Wind is extremely energetic, since the force of nature is created by air traveling at significant velocities. As an illustration, all the wind in the United States can generate one and a half times the United States' electricity consumption. This potential ignited a huge desire for the world to use wind power, but wind power may be limited by the supply of turbines that are needed to harness the wind's kinetic energy. In fact, according to General Electric, there is a $12 billion backlog on wind turbines. With this enormous demand, though, the world may become too dependent on wind power, and winds can be highly variable, becoming more or less energetic. Less energetic winds, in particular, are harmful for a world dependent on wind power, as wind turbines then harvest less power, which may devastate cities that rely on the power source. Also, wind turbines may be unstable if they malfunction, as evidenced by the attached video on the bottom.
Wind turbines, even if they operate without errors or decreases in energy production, may impact the environment, not through greenhouse gases, but through the deaths of birds and bats. At the Altamont Pass Wind Area, the oldest commercial wind farm in America, an estimated ten thousand birds are killed every year, and, annually, one hundred thousand birds are believed to be killed by wind turbines nationwide. Most of these deaths, though, occur in three Californian wind farms, in which the turbines were constructed in the early 1980's, implying that new technology may not be as dangerous to birds. Also, the number of birds killed at wind farms is relatively small compared to the millions of birds killed in collisions with human creations, like cars and windows. Bats, however, are not normally killed at any human structures, but at the Mountaineer Wind Energy Center, hundreds of bats died in one night. Scientists cannot provide data on the number of bats killed at wind farms every year, but some estimates report that, at wind farms, three to five bats are killed for every bird that is killed. Scientists are still researching a solution to this problem, but the Bats and Wind Energy Cooperative has begun testing the effect of stopping wind turbines during periods of low wind velocities on bat deaths, in effect taking advantage of a drawback of wind power to negate a much larger drawback. This strategy may help make wind power a staple renewable energy source in the future, but further development should be stalled until scientists eliminate the effects wind turbines have on bat and bird populations.
P.S.: Here is the video I mentioned earlier.
