Megawatts of installed wind power generating capacity by state
Wind power capacity in the United States grew 27 percent last year and is projected to increase another 26 percent in 2007, according to a report released today by the trade group the American Wind Energy Association. The U.S. now has enough installed wind power capacity – 11,603 megawatts – to power between 3 million and 3.5 million homes, which reduces annual greenhouse gas emissions by 23 million tons of carbon dioxide. The number of homes relying on electricity produced by wind energy will rise to nearly 4.5 million by year’s end if the AWEA’s forecast is accurate.
The wind farm building boom – capacity has nearly doubled since 2003 – is likely to continue in coming years as global warming concerns intensify. Just yestersday, the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, a coalition of major industrial corporations such as General Electric (GE), DuPont (DD) and BP (BP), unveiled an aggressive global warming program that would, among other things, make long-term tax incentives for wind energy that 
currently expire every two years.
Texas and California are the wind energy superstates and will continue to add
capacity in this year as California utilities like PG&E (PCG) and Southern
California Edison (EIX) sign deals with wind farm developers so they
can meet state-mandated renewable energy targets. For instance, last month
Southern California Edison agreed
to buy 1,500 megawatts of wind energy from a subsidiary of Australian
company Allco Finance, a move that will boost California’s wind power
capacity by 65 percent. And Texas wind farms currently under
construction will crank out another 1,013 megawatts, adding 37 percent
to the state’s wind power generation. (Texas wind farm photo at right originally uploaded by fieldsbh.) In Illinois, planned or proposed
wind farm projects would increase the state’s
capacity from 107 megawatts to 1,541 megawatts. Idaho’s wind energy
production would more than triple if proposed projects are built.
Technological advances and utilities’ demand for clean green power are opening up states long considered poor candidates for wind farming, according to AWEA executive director Randall Swisher. "Now there are significant wind farms being built in Indiana, not something I would have thought was possible a decade ago," he told Green Wombat. "There are significant pockets of wind resource in Arizona. We’re learning that wind resources are more widely distributed than we thought. There is a strong interest in the electric utility industry in wind that’s driving the discovery of new wind resources." While the southeast currently has few wind farms, Swisher identified North Carolina as one southern state with potential for wind development, particularly with new turbines that can operate at more moderate wind speeds.
Green Wombat 
A little hope, this? Thanks for the update, Todd.
So, you can create jobs and be eco-friendly. There seem to be other job creating energy alternatives out there too! It’d be nice to see this overall issue framed around job creation along with the “security” aspect of not relying on resources from hostile regions.
They have a large wind farm in Palm Springs area, just off Varner Road. Could someone explain why, on a very windy day in that area, only about 20% of the windmills were turning?
Nice stuff but the world is no longer a Dutch village. It needs nuclear power.
Invest in making nuclear fission cleaner, use new designs by the French and Germans, and draft soldiers to do the construction work for 5 years. The US needs a new Public works like in the Depression era.
If the USA could build the dozens of dams, public works, national parks, and much much more in 10 years with shovels and farm tractors, we can build much smaller grids of nuclear plants in 5 years. Put the plants 100 ft underground in concrete bunkers for added protection. Contain the waste onsite and recycle. By act of Congress all of the legal mumbo gumbo stalling can be avoided.
Install electric rail grids for trains and trucks for long haul freight which consume 20% of all motor fuel. Just like many buses have in Boston for last 30 years! Develop new battery technologies for cruise ships, planes and other vessels that use another 15%. Replace gas and oil furnaces with electric.
US will then regain its competitiveness with low cost energy. This solar, wind stuff and ethanol is political football nonsense that was rejected by scientists in 1970s. It works to a degree under ideal conditions but is too expensive and unreliable given the stakes.
Nuclear is the only solution for the next 10, 20, 100, and 1000 years.
Nuke power will definately be a part of the answer to the problem of co2 buildup. But, while we’re fantacizing grand schemes, let’s add fusion, which is clean nuclear. A combination of sources and a combination of conservation (just fixing the insulation value of homes will do alot) measures will get us to where we’ll need to be, to make the world safe for technology.
Another sci-fi (in the good sense) scheme is orbiting solar reflectors, sending focused beams of microwave energy down to ocean-based receivers. Tidal and wave energy are not far off.
Great article. wow, 3,5 million homes out of the fossil fuel dependency.
Fellows, this is just the beginning. I would like to see how solar is doing too.
Great artical,
dont know why u all so negative about alternative energy to nuclear
just need to find the companies to invest in them,
One thing to keep in mind is that wind power doesn’t have to stop at giant wind farms (which are great, don’t get me wrong), but can also be utilized by the end user through small wind devices. Southwest Windpower in Flagstaff, Ariz., makes a Skystream 3.7 that is one of the best around. Total cost to get up and running is $6-8k, and could pay for itself in a few years and then start earning money. The 35-foot tower that holds the SkyStream is not ideal in residential but certainly works for rural and farming communities (2 acres +).
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10 Schietti’s magnetic wind plant delivered
The magnetic wind plant
Since it doesn’t require force of gravity, fuels, particular weather conditions and external interventions is perfect for spaceships.
