Windier world powers up green prospects

Cleaner electricity in store after study with Chinese input logs faster winds

A study involving scientists from Cardiff University in the United Kingdom and the Southern University of Science and Technology in Shenzhen has given a boost to the wind-powered energy industry after revealing that wind speeds around the world have increased in the past 10 years.

Since the 1970s, a process known as global terrestrial stilling meant that wind speeds had been decreasing, but research by the team in Cardiff, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, confirms that not only has the trend been reversed, but the increase since 2010 is three times greater than the previous rate of decline.