As an emerging form of energy, wind power generation has attracted widespread attention and attention worldwide. According to the latest report of the 11th edition of People's Daily on November 12, 2021, the cost of wind power generation in the mainland has dropped significantly, and it is even slightly lower than the cost of thermal power generation, which is full of competitiveness. In some places, it can even compete with gas-fired power plants, which makes wind power widely promoted and applied in the mainland. However, in Europe and the United States, wind power has been dismantled and rejected on a large scale, and they believe that wind power has great harm.
In Europe, wind power generation was once the world's fastest used new energy source. Countries are scrambling to develop and research new wind power plants. In particular, the commitment of European and American countries to reduce carbon dioxide has played a positive role in promoting the development of wind power generation. However, after 2018, European and American countries began to dismantle wind power projects on a large scale, and even rejected wind power, saying that it was very harmful.
An environmental survey report by Princeton University in the United States has completely nailed wind power to the pillar of shame in history. In the report, Angodall Vlahotch, dean of Princeton's School of Environment, called wind power an outright hoax. He believes that the potential and dangerous risks posed by wind power generation are endless. He listed three deadly sins of wind power: wind power contributes to global warming, causes damage to the environment for birds, and noise pollution leads to public opposition.
First, wind power has been accused of contributing to global warming. In the view of American scholars, wind power generation with wind as the primary power seems to be "taken from nature, used by nature", but when large-scale wind farms are aggregated, they will have specific physical effects, causing the temperature to rise by 0.5 degrees Celsius in a short period of time, thereby aggravating global warming. Researchers at Harvard University have made a more detailed judgment through computer simulations: the reason for the temperature rise is that when the wind and the impeller "impact", the flow of the atmosphere and the flow of air on the land surface disrupt each other, thereby changing the temperature of the wind farm and further affecting the local climatic conditions.
Second, wind power is alleged to cause damage to the living environment of birds. The research team pointed out that when the blades rotate at high speed, the world's fastest flying birds are also difficult to pass through, and will be directly killed by the impeller. In the decade from 2005 to 2015, as many as 700,000 birds died in California, USA, due to wind power; The number of birds killed in Europe, Britain, France and Germany exceeded 500,000. The sound of wind turbines spinning can also disturb local bird flocks and even lead to species extinction.
Third, the alleged noise pollution of wind power has led to public opposition. European countries are relatively small, and many wind power projects are located on the outskirts of villages and towns. In the dead of night, the roaring sound of machines makes it difficult to sleep peacefully; Even during the day, the whistling wind of the impeller is painful. This caused strong opposition and protests from local residents.
In the face of these accusations, European and American countries have had to abandon wind power as a promising new energy source. However, China has not stopped the development of wind power. On the contrary, China is at the forefront of the world in the construction and promotion of wind power projects.
Continental wind power projects began in the 50s of the last century and went through four stages of development. By the end of 2021, a total of 3,071 wind power plants had been built in the country, surpassing nuclear power to become the third largest "power source" in the mainland. With the support of China's renewable energy development, the mainland wind power project has achieved remarkable development results.
Mainland wind energy resources are abundant, especially in the southeast coastal area, where wind power plants are located at relatively low altitudes, and the air flow of the atmosphere is extremely difficult to be disturbed, avoiding the risk of contributing to global warming. At the same time, the mainland will build wind power equipment in the vertical direction of the monsoon forward route to reduce the threat to birds. The mainland is sparsely populated, and the impact of wind power projects on people's living environment is almost zero.
In addition, mainland wind power enterprises have made important progress in the research and development and manufacturing of wind power generation technology. Goldwind, United Power, Sinovel and Guangdong Mingyang wind power equipment manufacturers lead Asia, and continue to expand in the international market, becoming one of the world's top ten wind power manufacturers.
In the face of the dismantling and exclusion of European and American countries, China has firmly embarked on the road of wind power generation. This is not because China does not care about the environment and climate, but because China has long considered the potential risks of wind power generation and taken corresponding measures and technical means to avoid them. China's wind power projects have developed steadily under scientific planning and strict control, and have achieved remarkable results.
With the increasing emphasis and support of renewable energy development in the mainland, the future of the mainland's wind power generation industry is bright. We look forward to wind power continuing to make greater breakthroughs and developments in China and make greater contributions to promoting the global clean energy revolution.
