如果風(fēng)力發(fā)電場可以為世界提供能源會怎樣呢?

如果風(fēng)力發(fā)電場可以為世界提供能源會怎樣呢?

An international agency that once brushed off the potential of wind energy has become one its biggest supporters.

一個曾經(jīng)對風(fēng)能的潛力不屑一顧的國際機(jī)構(gòu)現(xiàn)在成了它最大的支持者之一。

The International Energy Agency (IEA) released a special report on wind power, saying that with continued improvements in technology and support from governments, offshore wind farms could generate more than 420,000 terawatt-hours per year worldwide — which is more than 18 times global electricity demand today.

國際能源機(jī)構(gòu)(IEA)發(fā)布了一份關(guān)于風(fēng)力發(fā)電的特別報告，稱隨著技術(shù)的不斷進(jìn)步和政府的支持，海上風(fēng)力發(fā)電場每年可以在全球范圍內(nèi)產(chǎn)生超過42萬太瓦時的電量，是目前全球電力需求的18倍多。

In order to reach these lofty goals, we'll need bigger turbines, floating platforms and improved energy policies, says the IEA. (Photo: Max Topchii/Shutterstock)

Offshore Wind Outlook 2019 is a 98-page document that looks at technological advances, market forces and a geospatial analysis of where wind power can work. It's a snippet of the group's annual world energy report, which will be released on Nov. 13. IEA, which was founded in 1974 to coordinate a response to disruptions in the flow of oil, has since expanded to explore all energy issues.

《2019年海上風(fēng)能展望》是一份98頁的文件，著眼于技術(shù)進(jìn)步、市場力量和風(fēng)能發(fā)電的地理空間分析。這是該組織將于11月13日發(fā)布的年度《世界能源報告》的一部分。國際能源署成立于1974年，旨在協(xié)調(diào)應(yīng)對石油供應(yīng)中斷的措施。自那以來，該機(jī)構(gòu)已擴(kuò)展到探討所有能源問題。

"Offshore wind currently provides just 0.3% of global power generation, but its potential is vast," said Dr. Fatih Birol, the IEA’s executive director, in a press release. "More and more of that potential is coming within reach, but much work remains to be done by governments and industry for it to become a mainstay of clean energy transitions."

國際能源署執(zhí)行主任法提赫·比羅爾博士在一份新聞稿中說:“目前，海上風(fēng)力發(fā)電僅占全球發(fā)電量的0.3%，但其潛力巨大。”“越來越多的潛力即將實現(xiàn)，但要讓它成為清潔能源轉(zhuǎn)型的中流砥柱，政府和行業(yè)還有很多工作要做。”

Science is changing attitudes toward wind power

科學(xué)正在改變?nèi)藗儗︼L(fēng)能的態(tài)度

The first floating offshore wind turbine, 'floatgen,' is pictured off La Turballe, in western France, in September 2018. (Photo: SEBASTIEN SALOM GOMIS/AFP/Getty Images)

This backs up earlier research looking at the amount of wind energy available for harvest over our oceans. According to the study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, there's enough energy over the oceans to "potentially provide civilization-scale power."

這支持了早期的研究，即在我們的海洋上收集風(fēng)能的數(shù)量。根據(jù)發(fā)表在《美國國家科學(xué)院院刊》雜志上的研究，海洋上的能量足以“潛在地提供文明規(guī)模的能量”。

To harvest that power, we would need to cover enormous stretches of the sea with turbines, a monumental engineering feat that would also have real environmental consequences. So while actually powering human civilization with wind power alone is probably impractical, the study demonstrates that floating wind farms have an immense untapped potential.

為了獲得這種能量，我們需要用渦輪機(jī)覆蓋大片的海域，這是一項具有里程碑意義的工程壯舉，也會對環(huán)境產(chǎn)生真正的影響。因此，雖然僅靠風(fēng)力發(fā)電來推動人類文明可能是不切實際的，但研究表明，浮動風(fēng)電場具有巨大的開發(fā)潛力。

"I would look at this as kind of a green light for that industry from a geophysical point of view," said one of the study's researchers, Ken Caldeira of the Carnegie Institution for Science in Stanford, California.

“從地球物理學(xué)的角度來看，我認(rèn)為這是該行業(yè)的一盞綠燈，”研究人員之一、加州斯坦福大學(xué)卡內(nèi)基科學(xué)研究所的肯·卡爾代拉說。

The reason offshore wind power has so much more potential than land-based wind farms is that wind speeds can be as much as 70 percent higher over the sea. Part of that is because natural and human structures on land create friction that slows wind down, but researchers also found that wind over the ocean circulates from higher altitudes.

海上風(fēng)力發(fā)電比陸上風(fēng)力發(fā)電場更有潛力的原因是，海上風(fēng)速可以高出70%。部分原因是陸地上的自然和人類結(jié)構(gòu)產(chǎn)生了摩擦，減緩了風(fēng)的速度，但研究人員還發(fā)現(xiàn)，海洋上的風(fēng)是從更高的高度循環(huán)的。

"Over land, the turbines are just sort of scraping the kinetic energy out of the lowest part of the atmosphere, whereas over the ocean, it’s depleting the kinetic energy out of most of the troposphere, or the lower part of the atmosphere," explained Caldeira.

卡爾代拉解釋說:“在陸地上，渦輪機(jī)只是把動能從大氣的最低部分刮走，而在海洋上，它正在耗盡對流層的大部分，或大氣的較低部分的動能。”

The study found that it would take a 3 million square kilometer wind installation over the ocean to provide all of humanity’s current power needs, or 18 terawatts. That's a lot of turbines; it would need to cover an area roughly the size of Greenland. Still, it's possible.

研究發(fā)現(xiàn)，在海洋上安裝一個300萬平方公里的風(fēng)力設(shè)施，才能滿足人類目前所有的電力需求，即18太瓦。這需要很多渦輪機(jī);它需要覆蓋格陵蘭島大小的面積。不過,這是可能的。