The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Wind program arm just released a report (PDF, 4 MB) on the prospect of wind power generating 20% of U.S. electricity by the year 2030. News agencies have reported on this result, though typically only by reading the official press release. USA Today did do some additional research and their coverage accurately reflects both the intention and the results of the DOE report. In the following discussion I will suggest that you thumb through the report by highlighting a few items I found interesting. If wind power is going to produce such a significant portion of U.S. electricity, then there is a lot of difficult work to do (and don’t get discouraged if it fails).

The report is not a prediction that wind energy will be our savior. It begins by stating that President Bush motivated an improvement in the nation’s energy diversity. Give the DOE credit for taking the Bush Administration’s Energy Agenda and putting some real numbers behind it. Reading through this 248 page report will get you completely up to date in terms of the steps necessary for wind power to generate as much as 20% of all U.S. electricity by the year 2030. It’s not an easy climb, however, so it is important that the public have realistic expectations to avoid becoming disenchanted with wind power if it ends up costing more than this report suggests.

Points of Interest

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The Navajo nation has partnered up with a Boston company to build one of the country’s largest wind farms. This will be built about 50 miles north of Flagstaff in the Gray Mountain area. When completed the farm should produce around 500 Megawatts which is enough to power 100,000 homes. To achieve this much power around 300 turbines will be installed. For a more in depth article on this head over to azcentral.com.

Here’s short video of a wind turbine being erected. It’s in a totally different environment, but I’d think much of the construction is the same.

I don’t know what the real story on this is, I assume they are designed to handle high wind. Probably some sort of malfunction. Makes for a spectacular video though.