Contents
Introduction
Wind Characteristics – Resource Availability, Adaptability, Safety, Security, Social Acceptance, Regulation, Policy Adherence
Concluding Remarks
Bitesize Edition
Wind strengths and velocities vary around the world. Open plains, coastal regions, and mountainous areas can allow wind to build up to higher speeds. Considerations such as this can allow wind power to be a vital piece of the puzzle.
Alone, wind power struggles to adapt during periods of low wind, but even this is improving over time. There are risks of course, with wind turbines killing flying animals, but not as often as fossil fuel projects do. There are also security risks, especially if we’re heading towards smart grids and supply-side or demand-side management systems. Cyber attacks on energy infrastructure are attacks on our necessities, that could well be weaponised over the coming years in this period of rising geopolitical tension.
To limit this, we need a diversified energy production system. Thankfully, domestic policy is providing huge amounts of funding for this in a variety of developed countries. However, this transition will occur at different speeds for different countries. Those less developed states will take any baseload power they can access. It’s unlikely this hunt for reliable baseload power will see developing countries cast aside fossil fuels. The transition will be long and arduous. It seems that wind power will be an important piece of this puzzle. Let's explore why.
Introduction
The final part of my wind masterclass is upon us. I’ll close my analysis of the characteristics of wind power by exploring resource availability, adaptability, safety, security, social acceptance, regulation, and policy adherence. For the previous two parts:
Part 1: https://geopoliticsreport.substack.com/p/the-characteristics-of-wind-power
Part 2: https://geopoliticsreport.substack.com/p/wind-masterclass-part-2
Wind Characteristics
Resource Availability – How can we determine where the windiest areas on the planet are that will be best suited to wind power? Coastal areas, mountainous regions, and open plains can allow winds to build up to higher speeds. Local terrain can even create microclimates that demonstrate different wind characteristics that can be favourable for power production. Offshore winds are also typically stronger than those onshore due to a lack of obstructions on the open seas.
Wind speed, direction, consistency, and air density are vital characteristics of wind power production. However, as wind turbine technology improves, the turbines can harness wind energy at lower wind speeds.
Much of this exploration into resource availability must occur at the planning stage for a site. We have to be aware of our environment, and we need to utilise energy production methods that best suit that environment. If you lived somewhere that had a large glass dome placed over it, you wouldn’t build wind turbines. Yes, I’m thinking of the Simpsons Movie.
Finally, to couple with turbines harnessing wind energy at lower wind speeds, as smart grids are implemented, hopefully over the coming decades, there will be improvements in efficiency during transmission.
Adaptability – If the wind isn’t blowing, there’s little that can be done by wind turbines alone. Storage potential isn’t what it should be and so can’t help as much as needed at saving excesses produced during high production periods. As part of a diversified energy production portfolio, wind certainly has its place. Individually, it has very little adaptability; a slave to the reliability of the wind.
Outside of the animal world, there are deaths caused by the development of wind farms, but fewer once they’re in operation. Wind turbines are typically placed in rural areas. If a wind turbine falls in a field and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?
Wind turbines are made to withstand extreme weather conditions, such as strong winds and storms. These are often to adhere to safety standards and regulations. Safety also needs to be considered for various stakeholders, including workers, and the public. This could include fire risks, which is another rare occurrence in the wind power industry, but that has happened before.
Security – Have you ever seen anybody steal a wind turbine? Likely not, because they’re huge. If anybody was feeling brave enough to commit to such a daring heist, perimeter fencing, security cameras, and patrols can limit the likelihood of this unlikely scenario.
Has anybody ever cyber-attacked a wind turbine? According to a research piece by Harm van den Brink, it occurred in March 2022 when a wind farm operator was hacked. They lost contact with 5800 wind turbines. We can limit the chances of this with encryption and intrusion detection systems. These tools to limit the capabilities of malicious actors will only become more important as we digitize our transmission grids.
Rather than considering the protection of wind turbine infrastructure, wind turbines help diversify the energy security of a state, making it a vital piece of the jigsaw of energy production, as all methods are. Countries need to be clever with a mix of intermittent and baseload sources and invest more in sources suited to their environment and geography. In the age of slowing globalisation, countries with greater energy independence can better navigate the storm. Other issues that relate to slowing globalisation include where we source our energy from. Sourcing wind from other countries firstly isn’t possible. Secondly, I believe many nations are now recognising it shouldn’t be necessary if nations are utilising their environments as efficiently as possible by building suitable energy production projects. This doesn’t mean no imports. For some nations, their geography, environment, and current energy production infrastructure make this impossible. But the fact many nations are now aware of it is a telling trend.
When it comes to wind turbines, there are parts that need to be built, such as the rotors and main towers. Securing or diversifying the supply chains for these parts with multiple trading partners, or domestic manufacturing capabilities will ensure those pursuing wind projects aren’t left behind.
This could be weaponised by some nations. If you control the materials that will be essential in the clean energy transition, then you control the prices of the clean energy transition for other nations. In this scenario, everyone will be forced to deal with the nation controlling the key materials for the energy transition. Take the United States and China. They were relying too heavily on each other for trade in general. Now we find ourselves in a trade war, and both nations are focusing on reshoring.
Social Acceptance – The opinions of wind turbines on a local level can differ. Some support their implementation due to the economic benefits provided through job creation, use of land, and infrastructure investment. Of course, we know people love wind turbines when the focus is primarily on the cleaner environment provided. However, wind turbines can have negative visual impacts. A wind turbine thrown smack-bang in the middle of a beautiful natural landscape can be somewhat of an annoyance. Some do think wind turbines have an aesthetically pleasing design, so it comes down to personal preferences. It again made clear how important it is to include the local community in the planning of wind turbine farms, with transparent communication necessary at every stage to best please the interests and priorities of those affected locally by the building of wind turbines.
Regulation – As a key part of cleaning up our energy production, wind turbines have been given funding as part of many high-profile policies and regulations. Take the United States, for example, and since Biden took office, more than $180B has been invested in clean energy manufacturing projects. The Inflation Reduction Act saw a large uptick in this, with the Department of Energy Loans Program Office provided with $40B in loan authority for clean energy projects by the government, as well as carbon capture, nuclear, and critical minerals projects. Offshore wind through the Grid Deployment Office also received $100M to aid in planning, modelling, and analysing electricity transmission from offshore wind projects. The UK’s Energy Act 2023 will include £100B in private investment in energy infrastructure, which includes a smart grid and implementation of low-carbon heat pumps. Being surrounded by water, the act also includes the UK’s pursuit of offshore wind projects. Many nations are in pursuit of targets set for 2050, such as the EU Energy Roadmap 2050, or even before in sectors that produce polluting gases, such as energy production and transportation. Many pieces of regulation produced often support these goals. Whether that makes them realistic to achieve is a question for another day.
Policy Adherence – Many policies are supportive of wind power as a clean, renewable energy source. Renewable energy targets and carbon reduction targets pave the way for new clean energy projects to continue. However, costs and the still record-setting use of fossil fuels in 2023 imply if we wanted a cleaner world by 2050, we should have started decades ago. We can’t make this transition overnight. Energy is the key piece of human innovation and societal advancement. Any disruption slows human advancement. We cannot decouple from fossil fuels overnight.
Also, nations that haven’t yet undergone industrialisation or whose population experiences a low quality of life are going to take any method of production they can find, regardless of how clean it is. Hence why the clean energy transition has to consider the nations left behind, especially if developed countries want to clean up the entire world. Some can’t afford this and will take the cheapest and easiest methods possible with baseload power capacity. This won’t be wind and solar if developing nations want reliability with their electricity generation. Developed nations, if they want to achieve a clean transition by 2050, will likely need to aid this in developing or underdeveloped nations.
Concluding Remarks
Thanks for following me on my deep dive into wind energy.
There is still more exploration of renewable energy to be done. I’ll go through this same process for solar, before exploring the mathematics behind these methods of producing electrical energy. Are they as cheap as is told? Look out for this over the coming weeks.
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Sources
https://climate.mit.edu/ask-mit/do-wind-turbines-kill-birds
https://harmvandenbrink.medium.com/hacking-wind-turbines-explained-230997db62f6#:~:text=In%20March%202022%20an%20operator,and%20it%20caused%20some%20issues.
https://www.energy.gov/eere/articles/inflation-reduction-act-spurs-breakthrough-domestic-wind-production#:~:text=The%20IRA%20features%20an%20Advanced,battery%20components%E2%80%94and%20critical%20minerals.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Inflation-Reduction-Act-Guidebook.pdf
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-laws-passed-to-bolster-energy-security-and-deliver-net-zero
http://www.roadmap2050.eu/
https://chat.openai.com/