Wind, water

It would not have been wrong, in my opinion, to have said "energy from wind". The "the" seems to be optional there.

So the question becomes, "Why can "wind" optionally take "the" and "water" not take it at all?"

I don't know if there is a definitive answer to that question. It may be a purely arbitrary choice that native speakers make without ever asking the reason.

Maybe wind is different from water in that any movement of air is a particular instance of air movement, and so is a sort of individual event -- a strong wind, the cold wind, but water is simply a substance which is exactly the same in every case. I don't know if this explanation is any more satisfactory than another. Others will post their own opinions, I'm sure.

CJ