What is wind energy? Encyclopedia of radio electronics and electrical engineering

Encyclopedia of radio electronics and electrical engineering / Alternative energy sources

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The main indicator of wind strength is its speed. The speed of the air flow is determined by the distance (in meters) that the air travels per unit of time (second). The wind is said to have a speed of, for example, 7 meters per second. The higher the wind speed, the greater its strength.

To determine wind speed, there are special instruments - wind meters. One of such devices is the Wild weather vane (Fig. 14).

Fig.14. Weather vane Wilda

Wind speed can be determined without instruments - by observing the flight of light objects, such as a small piece of paper, in the wind. Such an object thrown into an air flow moves in it at approximately the same speed as the wind.

Depending on its speed, it is also customary to express the strength of the wind in special units - points.

There is a generally accepted scale of winds. There she is:

A wind of force five (9-10 meters per second) presses on the surface of bodies with a force of about 10 kilograms per square meter of area. A wind blowing at a speed of 20 meters per second produces a pressure on opposing bodies that is already approximately 50 kilograms per square meter of surface. Hurricanes, whose speed reaches 50-60 meters, exert a pressure of 200 or more kilograms per square meter!

Such is the power of the wind.

To imagine this force, it is enough to remember the destruction that hurricane winds sometimes cause.

In 1860, a storm swept over France; the wind was so strong that it knocked two trains off the rails!

The hurricane of 1703 in England and France uprooted, broke and scattered about 250 thousand trees over vast distances, destroyed about a thousand houses and churches, crashed 400 ships onto the shore, and killed several thousand people.

Tropical cyclones cause enormous destruction. In 1780, the so-called "great hurricane" devastated the Antilles. Many cities were completely destroyed by this hurricane. The wind was removing grass from the ground and uprooting centuries-old trees! More than forty military ships sank at sea.

Fig. 15. The local wind “sarma” blowing on Lake Baikal, suddenly blowing, throws huge stones into the water

In the oceans, such a wind raises waves ten to fifteen meters high. Falling onto the sloping shore, they wash away entire villages into the sea!

The sea surf annually destroys dozens of cubic kilometers of coastline. This is not surprising - after all, sea waves raised by the wind hit the shore with a force of tens of tons per square meter!

All these examples indicate that wind energy, or, as it is figuratively called, “blue coal” energy, is enormous.

Academician P.P. Lazarev calculated that the energy of coal burned annually all over the world is 3000 times less than the energy that the wind can give us in the same time.

Fig.16. Sea waves, raised by the wind, severely destroy the seashore

It is known that stronger winds are observed on sea coasts. Average annual air flow speeds here reach 6-8 meters per second. Such winds blow, for example, on the Caspian coast, on the shores of the Arctic Ocean, on the shores of the Baltic Sea. If we could fully utilize the wind energy of these areas, then on every square kilometer of the earth's surface we would receive up to a million kilowatt-hours of electrical energy within a year!

So great is the power of the wind.

Reserves of “blue coal” in nature are inexhaustible. After all, movement in the atmosphere occurs, as we have already said, due to the energy of solar rays.

It is tempting to think about using the energy of air currents. Its advantages are obvious - wind energy is enormous, it is available everywhere, it does not need to be extracted, like coal, from mines.

Author: Karmishin A.V.

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