Positive impacts of wind energy

Environmental
Reducing global warming
The build-up of global warming pollution is not only causing a gradual rise in average temperatures, but also increasing fluctuations in weather patterns and causing more frequent and severe droughts and floods. From specific research, US scientists find that using wind energy can help reduce total U.S. emissions of carbon dioxide by almost a third. Since carbon dioxide is the major pollutant which contributes to global warming by trapping the sun's rays on the earth as in a greenhouse, the decrease of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere means a new hope for us.
Help to prevent acid rain
Acid rain harms forests and the wildlife they support. Many lakes in the U.S. Northeast have become biologically dead because of this form of pollution. Acid rain also corrodes buildings and economic infrastructure such as bridges. Sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides are two most important sources of acid rain. However, development of just 10% of the wind potential in the 10 windiest U.S. states would not only provide more than enough energy to displace emissions from the nation's coal-fired power plants but also eliminate the nation's major source of acid rain.
Ensure people’s health
Particulate matter is of growing concern because of its impacts on health. Its presence in the air along with other pollutants has contributed to make asthma one of the fastest growing childhood ailments in industrial and developing countries alike, and it has also recently been linked to lung cancer. Since wind energy is a kind of clean energy, it will help contain the spread of asthma and other respiratory diseases aggravated or caused by air pollution in the country.
Protect biological food chain
Toxic heavy metals accumulate in the environment and up the biological food chain. A number of states have banned or limited the eating of fish from fresh-water lakes because of concerns about mercury, a toxic heavy metal, accumulating in their tissue. By using wind energy, it is estimated that such conditions will reduce and the negative impacts of heavy metals will be controlled.

Economical
Saving money
As with every other study of non-economic costs that has been conducted, the Externe study found wind energy's costs to be among the lowest, far below those of fossil fuels. The highest non-economic cost for wind in any European country, for example, was 0.25 Euro cents per kilowatt-hour, while the lowest cost for coal was 2-4 Euro cents/kWh (eight to 16 times as much).
Saving living area
In open, flat terrain, a utility-scale wind plant will require about 60 acres per megawatt of installed capacity. However, only 5% (3 acres) or less of this area is actually occupied by turbines, access roads, and other equipment--95% remains free for other compatible uses such as farming or ranching.
Saving water
Water is very important in energy production, particularly in areas where water is scarce. This is because conventional power plants need large amounts of water for the condensing portion of the thermodynamic cycle. Different kinds of conventional power plants consume different amounts of water. Here is a diagram which shows the water consumption of some kinds of conventional power plants (through evaporative loss, not including water that is recaptured and treated for further use):
WATER CONSUMPTION--CONVENTIONAL POWER PLANTS

Technology ________gallons/kWh ___________liters/kWh

Nuclear___________0.62 _________________ 2.30

Coal_____________0.49 __________________1.90

Oil______________0.43__________________1.60

Combined Cycle Gas__0.25 __________________0.95

related wbsites:
http://www.repp.org/repp_pubs/repp_publications.html
http://www.externe.info/externpr.pdf
(He Yeqi)