Less Than Two Percent of Total U.S. Wind Energy Has Been Developed
July 24, 2008 | Posted by EDF Blogs in Uncategorized
U.S. Wind Energy Picture
A megawatt can power roughly
250 typical American homes.
Map 1 (Interactive):
Wind energy - Developed
Map 2 (Interactive):
Wind energy - Under construction
Map 3 (Click to enlarge):
Wind energy - Potential vs. developed
The larger the circle, the more total energy per state. Thus, the great plains states have large circles.
What a week.
When a billionaire Texas oil man/underwriter for the now defunct Swiftboat Veterans for Truth comes up with a multimillion-dollar media campaign to convert the great plains into the "Saudi Arabia of Wind", things seem a little wacky.
Furthermore, our very own Sheryl Canter reported yesterday that Texas is going to put five billion taxpayer dollars towards developing their wind power capacity and transmission.
So it was a major victory for the proponents of wind energy who contend that wind can provide at least 20% of the nation's power supply.
Since the wind doesn't blow constantly, it is known as a non-steady state source of energy. In that way it is similar to solar power but markedly different from Enhanced Geothermal
All of the map data comes from the American Wind Energy Association who today announced that the US is the #1 wind energy produce r in the world
And yet we still have so far to go.
Lots of questions can be asked of this information, and I'd like to ask you to help us answer some of them. For instance, why have some states done better than others in terms of developing this resource? Feel free to comment and please subscribe to this blog. STAY TUNED! More on this to come!!!
Leave a Reply
User comments reflect the opinions of the responsible contributor only, and do not reflect the viewpoint of Environmental Defense Fund. We reserve the right to delete comments that may be considered offensive, illegal or inappropriate. We also reserve the right to delete duplicate comments, or comments that have no relationship to the original post.