Wind Power: Overview

Introduction

The late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries have been a time of rising anxiety about the problem of climate change. There has been widespread recognition that the available supply of fossil fuels in the world is rapidly being depleted and that creative solutions to this energy crisis are needed. In the United States, which uses about one-sixth of the world’s energy and is the world’s largest single producer of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide after China, this anxiety has become particularly keen. Concerns about the environment and about where to find the energy to meet the country’s needs for electricity and fuel have led to an increased interest in alternative energy sources, especially renewable resources that are “clean,” or do not produce pollutants. Wind power is one such alternative energy source.

Wind power is generated using large turbines, or windmills. These are often clustered together in what are known as “wind farms.” The kinetic energy (energy that comes from movement) of the wind can be harnessed by turbines and turned into usable electrical power.

Although wind power seems to represent an important solution to the global climate crisis and the ongoing need for energy, there has been serious debate over whether it is actually feasible on a large enough scale and whether wind turbines cause significant environmental damage, such as endangering migratory species or producing large quantities of waste. Some have also expressed concerns about potential social and health effects.

Understanding the Discussion

Alternative energy: Sources of energy that do not make use of fossil fuels. Alternative energy sources typically do not create environmental pollution or contribute to climate change.

Climate change: The progressive rise in the planet’s average surface temperature, caused by increased emissions of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide, which trap the heat of the sun within the atmosphere; also sometimes called “global warming.”

Distributed: In the context of wind power, refers to turbines that are connected to an isolated or remote electrical grid or microgrid, or connected directly to a facility onsite consumption; distributed installations produce power for various customers, including farm operations, businesses and other institutions, government, homes, and even utilities.

Fossil fuel: A fuel created from dead organic matter by natural processes over millions of years, such as coal, oil, or natural gas. Fossil fuels are finite energy sources because they take so long to be created; once they are used, they cannot be replaced. The burning of fossil fuels produces greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, which contribute to climate change.

Renewable resource: A resource that can be naturally or artificially replenished. Renewable resources include trees and fresh water.

Turbine: A machine that converts the energy of moving wind, water, or steam into mechanical power or electricity. Wind turbines usually have two or three large blades that spin on an axle attached to a tall tower.

History

People have invented devices to capture the power of the wind for millennia, whether for transportation or to power machines such as pumps and grain mills. Wind powered the first sailboats that traveled along the Nile River in ancient Egypt, and simple wind turbines were common in China and the Middle East by about 200 BCE. Beginning in the seventeenth century, the Dutch made widespread use of windmills, relying on them for many tasks, including cutting lumber, grinding flour, and draining water out of lakes and ditches to produce arable farmland. The use of wind power spread throughout Europe and was eventually brought to the Americas.

The first major use of wind power in the United States came in the second half of the nineteenth century, which saw a proliferation of “windmill farms” or “wind farms” around the country. At this time, windmills were mainly used as tools to help farmers pump water into tanks for livestock, but there was also a general recognition that windmills had potential as a source of usable energy for household and business use.

In the 1930s and 1940s, wind turbines that could be used to transform wind energy into electricity began to be produced by the hundreds, bringing electricity to small, isolated farms that were far away from ordinary power lines. However, this use of windmills died out by the 1950s as power grids expanded.

In the 1970s, rising fuel costs contributed to a renewed interest in wind energy as an alternative source of power. A new federal law was passed in 1978 requiring utility companies to purchase the electricity produced by private individuals or companies, and the idea of the wind farm resurfaced in the 1980s. A small number of domestic companies, concentrated in California, began manufacturing modern power-generating wind turbines.

Over the next few decades, the market for wind energy grew, particularly as upfront costs fell. According to the US Geological Survey, between 1980 and 2021, over 67,000 utility-scale wind turbines were installed and began operation at 1,500 land sites across forty-four US states, Puerto Rico, and Guam; between 2005 and 2020, an average of 3,000 such turbines came online each year. There was one commercial offshore wind farm, the five-turbine Block Island Wind Farm in Long Island Sound, which broke ground in 2015 and launched operations in May 2017. The American Clean Power Association (ACP), an industry group, further reported that the cost of installing wind-power facilities declined by 70 percent from 2009 to 2020, and that by the end of 2020, seven state governments had committed to pursuing offshore wind projects.

Distributed wind installations also grew rapidly in the twenty-first century, with over 87,000 wind turbines going into operation across the fifty states, Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands, and Guam, according to the US Department of Energy. Distributed systems accounted for 1.055 gigawatts of installed capacity in 2020.

The federal Renewable Electricity Production Tax Credit (PTC), established in 1992, provides a corporate tax credit for each kilowatt hour of wind power sold to consumers, as well as similar credits for other forms of renewable energy. The program expired at the end of 2013, briefly removing a major incentive for corporations to invest in wind power. The PTC was eventually renewed through the end of 2014 and subsequently extended through 2021, with a phaseout thereafter. Opponents of the PTC maintain that wind power companies should no longer need government support, as the PTC subsidy has existed for decades. Proponents point to the high-paying jobs that wind projects create and the drop-off in new wind farm construction that occurred when the PTC has been allowed to expire as evidence that the industry has an ongoing need for government backing.

Wind Power Today

According to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA), in 2023 the United States received 10.2 percent of its power needs from wind energy. Large-scale wind power projects could be found in forty-two states by 2022, with the states producing the most electricity from wind including Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas, according to the EIA. State governments continued to fund such projects into the 2020s, both onshore and offshore. In early 2024, the first large-scale offshore wind project in the country, Vineyard Wind 1, began delivering 68 megawatts of power to Massachusetts residents.

