China, Japan, Nuclear Power and Wind Energy

Nuclear Power Plant

Petr Kratochvil / www.publicdomainpictures.net

In September 2011, China began operating another wind farm in Wuzhong, a city in Northwest China. China made use of their vast available land by constructing a wind farm spread across 215 square miles in the area. Coupled with solar power installations, they were able to produce 400 megawatts with 300 megawatts coming from the wind turbines.

China has many good sites for onshore wind farms due to the large land mass that the country has. The newly constructed one in Wuzhong in the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, a semidesert, is just one of the many suitable areas for installing wind turbines.

On the other hand, in line with the Japanese Government’s proposal to end the use of nuclear power plants, a team from Kyushu University is developing a new generation of offshore wind turbines. Offshore wind turbines can be operated at sea and are suitable for use by countries who have limited land areas.

Japan is currently developing wind lenses, wind turbines that function like magnifying lenses when placed under the sun. The wind lenses are so called because they focus wind power through a funnel-like ring that encases the turbine’s blades. This enables the turbine to double or triple their power output thereby making them much more efficient, more economical and safer than nuclear power plants.

The wind lenses are also being designed to be placed on top of hexagonal platforms that float on water for installation along shorelines and even further out at sea. The hexagonal shape of the platforms also makes them easier to link together and thus, making them more stable. With this new wind turbine design, land will not anymore be an issue.

The issue concerning wind farms is that, like solar power, they cannot provide a steady source of power. Advanced electricity storage technologies have to be developed in order to provide a continuous power supply to consumers and collect the excess energy produced at certain periods for use at a later time.

Wind farms are continually making their mark as a more reasonable source of energy than nuclear power plants in terms of efficiency, practicality and safety. They do not pose the hazards that nuclear wastes do and the cost of maintaining and constructing them are much less than nuclear power plants. In the US, renewable energy along with wind power has just surpassed nuclear energy in terms of consumption and production. It is sensible that it is further developed and put to use.