Wind Energy is Made by Solar Power
While it may seem like a lot of hot air, one of the most surprising wind energy facts is that all wind energy is ultimately created by the sun. Here’s how it works: the sun heats parts of the Earth at different times and from different angles. Land and water heat up and cool down at different rates.
All these changes in temperature caused by the sun, combined with the chemicals in the atmosphere, create weather – and where there’s weather, there’s wind. The next time you see a windmill spinning, just think: that’s solar power!
Wind Energy Powered Global Travel in 5500 BCE
Looking back at the earliest uses of wind energy, sailboats were one of the first inventions to use wind power to human advantage. While boats had existed for many thousands of years, the first sailboats began to emerge around 5000 or 5500 BCE.
These first sailboats used simple square sails to harness the power of the wind. The boats were used in Mesopotamia near modern day Kuwait. Fun wind energy facts for kids from history show that it was the Vikings who first perfected the art of designing sailboats. Using a sailboat around the year 1000, Leif Erikson traveled to North America, nearly 500 years before Christopher Columbus did the same. Even the colonists coming to America from England used sailboats. Before 1900, wind energy powered the world’s global travel!
Wind Turbines Don’t Actually Have a Turbine in Them
When we look closely at the construction of a wind turbine, we find that it doesn’t actually contain a turbine! A turbine is something that extracts energy from a fluid flow. For instance, a turbine that has water flowing through it and converts it to electricity is a water turbine or hydroelectric generator.
The construction of a wind turbine is like a giant fan; the blades that catch the air are outside of the spinning mechanism. Technically, a wind turbine is an electric generator that is powered by an airfoil. Wind energy facts show that the development of electric generators for wind and water occurred at the same time. The best guess for the etymology of wind turbine is that the word turbine migrated from the hydroelectric generators being generated at the same time.
Considering the wind, or air, moving around the wind turbine acts like the fluid in a typical water, gas, or steam turbine, it’s only a slight difference in definition, but one that will have you well prepared for the next episode of your favorite quiz show!
Wind Energy was used on American Farms in 1940s
With global warming, green energy is becoming a big thing these days. Wind energy is one of the solutions people look to as a technology of the future. The funny thing is, when we look at wind energy facts from the past, we find that farms all across the United States once had windmills generating electricity.
In the 1930s and 1940s, wind turbines on rural farms were common practice before the electrical grid in the United States was expanded. They were primarily used to charge batteries for farm equipment and power some lighting on the farm and in the farmhouse. Like many new green practices, using wind energy is plain old common sense.
Wind Farms Harvest Food and Electricity
Wind farms are collections of wind turbines that generate electricity. The more turbines you have, the more electricity you can generate. The best wind farms serve two purposes: to feed people and to power the electrical lights, machines, and devices that run their lives. Because wind turbines are shaped like large fans on top of columns, typically made of metal, they actually occupy very little space on the ground.
Wind energy facts show that the small footprint of wind turbines is part of what makes wind energy an efficient source of renewable energy – the land can still be used for other purposes. Unlike an offshore wind farm, when a wind farm is set up on land suitable for agricultural purposes, the land can still be farmed. It’s a double bonus to harvest electricity and food from the same area of land!
Wind Turbines Kill 600, 000 Bats per Year
Wind turbines have a lot of advantages compared to other sources of energy. Wind energy is a more renewable and environmentally friendly form of generating electricity compared to other methods such as burning coal.
However, wind energy does have its disadvantages when it comes to the environment. Recently, studies have shown that wind turbines can disturb the echo locating abilities of bats, causing the bats to fly into the wind turbines. The sad result is that wind turbines kill an estimated 600,000 bats each year. The actual numbers could be much higher, and environmental advocates are now advocating against the installation of wind turbines in areas where there is a large bat population.
