What are the pros and cons of wind power construction? Why is China stepping up its construction efforts?

As the global greenhouse effect becomes more serious, all countries are exploring the best way to generate electricity with zero pollution. Among these ways of generating electricity with zero pollution, wind power and hydropower are the most commonly used.

The gentle breeze and turbulent water can not only achieve "zero pollution", but also "zero cost" electricity generation. Whether from the perspective of environmental benefits or economic development, it is an excellent way to generate electricity.

A few years ago, no one would have imagined that wind power, which was once praised by many countries for its low cost and cleanliness, would one day be labeled as "junk electricity."

The “demolishing wave” in Western countries

Strangely enough, the countries that were enthusiastically developing wind power on a large scale back then seem to be the same countries that are now issuing orders to dismantle "junk electricity".

In the 1930s, European and American countries began to study how to switch from coal-fired power generation to wind power generation. After many attempts, they finally chose to use rotor technology in the aviation field and successfully developed the world's first wind power generation device.

In the late 1970s, the United States built the world's largest wind turbine at the time on the Blue Collar Mountains in North Carolina.

So according to this timeline, in many European and American countries, the operating life of onshore wind power plants has exceeded 20 years, and in some countries the service life is even longer.

These wind turbine blades, which have been running "24 hours a day" since the beginning of this century, or even earlier, not only did not win the "Best Employee Award", but also faced the fate of being forced to "be laid off".

According to the authoritative organization of the European wind power industry, the latest statistics released at the end of 2022 show that by the end of 2023, at least 14,000 wind turbine blades in Europe are expected to be declared scrapped. In the United States alone, as many as 210 tons of wind turbine blades will become waste.

Why were they being demolished so rapidly in the past five years, when they were being built one after another?

Moreover, how come wind power, which seems to be very cheap and environmentally friendly, has become what European and American countries call "junk electricity"?

How wind power works

To understand why European and American countries are suddenly so averse to wind power generation, we have to start from the root, that is, the operating principle of wind turbines.

In a simple sense, a wind turbine is actually an enlarged version of the windmill that we played with as children. It relies on wind power to rotate and generate electricity.

A wind turbine is generally composed of a generator, a wind wheel, a speed changer and a control system.

When the wind force reaches a certain level, the wind wheel composed of three rotating blades will begin to rotate. During the rotation process, the wind energy drives the gears behind the blades to rotate, gradually converting into mechanical energy, and then converting it into electrical energy through the movement of the generator, thereby generating electricity.

The speed changer and control system mainly play an auxiliary role. The speed changer is to ensure that the speed of change of mechanical energy can match the speed of the generator, so as to ensure the effective operation of the generator; while the control system controls the speed of the generator so that the output power of electric energy can be adjusted according to user needs.

So in general, in order to achieve wind power generation, in addition to meeting the necessary premise of wind, the first step is to rotate the blades of the wind turbine.

If there is no wind at all, or the wind is so weak that it cannot blow the blades of the wind turbine, then the wind turbine built at great expense will be useless except for decoration.

Tragedy under wind turbine blades

If you ask who most wants to see the wind turbines that are constantly turning on mountaintops and on the sea removed, birds will definitely be the first to "stand up" and make the accusation.

From the perspective of humans, the blades turning with the wind are a beautiful landscape, otherwise the world-famous attraction "Dutch Windmill" would not exist.

But in the eyes of birds, these large leaves that may suddenly rotate at any time are like three "machetes" waving in the air from time to time.

According to relevant survey data from professional research institutions in the United States, there are approximately 50,000 wind turbines in the United States, and 573,000 birds die under the blades of these wind turbines every year.

The suddenly rotating blades are heavy and fast, so birds that happen to be close to the blades or suddenly hit the blades will lose the chance to fly into the blue sky again in an instant.

Perhaps you are wondering when the eyesight of birds became so bad that they would choose to fly into leaves even though they clearly see them there?

In fact, this is due to the phototropic nature of birds, especially at night. The light source of wind farms is simply a fatal attraction for birds. Not only birds are attracted by the light, but also a large number of small insects. The power farm with light and food allows a large number of birds to stay under the blades of wind farms.

Not only that, wind turbines not only pose a threat of death to birds, but also disturb and intimidate them in their lives.

The locations of many wind turbines overlap with bird habitats. Some of the places used to place wind turbines are long-term habitats for birds, while others are temporary places for birds to rest and forage during migration.

During operation, wind turbines often generate blade sweeping noise and mechanical operation noise.

Most birds are naturally highly sensitive to noise. In such a noisy environment, not only will the bird habitats gradually decrease and become fragmented, but it may even cause most birds to have fewer foraging areas and choose to migrate back.

When they are alive, they are frightened like a bird with a bow and arrow, and if they are not careful, they will become "dead souls under the leaves". Wind power plants are indeed not very friendly to the survival of birds.

The real reason for being concealed

Although the construction of wind turbines has a great impact on birds and the local ecological environment, in fact this is not the reason why European and American countries choose to demolish them on a large scale.

