EXXON ENERGY

Wind farms are a great way to capture wind energy as evidenced by the recent increases in wind turbine farm installations. Based on raw output, however, wind turbine systems do not compete well with our modern combustion based energy stations. Combustion fuels have high energy density at low cost and in most cases outperform the cost of installing and maintaining wind power.

This fact is not as bad as it might seem initially. The truth of the matter is we take for granted all the things in life provided by a solid industrial base. An industrial base including mining, timber, metallurgy and manufacturing of farm equipment to harvest our food supply. This base of heavy industry needs reliable electricity in very big amounts.

Let’s face it, when it comes to smelting ores, machining metals, and forging steel (just to name a few), these types of operations take a whole lot of juice. Such a large and varied industrial infrastructure, then, is difficult to power on wind power or alternative energy systems alone. The driving energy and motive requirements for processing is too great.

This does not mean that wind turbine systems are undesirable, however. They are an age-old, tried and true, and elegantly simple piece of machinery that taps an energy source that is free.

Wind turbines are great for supplying residential power and for smaller industrial applications.

To illustrate, a commercial size power plant capable of 500 MegaWatt output will fit in the area of 1/4 square mile without challenge. As a comparision consider a wind farm of equivalent output. At 2 MegaWatts per wind turbine, then over 250 wind turbines would have to be put in place. Think about the amount of space this would require!

Keep in mind, also, that a steady supply of Wind is required which is not always the case.

Clearly, in locations that make sense wind power solutions should be part of our energy portfolio. But we must not abandon the advantages of our modern combustion technologies; their efficiencies and cleanliness are much better than days before, and combustion is the most potent way to meet the high energy demands of our industrial base.