Cheap Savonius Wind Turbine

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From the July 7th 2008 ENR

The U.S. is the second-largest wind-energy market and is posted to overtake Germany by the end of next year, according to the Brussels, Belgium-based Global Wind Energy Council

Engineering News Record notes in this article that the US had 15,616 installed MW of wind power in 2007.

A gigawatt equals a thousand megawatts (MW).

As reference points the EIA notes that Iraq had a 3.8 gigawatt capacity in a June 2008 update (#76 world ranking in this arena), Germany had a 120.4 gigawatt capacity in a June 2008 update (#6 world ranking in this arena) and that the US had a 956.7 gigawatt capacity in a June 2008 update (#1 world ranking in this arena).


From the July 7th 2008 Business Week

Wind power, while still just a speck in America's total energy mix, is no longer some fantasy of the Birkenstock set. In the U.S., more than 25,000 turbines produce 17 gigawatts of electricity-generating capacity, enough to power 4.5 million homes. Total capacity rose 45% last year and is forecast to nearly triple by 2012. Right now, only 1% of the country's electricity comes from wind, but government and industry leaders want to see that share hit 20% by 2030, both to boost the supply of carbon-free energy and to create green-collar jobs.

Such a transformation won't come easily. While much of America's wind energy is in the Midwest, demand for electricity is on the coasts. And the electrical grid, designed decades ago, can't move large quantities of electricity thousands of miles. There's plenty of wind off the coasts, but it's both expensive to harness and controversial; not-in-my-backyard sentiment has slowed some of the most high-profile projects

It costs roughly $225 million to build a 150-megawatt wind plant. Horizon, the big wind developer, has 11,000 megawatts of projects in the works...

Wikipedia has an interesting entry on electric power transmission