Although the IPCC survey report in the United States shows that the number of birds killed by wind turbines can reach hundreds of thousands each year, the impact of high-rise buildings on bird mortality in the United States is more than 5,000 times that of wind turbines; even the impact of domestic cats on bird mortality is more than 1,000 times that of wind turbines.

For every 10,000 birds killed by human activity, only one dies from wind turbine construction.

Moreover, these impacts have objectively existed since the day the wind turbines were set up, and did not suddenly appear in recent years.

Could it be that after decades, these countries have suddenly "found their conscience"?

No, the main reason these wind turbines were dismantled was “low cost-effectiveness”.

Even though wind power generation is indeed a way of generating electricity that does not require large-scale investment in raw materials, it also has an unavoidable disadvantage - once the wind stops, all the power is in vain.

Wind power generation, a clean energy method, is too dependent on natural conditions. If the weather is not good, the wind turbine blades will stop working.

In recent years, Europe has experienced long-term ultra-high pressure weather conditions, and the wind speed at sea has dropped significantly. As a result, the amount of electricity generated by wind power has also dropped significantly, and there was even a period of time when wind power was shut down.

The extremely unstable power supply has reduced European countries’ expectations for wind power, which is why it has been dubbed “junk power”.

Secondly, most countries in Europe and the United States have limited land areas, and the area required for onshore wind power generation is relatively large, which is equivalent to adding an area of ​​two-thirds of a basketball court for each additional wind turbine.

And the distance between every two adjacent wind turbines needs to be greater than 500 meters, otherwise mutual interference will occur.

Except for some areas in Europe and the United States that have the conditions to build offshore wind power generation, there are not many areas on land that are suitable for the development of wind power generation. Wind turbines are mostly installed on mountain tops or ridges in low and medium mountain areas. It is difficult to find the best location for installing wind turbines in areas such as the Great Plains of the United States.

The last and most important reason is that the economic performance of investing in wind power generation in Europe and the United States is low, because Europe does not have a complete wind turbine production line, is highly dependent on imports, and has experienced industrial hollowing out.

In addition, the population of these countries is not large, and the demand for electricity is not very strong, so this method of power generation with high investment and low output returns will face elimination.

Why China's attitude is completely opposite

While Europe and the United States are busy dismantling wind turbines, why doesn't China follow suit and instead choose to increase its efforts in wind power generation?

It is not that China does not see the impact of developing wind power on the ecological environment, but as the most mature type of new energy in China, wind energy has more obvious advantages than other new energy sources and is more likely to alleviate China's energy supply difficulties.

Moreover, compared with European and American countries, China's choice to develop wind power generation on a large scale is simply the best practice of "adapting to local conditions".

First, China has extremely rich wind energy resources. Due to its vast territory and long coastline, China has a good reserve of wind energy resources.

According to estimates by the National Meteorological Administration, the national wind energy density is 100W/m2, and the total reserves of wind energy resources are about 1.6X105MW. Especially in the southeastern coastal areas and nearby islands, Inner Mongolia and Gansu Corridor, Northeast China, Northwest China, North China and the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, the wind speed is above 3m/s for nearly 4000 hours each year. In some areas, the annual average wind speed can reach 6~7m/s or more, which has great development and utilization value.

Moreover, China's wind energy resources are concentratedly distributed, which is very conducive to the large-scale construction of wind turbines and the efficient use of abundant wind energy resources.

China's wind energy is concentrated in three regions. The first is the southeastern coastal area, which is affected by monsoons and sea and land breezes all year round. The sea wind is strong, the terrain has little resistance to wind, and the wind resources are very rich.

The second is the northeast and northwest regions, which are affected by the "Asian High Pressure" all year round and become the origin of the winter monsoon, as well as the northwestern region of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau with a high altitude and relatively sparse surface vegetation.

Moreover, as a vast country with a vast territory and a large population, there is no problem of not being able to find places to build wind power stations or insufficient electricity demand. It is beneficial and harmless to use abundant wind energy to replace coal and other resources for power generation.

Moreover, compared with European and American countries that rely on imports to develop wind power generation, China's wind power generation technology has become increasingly mature, product quality can be guaranteed, and the availability rate has reached more than 95%, making it a very safe and reliable energy option.

Just looking at the only two 5-megawatt direct-drive wind turbines in the world is enough to give you a sense of China's current wind power technology.

These two high-tech wind turbines are located in the Netherlands and China respectively.

Although the power generation of a 5MW direct-drive turbine far exceeds that of an ordinary wind turbine, with one day's power generation enough to power 50 households for two years, China is still making continuous breakthroughs.

Finally, at the beginning of this year, a 16-megawatt wind turbine was manufactured, and the electricity generated by just one rotation is enough for an average household to use for one month.

So whether wind energy is "junk power" or "high-energy power generation method" actually varies from country to country. The paths of European and American countries are destined to be different from those of China.

In this development environment where "time, place and people are favorable", the best strategy for China is to seize the opportunity to develop wind power generation to completely solve the energy dilemma.

References:

1. What are the advantages of developing wind power?

2. "Chinese wind power equipment manufacturers should enhance their international competitiveness"