The potential for wind energy is immense. It is estimated that if wind turbines are installed in all potentially breezy locations (including off shore turbines), the energy it can produce will equate to five times the total energy production. When considering that nuclear power only constitutes about 5% of the energy produced today, the power offered through renewable means outstrips the potential nuclear energy offers.
Yet wind energy offers even more: the lack of any harmful byproduct. To produce nuclear power, the uranium must be mined, enriched, and most importantly stored after use. With a half life of 700,000 years, can there really be an appropriate place to store the potentially disastrous nuclear waste? Nuclear plants are costly and precarious, with such notable disasters as Fukushima, Chernobyl, and Three Mile Island.
On the other hand, wind energy does not require the mining of land, or create any potentially hazardous waste. It requires wind, a natural energy. At a marginal cost, clean energy is all around us, inviting to be used in a productive, green way. No carbon dioxide, no nuclear fallout, only the idyllic turning of a turbine.
