Windmills were described in ancient Greece, and in Persia and throughout Europe since 1,000AD. The Dutch did pretty well with it.

Wind power has been among us for quite a long time. As we know the fossil fuels might be extinct one day; besides they create a lot of pollution. The wind energy is a renewable source of energy which can be harnessed to its maximum potential to produce electricity. It is an excellent alternative to conventional energy resources. We saw a staggering increase in global wind installations by 17% in 2015, a specifically crucial change in the MENAT region. If we could find to harness the wind power to its full potential, it would save a lot of fossil fuel for us.

How do you come to that conclusion? Don't you count the mining required to obtian the raw matterials to make them? Where do rare-earth metals come from? At the end of the day they are no cleaner than coal wake up.

Like most any significant structure, the manufacturing process screws up the environment somewhat...but that's also true of more traditional power plants, and so if we "call it even" with regard to environmental construction cost, then we're left with environmental operating cost - which is near zero, for wind turbines. Wondering: what rare-earth metals are needed for the construction of a typical wind turbine? I wouldn't expect them to require such metals...

To 11Stevo: Note: reconsidered the rare earth metals matter. Permanent magnets...Most power plants use mechanical power and solenoids to produce electromagnetism. Wind turbines are, individually, very low in mechanical power and so a permanent magnet is required rather than an electromagnet (because the individual wind turbine would not have sufficient mechanical power to efficiently produce both electromagnetism and electricity). SO: you are correct that wind turbines have an "extra" environmental construction cost compared to most other types of power plants. *** Personally I'm a huge fan of nuclear. Look at how tremendously successful France's socialized nuclear power plants have been. The government sets standards that all plants have to meet. All plants use the same re-chargeable fuel system. Nuclear waste is minimal. Upgrades to plants are set by government and so all plants are upgraded the same way to the same standard. The result: nationwide, (relatively) extremely safe, extremely low nuclear waste, nuclear generated power. NO significant accidents in the history of the program. Excess capacity in normal conditions means that the country typically exports electricity to other nations (at a profit, of course). With strict but forward-seeing government supervision, we could emulate France's success and eliminate environmentally-harmful plants, which is by no means limited to fossil-fuel burning plants, but also includes hydroelectric plants, which typically severely impact natural river environments.