their design is very 35___________ to the effectiveness of the turbine. The other important component is simply the size of the blade. The bigger the blade is, the more energy is seized and more power can be created for us in the form of electricity.

Much also depends 36___________ where you live to figure out the right blade size. In regions with low wind levels, small blades work better because more wind is required to push the larger turbine blades. In an area that is very windy, it is much better to use large blades in 37___________ to use all of the wind available.

This gives you the fundamental principles of how electricity is produced from the wind. Today is a fantastic time to do as much 38___________ as you can about wind power so you will be able to make educated decisions in the future.

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It looks easy but there are several components involved 32___________ generating wind power.

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How Does Wind Power Really Work?

Wind power is going to be essential to our planet in the near future. But do you really know how wind power works? It looks easy but there are several components involved AT / IN / BY / FROM generating wind power. This type of power can not only save us a good DEAL / QUANTITY / NUMBER / LOT of money on our utility bills, but it will also play an important role in saving our planet.

Having access to wind is very essential for this operation to work but another indispensable ingredient is the blades that are used. Their design is very VALUABLE / SIGNIFICANT / PRECIOUS / CRITICAL to the effectiveness of the turbine. The other important component is simply the size of the blade. The bigger the blade is, the more energy is seized and more power can be created for us in the form of electricity.

Much also depends BY / ON / FROM / ABOUT where you live to figure out the right blade size. In regions with low wind levels, small blades work better because more wind is required to push the larger turbine blades. In an area that is very windy, it is much better to use large blades in EFFECT / FAVOUR / ATTEMPT / ORDER to use all of the wind available.

This gives you the fundamental principles of how electricity is produced from the wind. Today is a fantastic time to do as much DISCOVERY / INVESTIGATION / RESEARCH / SEARCH as you can about wind power so you will be able to make educated decisions in the future.

How Does Wind Power Really Work?

Wind power is going to be essential to our planet in the near future. But do you really know how wind power works? It looks easy but there are several components involved IN generating wind power. This type of power can not only save us a good DEAL of money on our utility bills, but it will also play an important role in saving our planet.

For many of us, wind just looks invisible and does not actually have any properties but in REALITY, air is a fluid that contains particles constructed of gas. We can turn these gas particles into power because as the wind gusts, kinetic energy is created, which then can be harnessed and changed over into power.

Having access to wind is very essential for this operation to work but another indispensable ingredient is the blades that are used. Their design is very CRITICAL to the effectiveness of the turbine. The other important component is simply the size of the blade. The bigger the blade is, the more energy is seized and more power can be created for us in the form of electricity.

Much also depends ON where you live to figure out the right blade size. In regions with low wind levels, small blades work better because more wind is required to push the larger turbine blades. In an area that is very windy, it is much better to use large blades in ORDER to use all of the wind available.

This gives you the fundamental principles of how electricity is produced from the wind. Today is a fantastic time to do as much RESEARCH as you can about wind power so you will be able to make educated decisions in the future.

Wind energy

Wind energy

The most efficient technology to produce energy in a safe and environmentally sustainable manner: it is zero emissions, local, inexhaustible, competitive and it creates wealth and jobs.

WHAT IS WIND POWER?

Wind power is the energy obtained from the wind. It is one of the oldest energy sources exploited by humans and today is the most established and efficient renewable energy source. The academic term for wind power—eolic energy—is derived from the name of the Greek mythological figure, Aeolus, the keeper of the winds.

HOW DOES WIND POWER WORK?

Wind power consists of converting the energy produced by the movement of wind turbine blades driven by the wind into electrical energy.

WIND ENERGY EXPLAINED IN 2 MINUTES

Watch this video to learn about how electricity is derived from wind energy.

WIND POWER BENEFITS

Wind energy is a source of renewable energy. It does not contaminate, it is inexhaustible and reduces the use of fossil fuels, which are the origin of greenhouse gasses that cause global warming.

In addition, wind energy is a “native” energy, because it is available practically everywhere on the plant, which contributes to reducing energy imports and to creating wealth and local employment.

For these reasons, producing electricity through wind energy and its efficient use contributes to sustainable development.