While attempts to build efficient wind farms have been made all over the country, proposed projects have often led to bitter disputes between wind-farm investors and environmentalists or landowners who oppose the construction. However, public opinion on wind turbine construction has begun to shift among Americans. A poll conducted by the Washington Post in 2023 found that nearly 70 percent of Americans said they would be comfortable living near wind turbines. Nevertheless, as wind-power technology continues to develop and the associated costs continue to drop, the debate over the pros and cons of wind power will undoubtedly continue.

Proponents of wind power—including the US Fish and Wildlife Service, the Department of the Interior, and the American Wind Energy Association (later part of the ACP)—base their support on the easy availability of wind energy in most locations around the country and the fact that wind is a renewable resource. They also argue that a switch to wind energy would eliminate thousands of tons of pollution every year due to the reduction of carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, and nitrogen oxide emissions. In addition, those who support the development of wind power as a major alternative energy source maintain that because the technology for producing turbines already exists, the costs of developing wind farms would be very low compared to the amount of electricity they would generate. Some supporters also point out that wind power creates high-paying jobs in turbine manufacturing, installation, and maintenance, particularly in economically hard-hit, rural areas of the country.

However, critics of wind energy argue that numerous problems make the technology unsuitable for replacing fossil fuels as a source of energy. Opponents claim that it is unreliable, as winds do not always blow fast enough (or at all). Many also argue that wind farms take up too much space, and animal habitats may be disturbed by their construction and operation. Some environmentalists are concerned about the potential dangers posed to wildlife because of the spinning blades of the turbines. Finally, some landowners think that the tall turbines devalue properties or will impair business because they see the structures as noisy, ugly blights on the landscape, while residents near wind farms or proposed sites fear that the vibrations might endanger their health.

These essays and any opinions, information or representations contained therein are the creation of the particular author and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of EBSCO Information Services.

Bibliography

Begley, Sharon. “A Bright Day for Energy.” Newsweek, 27 Dec. 2010, p. 10. Points of View Reference Center. Accessed 21 Oct. 2012.

Chiu, Allyson, et al. "Americans Don't Hate Living Near Solar and Wind Farms as Much as You Might Think." The Washington Post, 3 Oct. 2023, www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2023/10/03/solar-panels-wind-turbines-nimby/. Accessed 27 Mar. 2024.

"Clean Energy Powers America: Annual Market Report 2023." American Clean Power Association, 2023, cleanpower.org/market-report-2023/. Accessed 27 Mar. 2024.

“Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs).” EIA, U.S. Energy Information Administration, www.eia.gov/tools/faqs. Accessed 27 Mar. 2024.‌

Galbraith, Kate. “Lack of Transmission Lines Is Restricting Wind Power.” The New York Times, 21 Jan. 2011, p. 21A. Points of View Reference Center. Accessed 21 Oct. 2012.

Gibbs, Wayt. “Plan B for Energy.” Scientific American, Sept. 2006, pp. 102–14.

Green, Heather, and Mark Scott. “Wind Power’s Gusty Forecast.” Businessweek, Bloomberg, 21 Aug. 2006. Accessed 21 Oct. 2012.

Hiserodt, Ed. “An Ill Wind Blowing?” New American, 8 Nov. 2010, pp. 10–15. Points of View Reference Center. Accessed 21 Oct. 2012.

Jackson, Derrick Z. “Catching a Breeze: America’s Belated Push to Develop Offshore Wind Energy.” American Prospect, vol. 29, no. 2, Spring 2018, p. 30. Points of View Reference Center, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=pwh&AN=129287113&site=pov-live. Accessed 21 Oct. 2012.

“Legislative Background on Wind Energy.” Congressional Digest, vol. 92, no. 2, 2013, p. 12. Points of View Reference Center. Accessed 15 Dec. 2015.

“Many Wind Turbines are Slated to Come Online in the United States in 2019 and 2020.” US Energy Information Administration, 19 Sept. 2019, www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=41373. Accessed 25 Nov. 2019.

Milborrow, David. “WindEconomics: Cost of Wind Continues to Fall.” Windpower Monthly, Haymarket Media Group, 30 Sept. 2014. Accessed 12 Nov. 2014.

Paulson, Amanda. “Why Coal-Rich Wyoming Is Investing Big in Wind Power.” The Christian Science Monitor, 29 Dec. 2017. Points of View Reference Center, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=pwh&AN=127013193&site=pov-live. Accessed 24 Oct. 2018.

Reed, Tom. “Wind Power Tax Credit: A Step Toward an ‘All of the Above’ Energy Plan.” The Hill, vol. 24, no. 23, 15 Mar. 2017, p. 32. Points of View Reference Center, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=pwh&AN=121908464&site=pov-live. Accessed 24 Oct. 2018.

Vance, Erik. “Inherit the Wind.” Discover, 1 Dec. 2010, pp. 52–57. Points of View Reference Center. Accessed 21 Oct. 2012.

Wasser, Miriam. "Vineyard Wind, Country's First Large-Scale Offshore Wind Project, Is Producing Clean Electricity." WBUR, 3 Jan. 2024, www.wbur.org/news/2024/01/03/vineyard-offshore-wind-massachusetts-first-power-clean-energy. Accessed 27 Mar. 2024.

“Wind Energy.” USGS, 12 Dec. 2018, www.usgs.gov/energy-and-minerals/energy-resources-program/science/wind-energy. Accessed 27 Mar. 2024. ‌

“Wind Energy Overview: Wind Power Generation, Resources, and Environmental and Cost Issues.” Congressional Digest, vol. 92, no. 2, 2013, pp. 2–32.