Wind energy could provide 20-100 times current global power demand, according to a study published this week in Nature Climate Change. Other studies have shown similar results, but they do not mean that wind power is all we will ever need, says Ken Caldeira of Stanford University's Carnegie Institution, and co-author of the new study."We're always going to need a variety of energy sources," Caldeira told the Guardian.
Nor does it mean installing enough wind turbines to power the world is practical or even feasible. There are significant technical and resource problems to overcome, not least of which is finding the money to construct millions of turbines, he acknowledged.
"It's a huge scale-up … but not unimaginable. The reality is this is what the global energy generation is right now."
And right now humanity uses about 18 terawatts of power, 87% of which is from coal, oil, and gas. Only about 0.2 terawatts comes from wind. (A terawatt is a trillion watts. A thousand watts or kilowatt is roughly the heat output from the average electric kettle.) Caldeira and colleagues calculated there is a potential of 400 terawatts of wind power at the Earth's surface and 1,800 terawatts of power from the upper atmosphere. The latter would be generated by tethered turbines floating hundreds or thousands of metres in the air where the winds are stronger and more consistent.
09/12/2012
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