Wind power is proving to be one of the more controversial subjects impacting the environment today. It is one of the newer forms of power that is developing, but with is has come so many mixed opinions. What some believe to be a good thing about wind turbines others despise. In the future, is our earth going to be covered in these tall, white structures or are we going to watch them entirely fade away?

Wind power is renewable and clean. Where there is wind there is always an opportunity for wind power. It is not something that we will run out of, which makes it a very positive attribute as we continue to run out of fossil fuels. Wind mills are also clean. They do not omit pollutants into our air and do not contribute in any way to global warming and the destruction of our ozone. Another big advantage over fossil fuel is the lack of dependence from other countries. The resources need to operate them and the material needed to construct can all be found within the United States. One of the less well known but still positive feature that comes from wind power is the jobs it provides. Workers are needed in factories to manufacture the parts, people are hired to get them to their desired locations, and construction workers are needed to perform all the necessary tasks in building them on the site. Although there are few maintenance jobs needed, this should not be considered a bad thing. Once they are up there are few worries about needing to fix them or make changes to them, they are mostly self-operating.

While some would argue that the land occupied by turbines is useless, only about 5% of the land is actually consumed by them. The rest of the land can be used for farming and ranching with little interruption from the wind mill structures. Some will try and convince you that turbines are loud. Not all produce the same amount of noise, but for the most part they are relatively quiet. Most aren’t louder than similar nighttime noises like traffic passing by, fans running in your house, or the conversation of others around you. Many who drive to turbines to take a closer look at them, can’t even hear them until their car engine is turned off. The cost of wind turbines may be considered high by some, but as the price of fossil fuels continues to rise, it becomes less of an issue. The wind turbines usually pay themselves off by the 10 year mark and last around 20-30 years, which means that electrical companies receive pure profit for about 10-15 years. Lastly, it only takes a 3-5 mph wind for the turbines to run which means that about 98% of the time they are producing power.

There are groups of people who view wind power and wind turbines as having only a negative impact to their surroundings. Wind mills can’t be place just anywhere, they must be in a prime location for wind. Not only do they have to be located in a windy spot, they must also be convenient to transmission lines and substations. If they aren’t they can still be constructed, but it is costly to build extra transmission lines, with a sole purpose of transporting the power from the wind farms. Wind mills can also be dangerous to protected birds, like the golden eagle which flies at a common wind turbine height and finds itself extremely vulnerable to the blades. However, data shows, with few exceptions, that each turbine strikes a bird on average only every 8-15 years.

Wind turbines catching on fire, as seen here, is a very rare occurance.
Picture provided by http://www.burnham-on-sea.com

The major issue to wind turbines that gives so many a reason to dislike them, are their looks. Some find them just plainly hideous. They think that they ruin the architecture of their town. People who have summer homes in rural locations, where the wind turbines are, try and escape the city life to these summer homes and find that these structures take away from the country scene they so much enjoy. On the other hand some love how they look and think they add to their town. Farmers like the wind power claiming that it “contributes to their rural subsistence.”

Looks aside, wind turbines are for the most case a positive thing. Even though it is hard to change someone’s personal opinion of the wind mill’s looks, there are steps that can be taken to persuade people to accept them. Wind turbines only take a day to erect, this does not mean that people should become aware of the new structures overnight when they all of a sudden appear. Wind turbines should be discussed prior to their construction among the community. This does not include only those willing to attend town meeting and those with only strong, radical opinions, but the community as a whole. If people are educated about their positive impact on the environment, the money they will save on property taxes, and the truth to many of the myths they hear they will be more inclined to be in favor of this newer form of energy.