Wind Farm Mother Nature Is Very Powerful

Wind Farm

Mother nature is very powerful and is always producing to provide for her many life forms that reside on her surface. The wind is a great resource for harnessing the powers of nature and using them for manmade purposes. The purpose of this essay is to explore the best situation to build a wind farm upon. The essay will first look at the characteristics of local wind before refining the selection using criteria that can maximize the wind farm's capabilities and minimize the artificial footprint that may result.

Lutgen and Tarbuck (2011) described local winds as important systems that help regulate the earth's climate. They stated "local winds are simply small-scale winds produced by a local generated pressure gradient. Those described here are caused either by topographic effects or by variations in surface composition in the immediate area." There classifications have been given these local winds by these authors. They include, land and sea breezes, mountain and valley breezes and Chinook and Santa Ana winds.

Land and sea breezes arise from the differing temperatures between water masses and land masses. In this occurrence, the air that rises above the land is much warmer and creates a low pressure area for colder winds to creep in. This imbalance results in a sea breeze as the air cooled by water drifts towards the warmer land mass and causes wind. These breezes last only periodically throughout the day and have a moderating influence.

Mountain and valley breezes are essentially caused by the same forces that cause any other wind, pressure differentials. The warm air in this case is heated by the sun shining throughout the day. The warm air is less dense and climbs up along a mountain causing a disparity of pressure throughout the valley, and eventually providing a breeze or a wind.

The Chinook and Santa Ana Winds are winds that are formed specifically along the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains. This occurs when the cooler air moves down the side of mountainous regions, it gains heat which causes the pressure disparity necessary for the formation of winds and breezes. These winds are cooler and occur during winter and spring often bringing significant change to the environment as their purpose.

Wind farming, or any other type of farming, requires some systematic approach and stable environment to operate under. The winds best suited for this type of operation are the mountain and valley breezes. The constant flow of air masses from the large bodies of water surrounding the continent make these types of winds the most available. The constant need for wind is preliminary to any wind farm producing constant and plentiful breezes.