Use Of Wind Energy In Australia

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Despite Australia’s extensive coal reserves, the country faces a future without it. An alternative source of energy to generate electricity needs to meet a number of criteria: it has to be renewable and safe for the environment, the resources have to be readily available throughout Australia, the science and technology of it must be understood and already in use, and the extent of the capital investment required to set it up must be achievable. Against these criteria, I believe that wind power offers the most promise as a future alternative.

In the production of wind power, kinetic energy is converted into electricity. This starts with a wind turbine. The turbine usually has three large propellers and is attached to a generator. Wind thrusts the propellers in a spinning motion, turning the shaft. In turn, the generator is spun and kinetic energy is produced. This is transformed into electricity by magnets that flow past the stator, which is a coil of wire that transfigures the magnetic field to electricity. This process creates AC (alternating current) electricity. The electricity generated moves to a transmission station to get converted to a voltage within 155,000 and 765,000V. It then travels through a transmission grid (also known as an electricity grid), along power lines connecting the original power plant to homes and other areas requiring electricity. This process repeats, kinetic energy being converted into electricity over and over again.

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Wind energy is the only viable energy source for our country to rely on. Hydropower, Solar Photovoltaics and Nuclear are all out of the question.

Firstly, nuclear energy would make us a target to terrorists. If a nuclear power plant was bombed, the debris and fallout could cause radioactive contamination and possibly radiation poisoning to a huge area around the plant. This risk is simply too great to take.

According to Conserve Energy Future, the power reservoirs in dams (hydropower) release carbon dioxide and methane. Also, the dams interrupt water flow, not allowing the marine life that migrate (to areas of more food) to do so. Ultimately, this can harm marine life and interrupt the natural processes the fish follow. Moreover, lower areas are vulnerable to flooding in the case that the river overflows or is somehow released.

As for solar power, the biggest issue is the intermittency. It is difficult to gather energy on cloudy, overcast days. It’s particularly impractical as some of the cloudiest areas in Australia are capital cities (commonly the largest consumers of electricity) like Melbourne, Hobart and Sydney. Energy Informative writes that the manufacturing process is associated with pollution, which is what we’re trying to avoid! Clearly, wind energy is the only practical option.

Wind power has its strengths, but also, like anything, limitations. It is renewable and doesn’t pollute the air or environment, which makes it much safer for humans than coal (it is commonly known that coal is the main cause of global warming and is therefore unsafe). However, the most prominent limitation is the damage to bird population. According to Julia Layton on HowStuffWorks, 10,000 to 40,000 birds are killed by flying into wind turbines every year. Some would argue, however, that compared to other unnatural causes of death in birds, wind turbines have very little impact on their population. In her article, Layton presented this by comparing these deaths to other causes using this graph:

This shows that the benefits outweigh the downfalls.

In Australia, we have the resources to support wind energy. We have around 36 functional wind farms in Australia that are over 50MW and 94 including the smaller ones. All up, we produce 5,679MW of power from wind farms. Wind energy makes up 33.5 percent of our clean energy and 7.1 percent of all energy produced in Australia. According to Geoscience Australia, we have good resources for wind energy; some of the best in the world. They also say that the places of our strongest potential for wind energy are coastal regions like Cape Leeuwin, Shark bay, Western Victoria and the Eyre Peninsula. These areas contain wind speeds above 7.5 metres per second, which makes them ideal spots for wind farming. The National Geographic states that by 2050, one third of the world’s electricity will be provided by wind energy.

Wind power is used in many different countries around the globe. According to the ABC, as of 2015 there were approximately 225,000 wind turbines functioning on the planet, producing 4 percent of our overall electricity. The first ever modern wind farm was established in 1981 (that’s 38 years ago), comprising of three windmills. These were not unlike the ones we use today.

Since then, windmills have been adapted to become more efficient. Larger rotors and taller towers lower the cost and increase efficiency. According to the Parliament of Australia, from 1993 to 2008 the cost of wind power had halved and by 2020 may lower to $40-45 per MWh. These declining costs make it more convenient for the government to begin to support wind energy.

The investment of the government in wind energy would be minimal long-term. Wind power is getting cheaper and cheaper over the years. According to David Clarke, writing in The Conversation, new wind farms only require $80-90 AUD dollars per megawatt hour. While it is still more expensive than coal (which he believes to be about $40 per MWh), the price will decrease and the cost of spending more money on power will be worth it when electricity is plentiful and safe for the environment (unlike coal).

In conclusion, wind energy is our most promising candidate for a coal-free future. It is relatively safe for the environment, well understood through many countries already relying on it, we have the resources necessary to produce it abundantly, and the cost of sustaining it is lowering over the years. It is becoming increasingly clear that the use of coal for power is simply no longer good enough. It is becoming increasingly clear that the use of coal for power is simply no longer good enough. The concept is outdated, the process is destroying our planet, and coal isn’t renewable and is in limited supply. We have to act; coal isn’t working anymore.

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