ind power has a pivotal role to play in the world’s energy supply over the next few years. By providing huge amounts of clean, affordable power, it can buy us time in the fight against global warming while revolutions in energy efficiency and solar power gain momentum.
Greenpeace and the Global Wind Energy Council have just released a two-yearly status report on wind energy and its prospects up to 2050.
In as little as five years’ time wind power could prevent more than a billion tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) from being emitted each year by dirty energy. That’s equivalent to Germany’s and Italy’s emissions combined, or Africa’s total CO2 emissions, or those of Japan, or two-thirds of what India pumps out.
Ten years after that, wind power could be supplying up to 19 percent of the world’s electricity and avoiding more than three billion tons of CO2 a year. By 2050, 25-30 percent of global power could come from harnessing the wind.
The wind industry has grown at around 26 percent per year over the past 18 years. Europe and China have been solid wind markets for over a decade.
Now the U.S. is on the way to gaining a 20 percent share of the world market. In the coming five years, the rapidly developing economies of Brazil, South Africa and India are likely to be among the next to reap the benefits of wind power.
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(By the way, forget the claim by sceptics that more energy is used in manufacturing wind turbines than they supply. A wind turbine ‘pays back’ all of the carbon dioxide emissions from its manufacturing, installation, servicing and decommissioning in its first three to nine months of operation. That means pollution-free power for the rest of its 20-year design lifetime).
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