Journal # 11

Wind power energy is one of the renewable sources to coal.  But is it really worth it?  In some cases yes and in others no.  In a New York Times article it talk about how by 2030 about 20% of energy will come from wind power.  There are already some companies like Google and a New York financial firm that are supporting and donating money for wind turbines to be built.  With wind turbines there are essential two problems with this.  One problem is that wind does not blow at all times.  Another problem is that sometimes wind blows really hard but in places where it doesn't matter.  For example wind is heavy in high plains of West Texas which is hundreds of miles from big cities like Dallas and Houston.  So it would be not be very useful for wind turbines in places like that.  Also it would be difficult to build them in certain places like the ocean.  It would be hard to construct them in the Great Lakes because their waters are deep and they freeze which could be essentially bad.  Another thing that isn't good is the fact that wind power would cost 10 times more than coal, natural gas, or even onshore wind. 
One project that has already been approved in 2010 after 9 years is the Cape Wind Project.  This could supply 75% of the electricity for Cape Cod and nearby islands.  Also the Cape Wind would sell 50% of the farms power to National Grid at 18.7 cents per kilowatt-hour in 2013.  Another project that has already been taken in to consideration is the Atlantic Wind Connection.  From the help of Google and Good Energies they have each agreed to take a 37.5% of the project to in place.  Reasons for delay in this is there could be challenges that they could run into like the cost for the technology. 
In my opinion I think that the wind turbines would be useful in windy cities so we could use them there.  But in places with low winds it would be a terrible idea and a waste of money.  Before we build wind turbines we should have a full investigation to see if it's actually worth it.  Wind energy could be the next renewable resource that we see more often in the future but it shouldn't be the only on that we should rely on.

Source: http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/energy-environment/wind-power/index.html