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Wind power is the most promising source of renewable energy and can significantly reduce global CO2 emissions.
According to a recent report ( "Wind Power key to fight climate change", issued in September 2006) by the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC, the global forum for the wind energy sector,
uniting the wind
industry and its representative associations) and Greenpeace International, wind power could supply 34% of the world's electricity by 2050 and 16,5% by 2020.
Most important, wind power would save 1.5 billion tonnes of CO2 emissions in 2020.
Moreover, the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) says wind energy is a better investment since reserves are unlimited,
can be produced locally and are pollution-free.
"Wind energy is the most attractive solution to the world's energy challenge. It is clean and fuel-free. Moreover, wind
is indigenous and enough wind blows across the globe
to cope with the ever increasing electricity demand. This report demonstrates that wind
energy is not a dream for the future- it is real, it is mature, and can be deployed on a large scale,"
according to Arthouros Zervos, GWEC's chairman. "The political choices of the coming years will determine
the world's environmental and economic situation for many decades to come".
The environmental impact of wind farms.
Wind farms have been often criticized due to their noise, to the visual impact on landscape and for killing birds.
The problem of noise seems now solved due the more recent, "almost silent" power generators.
The offshore wind farms are a partial solution to the first two problems, too.
According to WWF :"Even though the construction and operation of wind turbines does have an impact on the natural
environment - for instance through its visual impact, or some bird kill by turning rotors - WWF argues that these impacts need
to be seen in the context of the massive environmental damage caused by the use of conventional energy sources."
"Throughout its service life, a single 1.5 MW wind turbine can save about 80,000 tonnes of brown coal. That corresponds to 2,000 40-tonne trucks,
or to a coal pile covering a football pitch and rising almost as high as the wind turbine."
According to Friend of Earth, another environmental activist group, "when properly sited, wind turbines present no more of a danger to birds than other structures such as pylons or roads."