单项选择题

Wind Energy Wind energy development has been thriving both in the United States and around the world. This reflects not only the declining cost of the resource and the improved performance of wind power plants, but also a growing awareness among utilities and other potential customers that this renewable energy technology offers many benefits for the economy and the environment. -Wind energy can help create new business and jobs, keep energy dollars circulating in local economies and reduce reliance on imported energy. -Wind energy can help protect utilities and ratepayers from risks associated with changing fuel prices, new environmental regulations, uncertain load growth and other unpredictable costs. -Wind energy can reduce a utility’’s pollutant emissions, helping power companies meet environmental regulations and satisfy their customers’’ desire for clean power sources. In the past, these benefits were not enough to outweigh the significant costs and technological uncertainties associated with wind energy; now that the technology has proven reliable and competitive, however, they are beginning to carry more weight. The greatest challenge for the future is to ensure that the benefits of wind energy continue to receive attention as the utility industry moves toward increased competition in the generation and marketing of power. How does wind energy contribute to the economy Electricity is an essential ingredient of our modern way of life: it runs our computers, appliances, factories and businesses. Without low-cost power, our standard of living would suffer. But electricity generation is also a major source of pollution and toxic wastes. Wind energy offers a way to meet the needs of both the economy and the environment by providing a source of clean, competitively priced power. Wind energy helps our economy in important ways. For communities and states in which wind power facilities are located, wind power plants create jobs, generate income and support economic development. Several studies have established that wind energy produces more Jobs per dollar invested or per kilowatt-hour generated than most conventional resource. A New York study, for example, found that producing 10 million kilowatt-hours of electricity from wind energy generates 27 percent more jobs in the state than producing the same amount of energy from an advanced coal plant and 66 percent more jobs than from a natural gas combined-cycle power plant. One reason is that much of the expense for fossil-fuel plants is incurred from buying fuel, which supports fewer jobs than other industry sectors, especially when the fuel is imported from other states or countries. Wind power plants also pay substantial property taxes and land rents. A typical rent payment is a small percentage of a plant’’s revenues, implying that a wind plant located in an agricultural area can boost cropland rents and prices by as much as 50 percent to 100 percent. For the most part, farming operations can continue unaffected. States and communities with the foresight to invest in wind energy can reap another benefit by fostering a home-grown wind industry that can export power to other regions. The market for wind power worldwide is growing rapidly. New companies that capture this market will develop in areas where substantial wind development already is occurring. Until the late 1980s, this was mainly California; recently, however, the United States has ceded (转让) its early lead in wind development to European competitors. Prudent investments in the domestic wind market can help reverse this trend. What are the advantages of wind power plants Most consumers like to avoid risk: The chance that something they need, no matter how inexpensive today, will become much more costly tomorrow. Fixed-rate mortgages owe much of their popularity to this characteristic. While other loan packages may be less expensive in the short-term, many homeowners like the comfort of knowing that their monthly mortgage bill will never increase. Like a fixed rate mortgage, investing in wind energy offers an effective strategy for managing risk, a way of buying an insurance policy against the ups and downs of the power market. It is especially effective against three kinds of risk: environmental regulation, fuel price volatility and load-growth uncertainty. The typical wind power plant takes less than a year to build, once the site is selected and licenses and permits approved. By contrast, conventional large power plants may take three to four years to build with the result that if loads do not increase as expected, a utility may be left with a substantial excess cost. Another advantage of wind power plants is that they can be built in phases timed according to need. Finally, interest costs are lower during the construction of wind projects. Does wind energy produce pollution Opinion polls rank wind as one of the most popular energy resources, far ahead of fossil fuels and nuclear power. The reason is simple: it produces no pollution or hazardous wastes. This is a very real benefit, for pollution can have a serious effect on our health, the economy and our sense of well being. Air pollutants such as carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, particulates and volatile organic compounds have been shown to reduce lifespans and increase the incidence of debilitating illnesses, especially among the elderly and those with respiratory impairments. Some pollutants, such as sulfur dioxide and ozone, damage wildlife and plants and even reduce crop yields. Finally, greenhouse gases (which are emitted primarily by fossil-fuel combustion) are implicated in global warming, which may cause major changes in climate during the next several decades. Wind power’’s popularity with the public can be a competitive advantage for power companies that invest in this technology. Municipal utilities, large industrial consumers, and perhaps even residential consumers in some locations soon may be able to express a preference for clean power by their choice of electricity supplier. Utility-sponsored market surveys show that a significant number of consumers are willing to spend more on their monthly utility bills to purchase power from renewable sources. Companies that want to attract and keep such customers should give careful attention to wind power. Whether utilities continue to be tightly regulated or the industry moves into a more competitive phase, the significant benefits of wind energy should play an increasingly important role in deciding what kinds of new power plants will be built. In the traditional regulated utility setting, regulators could simply require utilities to consider benefits such as lower pollution, reduced risks and job creation in their resource planning. As competition in the power industry increases, new mechanisms must come into play. On the one hand, the wind industry must aggressively market the benefits of wind power to potential customers. At the same time, state policymakers must take steps to ensure that the move to competition does not jeopardize (使冒危险) the public interest. So long as regulations and the market value environmental protection, long-term price stability, economic development and other benefits, wind power will receive the attention it deserves. Recently, the United States has ceded its early lead in wind development to Asian competitors.