Lots of advantages to wind turbines.  BLDW is in

Lots of advantages to wind turbines.  BLDW is in the correct sector.  This is a list of advantages of Wind Energy from : http://www.windustry.org/

Wind turbines of all sizes have become a familiar sight around the world for a wide variety of reasons, including their economic, environmental, and social benefits. The potential for wind energy is immense, and experts suggest wind power can supply more than 20% of U.S. and world electricity. Nevertheless, the United States currently produces less than 4% of our electricity from wind. The advantages and disadvantages of wind energy are detailed here to help you decide what the future of wind should be in the United States.

Economic Advantages

• Revitalizes Rural Economies: Wind energy can diversify the economies of rural communities, adding to the tax base and providing new types of income. Wind turbines can add a new source of property taxes in rural areas that otherwise have a hard time attracting new industry. Each 100 MW of wind development in southwest Minnesota has generated about $1 million per year in property tax revenue and about $250,000 per year in direct lease payments to landowners.

• Fewer subsidies: All energy systems are subsidized, and wind is no exception. However, wind receives considerably less than other forms of energy. According to Renewable Energy World magazine, conventional energy recieves US$300 billion in subsidies per year, while renewable energy has received less than US$20 billion of tax-payers money in the last 30 years.

• Free Fuel: Unlike other forms of electrical generation where fuel is shipped to a processing plant, wind energy generates electricity at the source of fuel. Wind is a native fuel that does not need to be mined or transported, taking two expensive aspects out of long-term energy costs.

• Price Stability: The price of electricity from fossil fuels and nuclear power can fluctuate greatly due to highly variable mining and transportation costs. Wind can help buffer these costs because the price of fuel is fixed and free.

• Promotes Cost-Effective Energy Production: The cost of wind-generated electricity has fallen from nearly 40¢ per kWh in the early 1980s to 2.5-5¢ per kWh today depending on wind speed and project size.

• Creates Jobs: Wind energy projects create new short and long term jobs. Related employment ranges from meteorologists and surveyors to structural engineers, assembly workers, lawyers, bankers, and technicians. Wind energy creates 30% more jobs than a coal plant and 66% more than a nuclear power plant per unit of energy generated.

Social Advantages

• National Security/Energy Independence: Wind turbines diversify our energy portfolio and reduce our dependence on foreign fossil fuel. Wind energy is homegrown electricity, and can help control spikes in fossil fuel cost. Distributed generation facilities, like many community wind projects, provide a safeguard against potential terrorist threats to power plants.

• Supports Agriculture: It is not often a new crop emerges from thin air. Wind turbines can be installed amid cropland without interfering with people, livestock, or production.

• Local Ownership: A significant contribution to the worldwide energy mix can be made by small clusters of turbines or even single turbines, operated by local landowners and small businesses. Developing local sources of electricity means we import less fuel from other states, regions, and nations. It also means our energy dollars are plowed back into the local economy.

Environmental Advantages

• Clean Water: Turbines produce no particulate emissions that contribute to mercury contamination in our lakes and streams. Wind energy also conserves water resources. For example, producing the same amount of electricity can take about 600 times more water with nuclear power than wind, and about 500 times more water with coal than wind.

• Clean Air: Other sources of electricity produce harmful particulate emissions which contribute to global climate change and acid rain. Wind energy is pollution free.

• Mining & Transportation: Harvesting the wind preserves our resources because there no need for destructive resource mining or fuel transportation to a processing facility.

• Land Preservation: Wind farms are spaced over a large geographic area, but their actual "footprint" covers only a small portion of the land resulting in a minimum impact on crop production or livestock grazing. Large buildings cannot be built near the turbine, thus wind farms preserve open space.

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