The need for energy has driven the modern man to try and extract it from all of the natural elements. Since the earth (oil) is the main source of global energy but is steadily heading towards complete depletion, since we don’t posses the ability to harness the power of solar and tidal energy properly, we have turned to wind as a possible source of power. Wind energy is the second most important source of power of today and although the prospect of it replacing oil as the global energy source is quite dim, it’s definitely an alternative worth talking about.

Right now, wind energy makes up around 1% of the global electricity use and that’s because most countries don’t even bother trying to harness it (or admittedly, they don’t have the conditions to do so). In countries like Germany, Holland or Spain however, wind power production translates into approximately 10% of their yearly electricity usage. The highest percentage of wind energy production is in Denmark, where almost a quarter of the country’s total energy consumption is powered by wind generators.

It must be noted that wind energy production is not as “reliable” as the oil based one, mainly because it’s heavily dependant on weather and location. That’s one of the reasons that rules wind energy off the list of candidates for the total replacement of oil as a global power source. Although solar or tidal energies are also dependant on weather and location, they are easier to harness and they don’t require such specific parameters as wind energy does, in order to be effective. Hence, most experts predict that wind energy will never really exceed its condition of being an alternative energy source.

Yet most people agree that wind energy should be harnessed whenever and wherever possible. The advantages over oil energy production are consistent enough to support this belief: it is more feasible from an economical point of view, it’s ecological and produces no harmful emissions (well to be totally honest, today’s wind turbines are known to produce some CO2 emissions but this small “leak” is thought to be treatable soon, with modern advances in technology). Not everyone has the same opinion about the subject thought. Some debate the sheer potential of wind energy to supply a stable output of power, whereas some argue that in order for us to have a global wind power network that could actually sustain a larger part of the total electrical consumption, a huge number of turbines would have to be constructed, affecting natural habitats, cropping down forests and destroying wildlife.