Quote:
Originally Posted by zach  Wind
Con: Noise
Con: Bird Hazard
Pro: Generates day or night as long as the wind is blowing. |
The most frequently cited objections to wind turbines seems to be noise and the potential impacts on birds. But other issues have included aesthetics (their perceived intrusiveness on the landscape) as well as "shadow flicker" which was raised in
this video
However, the main issue that restricts the use of wind energy (using existing methods of harvesting) are its relatively low efficiency and more important - the unreliable nature of the resource. Unlike tide energy (which can be predicted accurately) wind is extremely intermittent and shows considerable variability in wind speed, intensity, duration (and even wind direction).
The intermittency of the wind is what rules out many locations from having wind turbines, and even where the (measured) wind patterns demonstrate its feasibility, there will always be "down time" when the wind is insufficient (and these are difficult if not impossible to accurately predict).
As a result of its intermittent poorly predictable nature, wind can make a useful contribution as a supplementary electricity source, but using the current turbine designs, it remains unlikely that it could ever be dominant. These problems of intermittency are less likely for wind farms in offshore locations, since the lower friction associated with the sea surface (in comparison to wind blowing over the land surface) results in less problems with source variability; however, the installation and maintenance costs are higher for the offshore windfarms, and they are likely to be located further away from existing electricity grids.
Notwithstanding these factors, there is ongoing research into alleviating some of the problems of wind power including
noise and
voltage dips
Further to this, for smaller scale production, there have been some research developments in "non-turbine" wind generation. It remains to be seen how these perform in relation to efficiency / intermittency...
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Non-Turbine Wind Generator | Green Tech Gazette
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Vaneless ion wind generator - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 