For these reasons, producing electricity through wind energy and its efficient use contributes to sustainable development.

Wind energy does not emit toxic substances or contaminants into the air, which can be very damaging to the environment and to human beings. Toxic substances can acidify land and water ecosystems, and corrode buildings. Air contaminants can trigger heart disease, cancer and respiratory diseases like asthma.

Wind energy does not generate waste or contaminate water—an extremely important factor given the scarcity of water. Unlike fossil fuels and nuclear power plants, wind energy has one of the lowest water-consumption footprints, which makes it a key for conserving hydrological resources.

Wind power is the most efficient technology to produce energy in a safe and environmentally sustainable manner: it is zero emissions, local, inexhaustible, competitive and it creates wealth and jobs.

DEBUNKING MYTHS ABOUT WIND POWER

wind power is expensive

Renewable energies are already the cheapest energy sources, and this will increasingly be the case. Wind power has advanced enormously from a technological viewpoint and their installation costs have lowered markedly. Over the past decade, the cost of onshore wind turbines has fallen by 37% and lithium batteries for storing electricity by 85%

Wind turbines are lethal for birds

The deaths of birds and bats by collision with wind turbines is much less than those produced by other human-led activities such as roads, railways, buildings or domestic cats, as well as those caused by the air pollution wind power helps to avoid.

Every renewable energies project must be accompanied by an environmental impact study before it can be approved by the competent authorities, which establish whether the site is compatible with the nature surrounding it, and corrective measures need to be adopted to minimize any harmful effects, e.g. monitoring and control by specialized teams, development of technological solutions such as repellents (ultrasound, noise and lights), detection and shutdown systems.

They rob land from agriculture and livestock

The surface area occupied by a wind turbine is minimal. In fact, wind farms are perfectly compatible with farming and livestock activities carried out on the same land.

Manufacturing a wind turbine consumes more energy than the machine will be able to generate

A wind turbine offsets the energy used to make it in less than a year – and can function for over 30 years. Every wind turbine generates enough clean energy to cover the electrical demand from some 2,000 homes*. Moreover, the emissions produced by the manufacture and dismantling of a wind turbine represent around 1% of those it will avoid during its useful life in replacing production from coal, gas or fuel oil power stations, and this without counting the CO ₂ emitted during the building of those fossil fuel stations, nor the extraction or transport of fuel to those plants.

Wind turbines are very noisy

The noise produced by a moving wind turbine at a distance of less than 500 meters, within which there are rarely homes anyway, is no greater than that produced by an electrodomestic appliance such as a fridge or microwave. Wind farms also have to comply with local regulations with respect to noise levels during the day and night and cannot exceed the limits established by law.

Wind turbines are bad for human health

A renewable energies myth being spread in only a few countries. Independent public and private research has been conducted, however, and has concluded that there is no direct connection between wind farms and reported incidents of fainting or headaches.

WIND POWER DATA

HOW MUCH OF THE WORLD’S ELECTRICITY IS GENERATED FROM THE WIND?

Wind energy currently supplies over 3 % of global electricity consumption and this is expected to exceed 5 % by 2020. In the longer term (by 2040), the International Energy Agency forecasts that wind energy could meet 9 % of global electricity demand and more than 20 % of demand in Europe.

Wind power makes up approximately 80 % of the electricity produced by ACCIONA annually. In 2014, the company produced a total of 17,482 gigawatt hours (GWh) from the wind, equivalent to the consumption of around five million people. In terms of geographical spread, 60 % of this wind energy, or 10,378 Gwh, was produced for the Spanish market, while 40 % was produced for other countries: the USA (2,278 GWh), Mexico (2,174 GWh), Australia (932 GWh), Canada (516 GWh), Portugal (417 GWh), Italy (239 GWh) and India (226 Gwh) were the other main markets.

WHICH COUNTRIES ARE LEADERS IN IMPLEMENTING WIND ENERGY AT THE GLOBAL LEVEL?

By the end of 2015, wind power capacity totalled 400,000 MW in the world, according to provisional estimates by consulting firm Navigant/BTM, which forecasted that this would increase by over 40% by 2019, to exceed 600,000 MW.

