wind-power

SustainableMiddleClass.com.

Wind Power

The world's fastest growing source of electricity offers tremendous potential in North America.

Photo source: Sandia National Laboratories

The United States Department of Energy has evaluated wind speeds throughout the United States regarding the potential for wind power generation. They've created some attractive and colorful maps showing the wind potential at different locations within each state. Follow the link below and click on a state to see the wind potential map for that state.

Wind Power: U.S. Department of Energy State Wind Potential Maps

Wind-Hydrogen-Fuel-Fertilizer Bridge Technologies

The University of Minnesota has formed partnerships with private companies and public agencies to develop a cutting-edge wind to hydrogen project.

Briefly, the integrated technologies start with electricity generated from a wind turbine, which connects to a hydrolyzer to produce hydrogen. The hydrogen is capable of being stored and used as a fuel. The onsite storage of hydrogen eliminates the need to import fuel from out-of-state, keeping more money in the state economy. Notably, ethanol has been criticized as inefficient as coal, gasoline and or diesel fuel is used in its production. The beauty of this Minnesota system is the fuel used to run the farm is renewable and produced on site. This approach should be widely used along with ethanol to replace the fossil fuel used to grow our food.

The hydrogen is also used to produce anhydrous ammonia, a key nitrogen fertilizer for crops grown to make food and biofuels.

National Renewable Energy Laboratory

A good report is available from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, which studied the feasibility of wind power to support future hydrogen economy in this paper (pdf) on hydrogen-wind bridge technology.

Wind Power: it's clean, it's safe, it's relatively simple, and it's economically competitive with existing big (economy-of-scale) fossil fuel and nuclear generation systems. The technology is here. Now if only the United Sates would get serious about investing in it.

Texas Leads

Somewhat ironically, given its association with oil and gas, the great state of Texas leads the nation in wind power generating capacity. California is a close second. Minnesota and Iowa are serious developers of wind power. The American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) compiles statistics on existing and proposed projects nationwide and top ten wind energy producing states.

Other Recommended Links

Wind Blog

Windustry

Wind-Works

Keywords: wind power, wind energy, sustainable energy, clean energy.