Wind power
Wind power is the conversion of wind energy into a useful form, such as electricity, using wind turbines. Most wind power is generated in the form of electricity. Large scale wind farms are connected to electrical grids. Individual turbines can provide electricity to isolated locations. In windmills, wind energy is used directly as mechanical energy for pumping water or grinding grain.
Data sources: Energy Bulletin, Residential Wind Power, Science Daily, Wind Power, Wind Power Handbook, Wind Power News, Wind Turbine Energy, Windtech International
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For a few days last week, global news agencies pursued the peculiar story of the world's worst traffic jam, which was reported to have lasted for around nine days and stretched across about 100 kilometres of a major highway leading to Beijing. China's latest instance of leading the world, now in the scale and size of traffic jams, is a direct consequence of the modern uses and abuses of energy.
A great deal of the discussion of post-petroleum food production misses the fact that in societies before oil -- and thus arguably in societies after oil -- food was produced by two distinct systems. The last century saw the dismantling of one of those; the present century will have to see its reconstruction.
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As elsewhere in western Europe, the advanced liberal consumer democracies are ever more unable (politically unwilling) to implement genuine change. Deutschland's rulers in Berlin firmly believe that techno-managerial innovation (and a hefty dose of financial risk-taking) will continue to provide cures for current ideas of what is unsustainable. As has happened time and again in Europa's history of nations, from the mid-19th century onwards, the costs of such 'revolutions' will be externalised elsewhere (east and south), and the ecological sustainability that Germany's admirable network of communes have long been admired for will remain out of reach of the country's policy and practice.
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New technologies, feed-in tariffs, and tax credits are helping propel the small wind industry, especially in the United States. Once found mostly in rural areas, small wind installations are now starting to pop up on urban rooftops.
Even where it comes to renewable energy, we face the battle of centralization vs. relocalization, the corporatism of politics vs. democracy. Economically, technologically, politically, we face the same democratic struggle.
The dirty secret of wind: utilities don't like wind not because it's not competitive, but because it brings prices down for their existing assets, thus lowering their revenues and their profits.