Spain has been one of the leading, pioneering countries in exploiting the wind to produce electricity. Thirty years after installing the first wind turbine in the country, Spain became the first country in the world to rely on wind energy as the main source of electricity for an entire year (2013, with 20.9 % of total production). This also established Spain as an advanced country in terms of technological solutions that allow integration of wind energy into the grid.

Although installation of wind energy facilities has slowed in Spain in recent years, with around 23,000 MW installed at the end of 2015, the country still holds second place in Europe for wind power production after Germany (43,723 MW), and is fifth in the world, after China (138,060 MW), the USA (71,000 MW) and India (25,219 MW), according to the estimates by the same consultancy firm.

How Wind Power Works

As early as 3000 B.C., people used wind energy.

Wind power all starts with the sun. When the sun heats up a certain area of land, the air around that land mass absorbs some of that heat. At a certain temperature, that hotter air begins to rise very quickly because a given volume of hot air is lighter than an equal volume of cooler air. Faster-moving (hotter) air particles exert more pressure than slower-moving particles, so it takes fewer of them to maintain the normal air pressure at a given elevation (see How Hot Air Balloons Work to learn more about air temperature and pressure). When that lighter hot air suddenly rises, cooler air flows quickly in to fill the gap the hot air leaves behind. That air rushing in to fill the gap is wind.

If you place an object like a rotor blade in the path of that wind, the wind will push on it, transferring some of its own energy of motion to the blade. This is how a wind turbine captures energy from the wind. The same thing happens with a sail boat. When moving air pushes on the barrier of the sail, it causes the boat to move. The wind has transferred its own energy of motion to the sailboat.

In the next section we’ll look at the different parts of a wind turbine.

Parts of a Wind Turbine

As early as 3000 B.C., people used wind energy for the first time in the form of sail boats in Egypt. Sails captured the energy in wind to pull a boat across the water. The earliest windmills, used to grind grain, came about either in 2000 B.C. in ancient Babylon or 200 B.C. in ancient Persia, depending on who you ask. These early devices consisted of one or more vertically-mounted wooden beams, on the bottom of which was a grindstone, attached to a rotating shaft that turned with the wind. The concept of using wind energy for grinding grain spread rapidly through the Middle East and was in wide use long before the first windmill appeared in Europe. Starting in the 11th century A.D., European Crusaders brought the concept home with them, and the Dutch-type windmill most of us are familiar with was born.

Modern development of wind-energy technology and applications was well underway by the 1930s, when an estimated 600,000 windmills supplied rural areas with electricity and water-pumping services. Once broad-scale electricity distribution spread to farms and country towns, use of wind energy in the United States started to subside, but it picked up again after the U.S. oil shortage in the early 1970s. Over the past 30 years, research and development has fluctuated with federal government interest and tax incentives. In the mid-’80s, wind turbines had a typical maximum power rating of 150 kW. In 2006, commercial, utility-scale turbines are commonly rated at over 1 MW and are available in up to 4 MW capacity.

The simplest possible wind-energy turbine consists of three crucial parts:

Now that we’ve looked at a simplified system, we’ll move on to the modern technology you see in wind farms and rural backyards today. It’s a bit more complex, but the underlying principles are the same.

How does wind power really work

How Does Wind Power Really Work?

Wind power is going to be essential to our planet in the near future. But do you really know how wind power works? It looks easy but there are several components involved A22 in generating wind power. This type of power can not only save us a good A23 deal of money on our utility bills, but it will also play an important role in saving our planet.

Having access to wind is very essential for this operation to work but another indispensable ingredient is the blades that are used. Their design is very A25 critical to the effectiveness of the turbine. The other important component is simply the size of the blade. The bigger the blade is, the more energy is seized and more power can be created for us in the form of electricity.

Much also depends A26 on where you live to figure out the right blade size. In regions with low wind levels, small blades work better because more wind is required to push the larger turbine blades. In an area that is very windy, it is much better to use large blades in A27 order to use all of the wind available.

This gives you the fundamental principles of how electricity is produced from the wind. Today is a fantastic time to do as much A28 research as you can about wind power so you will be able to make educated decisions in the future.

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