Well, take an ordinary wind fan and change it a little bit.
Replace the blades with ordinary steel bars and put some iron stuff (electromagnetically sensitive) on top of it.
Around the fans, on the outside, put a wheel of electric magnets just like Christmas blinking lights.
When one goes out the following one has to glow and so on.
You have to switch three of them on connected with the three blade ends which are electromagnetically sensitive.
When the following one is lit up, the blade will be attracted and start to move.
At the same time the blade reaches the following magnet, it’ll go out and the following one will be turned on.
The bigger the fan, the stronger the lever induced by its movement.
The energy needed to make the magnets work, according to the size of the blades, will be 5-10-15 times smaller than that produced by the turbine.
By increasing the diameter of the circle you’ll inevitably reach the breaking point of inertia, therefore the magnets will manage to move the blades, maybe of just some millimetres.
Than, by increasing the speed of ignition of the following magnet, the speed of sinning of the blades will increase consequently along with energy production, while consumption will be of three magnets only.
In fact, since electromagnets turn on and off one after the other, 3 of them remain turned on each time. Therefore, the consumption is always given by the energy needed to activate 3 electromagnets, nothing more.
If 10 electromagnets turn on and off one after the other in a second, if the electromagnet has an attraction force of 1 Kg, the force applied will be of 10 Kg in one second: 1 Kg per ignition.
That is, each time the following electromagnet turns on, a force of 1 Kg is again applied.
The quicker the following electromagnet turns on, the faster the blade will turn thanks to bigger force.
The energy consumption to turn the electromagnets on will always be the same.
Yet, by increasing the ignition speed of the following magnet, the force applied will increase as well and consequently the speed of blade spinning and the speed of energy production too.
The sample built by Zamboni and given to the Istituto di Fisica of Rome
http://www.phys.uniroma1.it/DipWeb/museo/pilazamb.jpg
Zamboni’s battery is similar to Volta’s column battery, but, instead of metal disks of copper and zinc, there are paper disks of two types, named gold and silver: the first ones are made of copper, the others of an alloy of zinc and tin. Since paper gets wet when in contact with air, it’s not necessary to alternate the metallic couples with the disks soaked in acid salt spring. The disks are put on an aluminium central rod with a hook at the end. The battery is able to supply low intensity current. Yet, advantage is due to the opportunity to stack a high number of thin disks.
A Zamboni’s continuous electrogenerator, which activates a clock, has been working for 150 years at the Cavendish Laboratory (Oxford)
The drawing of Schietti’s Engine with sliding bulkheads
http://www.free-people.org/fotos-photos/bella-napoli.jpg
The sliding bulkheads may be activated by Zamboni’s battery. We wouldn’t be the first to do that
Baumann’s 750Kw electrostatic generator start working in 1980 in Liden (Switzerland) to supply an entire village with the needed daily energy and it uses a generator which is similar to Zamboni’s.
Yet, a bigger effectiveness is given by turning on the magnets of the Magnetic Wind Plant with Zamboni’s batteries
– What guarantees do you offer about the functioning of Schietti’s engine?
– The same guarantees offered by Archimedes when he said that he might raise the world with a lever. Or by Torricelli (horror vacui) when he stated that the water in wells goes up until 10 metres since it is attracted by the void and is pushed by the atmospheric pressure. Or by Zamboni with his electro generator activated by his batteries.
Ten metres are not 10 centimetres, it’s a big leap and you can make a lot of energy out of it.
The world is pretty heavy and if you put an air tank to compress below, you’ll obtain a big amount of air to put into a huge cylinder full of water with the simple effort of one person. The useful work is huge.
Zamboni’s batteries work very well and produce good magnetic fields to work Magnetic Wind Plants.
Look, magic water engines and this magnetic tip wind mill ideas are just mythology. You would have to input more energy into the magnets to spin the blades then the turbine produces because of inefficiences. If you knew anything about physics you’d know that energy is neither created nor destroyed and therefore you cannot create energy from nothing and therefore no magic “energy from nothing” machines exist, neither from magnets nor from gravity.
Nuclear energy should only be used as the suppliment to any shortfall of free energy. Free energy being wind, solar, hydro, etc. The shortfall today would be more then 99% of our energy and therefore we’d need a lot of nuclear, but in reality we shouldn’t build anymore nuclear plants at all. We should push for wind and solar to develop at more rapid rates, which can replace coal and natural gas later on. To avoid having to maintain backup capacity for wind, for example, V2G technology works well, so we’d have to push for plug in hybrid vehicle technology and also push for laws that require utilities to work with this. With enough energy buffering in all the batteries of cars that will be pluged in throughout the day, as well as large battery facilities run by the utilities and other mechanical energy storage devices such as using excess wind energy to pump water up into a raised container, which can later be used by a hydro electric generator at peak demand in the middle of the day, wind penetration could be limitless. Solar also compliments wind very well by giving an extra boost of energy during the peak power consumption period in the middle of the day. Areas that have poor wind and solar can buy from neighbors or maintain nuclear power.
nuclear reactors are approximately 1% efficient…
and costly..in terms of production..and ecological damage cost..
has anyone see a radioactive mine? or a dump?