Which is a sustainable practice? 1: operating wind farms 2: clear cutting 3: flood irrigation 4: overfishing

Which is a sustainable practice?

1: operating wind farms

2: clear cutting

3: flood irrigation

4: overfishing

Answer: 1: operating wind farms

Managing wind farms is a practice that is environmentally friendly since renewable energy has to do with environmental conservation. Wind energy utilizes one of the naturally available infinite resources, namely, the wind, to produce electricity without polluting or depleting any physical resources. This makes it a sustainable option for producing energy compared to what is obtained from fossil fuels.

Wind farms are generally a group of several wind turbines for the extraction of energy from wind into electrical energy. For instance, the Alta Wind Energy Center in California with what has been considered one of the world’s largest onshore wind farms can produce over 1,500MW of clean energy to power over a quarter of a million homes. Wind farms are either onshore or offshore; the latter usually have better and steadier wind conditions than onshore wind farms.

Wind farms are not as destructive as the other alternatives presented in the sense that they have little effect on the environment once established. They do not call for ceaseless exploitation of resources such as in the case of clear-cutting, option 2, they do not put pressure on the water systems such as flooding, option 3, and they do not exhaust natural stocks as in the case of overfishing, option 4. Wind farms do, however, present certain environmental concerns mainly relating to effects on birds and the overall looks and the impacts are normally minimized to an acceptable level.

Additionally, wind energy is beneficial for energy security as well as energy independence since it does not involve the use of fossil fuels; and equally important employment is being generated in the wind energy sector. Thus, wind energy is being recognized as a more feasible and viable renewable energy source in different parts of the world as the generation efficiency increases and the cost per unit of energy comes down.