Friday, September 12, 2008

Blowin' in the Wind

Earlier this year, the American Wind Energy Association reported that the USA passed Germany in the production of energy from wind, and now leads the world in wind energy production. And, productive capacity is expected to grow by 45% by the end of 2008 with over 25,000 wind turbines in operation.

Over 200 turbines are under construction in rural ND in four different projects. Both oil production from the Bakken Field which is being compared to Saudi Arabia and wind energy were major areas of discussion at the statewide ED conference I took part in Bismarck. ND has lots of energy!

One of the challenges we face as a country is getting the wind energy that is produced in rural America to the population centers where it can be used. Major enhancements to the electrical grid are going to be required to fully utilize the potential of wind.


3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sadly, the windiest part of North Dakota (southwest corner), has only one wind turbine, and that is at a monastery for their own personal use.

Anonymous said...

i think the Us should invest more in PV solar arrays since wind is not as consistent as the sun.

BoomtownUSA said...

Great comments! Thanks for sharing. There are going to be numerous alternative energy sources in the USA of which both wind and solar are only two.

I think that one of the keys in the future is how do we produce energy efficiently in areas that might not have a lot of population, finding ways to transport it to where they live.

jack