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Wind energy is the kinetic energy associated with the movement of atmospheric air. It has been used for hundreds of years for sailing, grinding grain, and for irrigation. Wind energy systems convert this kinetic energy to more useful forms of power. Wind energy systems for irrigation and milling have been in use since ancient times and since the beginning of the 20th century it is being used to generate electric power. Windmills for water pumping have been installed in many countries particularly in the rural areas.

Wind turbines transform the energy in the wind into mechanical power, which can then be used directly for grinding etc. or further converting to electric power to generate electricity. Wind turbines can be used singly or in clusters called ‘wind farms’. Small wind turbines called aero-generators can be used to charge large batteries.This energy is used for: Sailing ships, Pumping water/Irrigation, Grinding Grains, Power generation.

Wind is air in motion. The Earth’s surface absorbs the warmth of the sun at different rates. It depends whether it is water or land, and whether land is covered by dark vegetation, sand or ice.Darker oceans, full of plankton, absorb more solar heat than clear waters do and forested areas absorb more than ice-covered glaciers, mountain tops and the Arctic and Antarctic Poles.This means that the air above land heats up more quickly over land than over water, and more over darker areas compared to those that reflect sunlight. When this warmer air rises during the day, as it does, cooler air from nearby oceans or lakes rushes into this ‘vacuum’ which creates wind.At night this flow is reversed as the air over land cools more quickly than that over water.The larger, global wind patterns, like the prevailing trade winds, are created by the differences in air temperature between tropical and polar regions.

Advantages

One of the greatest advantages of Wind Energy is that it is ample. Secondly, wind energy is renewable. Some other advantages of Wind Energy are that it is widely distributed, cheap, and also reducing toxic gas emissions. Wind Energy is also advantageous over traditional methods of creating energy, in the sense that it is getting cheaper and cheaper to produce wind energy. Wind Energy may soon be the cheapest way to produce energy on a large scale.The cost of producing wind energy has come down by at least eighty percent since the eighties. Along with economy, Wind Energy is also said to diminish the greenhouse effect.

Also, wind energy generates no pollution. Wind Energy is also a more permanent type of energy. The wind will exist till the time the sun exists, which is roughly another four billion years. Theoretically, if all the wind power available to humankind is harnessed, there can be ten times of energy we use, readily available.One other advantage of wind energy that it is readily available around the globe, and therefore there would be no need of dependence for energy for any country. Wind energy may be the answer to the globe's question of energy in the face of the rising petroleum and gas prices.

Wind energy

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