Wind Energy as a Replacement for Fossil Fuels

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The Issue Energy is an integral part of our daily lives. While organisms get energy to move from food, non-living appliances such as phones, lights, cars etc. get their energy from other renewable or non-renewable sources. The majority of energy consumed comes from non-renewable energy sources: fossil fuels (oil, gas and coal) and nuclear energy. In the past few decades, the issue of a potential “energy crisis” has arisen. Since people nowadays use such large amounts of fossil fuels, they will run out in the near future. Out of the three fossil fuels, oil and gas are the most widely used. It is predicted that, without taking into account the new reserves that could become accessible with the advancement of technology, oil and gas reserves on earth will run out in 40 and 70 years respectively. This shortage of fossil fuels will cause a crisis because our society is extremely dependent on fossil fuels—85% of our energy comes from burning them. However, fossil fuels could be replaced by other energy sources, but many are skeptical about the feasibility of this. The reasoning behind this belief is not a shortage of energy on Earth. Rather, the problem is that the amount of energy that can be captured in usable form can’t keep up with our demand. In addition to this, global energy usage has been increasing due to rapid population growth. Earth’s population has more than doubled in the past 50 years. Also, the advancement of technology has led to its more widespread use in our daily lives, so a lot of energy is consumed that way. Lastly, conflicts could restrict access to areas with plentiful reserves of fossil fuels. The impending shortage of fossil fuels has lead people to consider using other sources of energy that could fully o... ... middle of paper ... ...re built, they are inexpensive to maintain (Gibilisco 208). However, wind power is still limited in that it is still relatively expensive to build, despite reductions in cost due to technological advances. It costs about three times more than conventional fossil fuels do per unit of energy. In addition to this, since most areas with sufficient winds to power wind farms are far from major cities, the electricity generated by them have to be transported a long way, which is expensive as well. In addition to this, the wind is intermittent so it cannot constantly generate electricity. This intermittency makes wind energy less cost efficient. It also means that wind power cannot be relied upon to provide a constant source of energy, so it needs to be coupled with an energy storage system or a backup generator (Ghandakly), which adds to the cost of using wind power.

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