What is wind energy and how does it work?
For many, many years, people have harnessed the wind to use as an energy source.
As long as the wind continues to blow, we can harness it’s power for almost anything, including using wind energy for our homes.
Over 5,000 years ago the Egyptians used the wind to sail their ships down the Nile River.
Years later, someone invented the windmill to create an energy source, and harnessed it for many uses, mostly to pump water and to grind grains… but then it was used for many other things as time went on. Now we can simply harness the wind to create power to run all our gadgets and gizmos that we want!
Wind Mill Energy
Wind mill energy is said to have first been used in Persia (Iran) and then later the Dutch in Holland who are famous for their windmills improved the basic design of the windmill. The early Americans used windmills to do a lot of things. The Amish use wind energy to this day for more things than you can imagine, from grinding wheat and grain, to pumping water, powering sawmills to cut lumber….
“What is wind energy” is something you may want to ask an Amish person the next time you see them and you might get an interesting answer as they have used it almost as long as we have used electricity so they might simply say something like, “uh…it runs our stuff! =)”
Visit Alternative Energy Geek here for a bunch of interesting alternative energy tips and resources as well!
So… How Does it Work…?
Most of the wind energy systems today are what are called wind turbines. The size can vary a lot but basically in plain and simple english which is my kind of
language anyways!… the blades on the wind turbines collect the wind’s energy.
The windmill or turbine blades collect the wind’s kinetic energy and slow down the speed of the wind. As the wind flows over the blades, which are shaped just right, it causes a lifting effect similar to the effect of wind on an airplane wing.
This causes the blades to turn, which then turns the drive shaft which is connected to a generator below, which is where the electricity is produced.
Wind Energy as Electricity Back Up Power
When power lines began criss-crossing the US, many windmills were put to rest although there were quite a few rural folks that used them to generate electricity until the late 1920’s.
But then the oil industry and rising costs of fuel energy has changed the pendulum once again and more and more folks are looking at both wind and solar energy as alternative energy systems.
Should I Use Wind or Solar Panels?
It depends a lot on where you live. In some areas where the sun doesn’t shine as much but you have more wind, it is more practical to build a windmill than to build solar panels.In many cases it is really good to have both as that way you can take advantage of both the sun and the wind as alternative energy resources.