14 DAY TRIAL // As one can easily guess, the problem with wind and solar energy is that, in order to produce them, one needs to have the weather working in his/her favor.
However, this is not always the case, which means that, whenever the wind doesn't blow or the sun doesn't shine, energy providers need to turn back to your traditional fossil fuel power plants so as to be able to meet the demands and keep things afloat.
Thus, carbon emissions are by no means completely taken off the table by investing in renewable sources of energy, seeing how it only takes one calm or cloudy day to make us go back to our old ways.
Moreover, additional and avoidable carbon emissions are most often produced as a result of the fact that, whenever a fuel-burning power plant is turned on, energy is required just to heat up its boilers once again.
This means that constantly going back and forth between green energy sources and not-so-green energy sources is stressful both for national and international energy suppliers, and for the environment.
According to earthtechling.com, researchers from the Argone National Laboratory, a division of the U.S. Department of Energy, tried to figure out how adding wind turbines to the local grid system from Illinois might impact on the overall gas emissions and energy supply.
Apparently, since winds in Illinois are particularly powerful during nighttime, the region would only benefit from sudden and rather irregular bursts of energy coming from its wind turbines, which means that traditional power plants would still have to be up and running so as to compensate for this deficiency.
As many before them have pointed out, the scientists from the Argone National Laboratory argue that sooner or later, high officials will need to invest in finding ways to store the energy produced by renewable sources, especially if future plans are to go entirely green in terms of energy supply.
Illinois' interest in the efficiency of wind turbines in the area is probably due to its having to clean up about 25% of its energy sources by 2025. However, reports indicate that in 2010, only 2.2% of the state energy was produced using wind-power.
Rumor has it that, should Illinois decide to invest more in setting its green energy sources on the right track, about 20,000 new jobs would be created and roughly $1 billion (€0.8 billion) in wages would also find its way towards this state.