The Technology Context – B101
The Dummuie wind farm can it help save our planet?
As time progresses the world needs to use more renewable energy resources, we cannot live on resources that provide energy but also cause damage to the world and will inevitably run out. We need something more consistent and reliable. Climate change is happening rapidly and we need to do something about it.
I have chosen to use wind farms as the topic for my article. This is a renewable source of energy and we can always count on some sort of wind force being around us to help produce electrical energy. Electrical energy is used in everyday life by everyone. Without electricity the world would not have become as advanced as it is today. There are only a few renewable resources that are efficient. Can wind farms help save our environment and the world we live in? Throughout my article I will try and explain about the Dummuie wind farm in particular and study it. I will try and gather information by using secondary resources such as, books, the internet and then answer my main question.
The Dummuie Wind farm
The Dummuie wind farm started to produce electricity in April 2007. It is situated in the Mains and East mains of Dummuie in Drumblade. It is owned by Tetro energy, who were finally given planning permission on the 22nd September 2004. This wind farm has created many social-economic benefits. It has created jobs for many different people for example; there is permanent employment for the site manager and team for operation and maintenance services of the wind farm. The wind farm consists of seven turbines that each produce about 1.75MW.
Disadvantages of wind turbines?
Like most things, everything is not perfect; the wind farm does come with certain draw backs. The wind farm is purely based on the power of the wind, so if there is not enough wind, less electrical power will be made. Not all winds can be harnessed to meet the timing of electrical demands. Wind power cannot be saved unless batteries were used.
People also complain against wind farms, as they say it ruins the natural look of the countryside. People don’t want to live around enormous turbines in country sides. It ruins the views from all around. But the world needs a more eco-friendly way of producing energy. Would people rather have electricity in their lives or beautiful views? The world is a growing place, growing everyday and technology gets more advanced as years move on. New technology could be made to combat the problem of ruining the country sides with wind turbines. There is also a concern over the noise produced by the rotor blades but this problem has been addressed by wind farm companies.
Advantages of wind farms?
Wind farms are full of advantages; I think the main advantage would be it's eco- friendly! It’s great for the environment and causes no damage to the earth’s ozone layer. Wind is a clean natural resource, and a great way to create electricity for everyone; this reduces the amount of emissions that are let of by non eco-friendly resources.
Personal Interest.
I’m interested in the world and how it works but also interested in hearing about how more eco-technology is made and how it works. We all use electricity in our daily lives. I use it for my personal computer, my toaster and my T.V. Most of us use these common objects throughout out daily lives. Would people be willing to give up some of these things if we weren’t able to create eco-friendly electricity? It’s a question we all have to ask ourselves. What will happen if we don’t find new sources of energy? The ozone layer will be hit hard and it will be damaged a lot more than it is now. We need to go greener, I feel that wind farms are one of the more convenient and greener ways that can help us do this.
Plan of inquiry
I’m quite interested in this topic about wind farms and I would like to know a lot more about them. I live in Portsmouth and as the location of Dummuies wind farm is quite far away I will consequently contact people around this area of work by email. I plan to make a questionnaire and contact people who work at the wind farm and find out what they think about wind farms, and if they believe they are the solution into saving our planet. I will gather my information by using:
-Internet
-Books
-Questionnaires
Conclusion.
My main aim was to set out too see if I could find out if wind power such as wind farms will have a significantly positive impact on our planet. At the moment there are a lot of economically friendly ways to produce power such as tidal power, solar power and wind power. I feel that all these things have made a slight difference to the planet but not a substantial impact. We need something like all these but on a much bigger scale to achieve this aim. The world is a big place we can't just use all these new pieces of technology and put them all into one place, they need to be used across the whole world to make a bigger impact. So I feel at the moment wind farms won't achieve this significant impact on the planet, but they are on the way to do so and maybe one day soon we will see a big change!
Sources of information.
To complete this article I used a range of different website these were as follows:
