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There is enough wind for energy for everyone

09.06.2005

If humanity wanted to satisfy its needs for electricity only at the expense of wind, an area equal to Saudi Arabia would have to be occupied by wind power generators, and electricity would have doubled in price.

This is the result of a study conducted by employees of the University of Utrecht (Holland). They divided the entire land area, except for mountains, densely built-up areas and nature reserves, into 66 sites and assessed the wind energy potential of each. At the same time, it is assumed that it is economical to use the wind if its average speed in this particular section exceeds 4 meters per second.

It turned out that 20% of the land area has such an average annual wind speed. If we use all this potential, we would receive annually 96 petawatt-hours of electricity, which is six times more than the world's consumption in 2001. But at the same time, electricity would have risen in price by 26 times.

However, if we limit ourselves to the level of 2001 and install four windmills with a capacity of one megawatt per square kilometer (the actual density of deployment at some wind farms is now four times higher), then only 2,4 million square kilometers will be needed to satisfy all needs, and the price energy will only double.

In most parts of the world, there is more than enough wind to meet all energy needs. So, in the territory of the former USSR, wind energy is 12 times more than necessary, in Western Europe - twice, in the USA - five times, and in East Africa - 358 times.

Unfortunately, in a densely populated region like Southeast Asia, the wind tends to be very weak. And, in general, it is impossible to completely rely only on the wind - this element is very changeable, and in order to equalize supply and demand in different areas, it would be necessary to create a single world power transmission system.

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