China installed an 18-megawatt wind turbine off the coast of Guangdong province earlier this month. It’s the largest wind turbine ever built by capacity, and experts expect it to produce enough power to power 36,000 homes annually, Electrek reports.
With 853-foot rotors and a “swept area” of more than seven football fields, as Electrek noted, this turbine is huge. And China is developing an even bigger one. This will cover a total of nine football fields.
Size isn’t everything, but if it functions as hoped, a large turbine like this is a major development in clean air technology. Turbines of this size could make a huge difference in reducing society’s dependence on carbon-based energy. The more wind turbines we have, no matter how big they are, the less we rely on dirty fuels or the constant need to drill and mine them.
According to Electrek, this latest construction in China is expected to generate 72 gigawatt hours of effectively free electricity per year.
“Wow,” said one commenter on the Electrek article. “Makes you wonder how big they’ll get.”
Using renewable energy — like wind — does wonders for the environment. At the same time, it also reduces pollution, which not only helps people feel better, but also lowers health care costs. When people don’t get sick from pollution, they need less medical care. This not only affects their personal bank accounts, but it also reduces overall health care spending, as do insurance premiums.
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Renewable energy also creates employment. It is more labor intensive than other energy sources and therefore provides jobs for people around the world. More than 100,000 people worked in wind energy alone in 2016. Add that to those working in solar, hydro and geothermal energy, and there are more jobs than those made available by conventional energy, as the Union of Concerned Scientists has pointed out.
Renewables are also more stable in terms of resources needed — there’s always wind and it’s free — meaning that relying on them also makes energy costs more stable. Considering that energy prices continue to rise, that is good news for everyone’s wallets.
Wind turbines aren’t the only way people are finding new ways to create, use, and expand other sources of energy. From geothermal power plants to sharing energy with your neighbors, there are many recent developments that promise to reduce our reliance on carbon-based energy and help us reap its benefits. People are also investing more in clean energy technology, so bigger and better developments could be on the way.
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