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Government study: 20% of US power will be from wind in 2030
While wind power might seem like a relatively esoteric way to get electricity that's best suited for places with huge expanses of empty land, the US government thinks it has the potential to be so much more. In fact, a new government-sponsored study claims that by the year 2030 20% of all power in the US could be generated by wind.
It's a pretty impressive statistic, especially seeing that we only get about 1% of our energy from wind now. It also assumes that we'll be increasing our energy usage by then. Imagine if we kept our usage steady or even started using less. That percentage would be even higher. Now we just need to prove the study right; let's get to it.
Silicon Valley Biz Journal, via Treehugger
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By MacBeth at 8:37 PM ON 05/15/08
I know Kansas at least is on its way. I've seen oversized trucks driving by Topeka on I-70 headed toward the great emptiness that is Western Kansas with huge wind turbine parts. There are also talks of building a wind turbine factory in the Topeka area. Which would be for international distribution.
By Zorro at 10:38 AM ON 05/16/08
The study is plain wrong I'm afraid. Unless there are significant technological advances in terms of power storage, wind power is next to useless - it's far too variable. (The point being, when there's no wind there is no power, unless you've previously stored up a shedload of it - meaning either you cover Kansas in batteries, or you also have to have enough power stations to cope with the load when the wind is down. And you can't just start up these power stations when the wind goes below a certain level, they have to be running continuously, meaning you might as well not bother with the wind power.)
The EU is just starting to realise this but still spending billions. I'd be very surprised if US were so stupid!!
By tbull97580 at 10:50 AM ON 05/16/08
Oh we're definately that stupid. And if we put our minds too it we can surpass that level of stupid and create a who new scale of stupid, because we're Americans and there's nothing we can't do!
By SCREEN NAME at 2:02 AM ON 05/17/08
You'd have to be pretty stupid to not even know what storage solutions they're using. Seriously, "zorro," you've never heard of the compressed air tanks below the massive solar plants in the desert?