How many wind turbines would it take to power the UK?
This isn’t a joke, despite how the question is worded 
To power the whole of the UK solely on wind generated power using the kinetic energy produced alone, how many of those huge turbines would we need to have?
Also, do you think is a feasible solution to the energy crisis?
Great question.
I came across 30,000 as the figure. They cost approx £2M each. That’s £60B. We could do that in 5 years with 1p on income tax or NI. Site them out at sea where no one can see them.
Couple that with a small turbine on every house and solar – give local grants for this and we’d be pretty much energy independent within 5 years and carbon free.
This sounds too easy – what’s the problem?
Backup and intermittency – Use nuclear, hydro-electric and bio-mass burning energy plants – all oil and coal fired power stations closed. Get some tidal energy systems installed – tidal is much more consistent that wind. Have battery storage at home (some safety issues here but not insurmountable and really no different than gaving a gas supply). That would sort those issues out.
Job losses – Yes but these would be offset by jobs in these new power sectors.
Impact on oil prices and the UKCS Oil industry – Probably a price drop in oil but as these are diminishing resourses there would be upward price pressure from market forces supply and demand therefore – probably overall no change.
We could export our surpluses giving us a tidy way of clearing the costs of converting to wind, tidal solar etc. The Oil industry would be unchanged – it’s in decline anyway.
Unhooking ourselves from gas – Micro generation fuel cells using hydrogen from local hydrolosis using clean wind energy would sort that out.
We’d be energy independent and carbon free with a significant new export revenue source. Surely this is do-able. I think I’ll write to my MP about this – what about you?
How Wind Turbines Work – 3D Animation
wind turbines
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