U.S. Now Largest Wind Power Producer, Still Kinda Lame

The United States has just overtaken Germany (which happens to be about 27 times smaller than the US) as the world's largest wind energy producer. And now we're supposed to throw a party, right?

OK, maybe a small party. 2007 saw the third straight year of record growth for wind power in America, and even if we can't keep that up for 2008, the future of wind energy looks strong. At maximum capacity, we'd produce roughly 21 gigawatts of power with wind, though it's unclear exactly how much we're actually producing.

I won't really be happy until we're producing 27 times as much wind power as Germany. But, according to Randall Swisher, the executive director of the American Wind Energy Association, this puts us on track to beat the Department of Energy's goal to have more than 20% of America's power generated by wind by 2030.

That's good news...the question is, can we keep it up?

Via Cleantechnica

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written by Xero, December 29, 2008

FIRST!... AND NOW WE ARE FIRST... AWESOME SEE AMERICA IS NUMBER ONE....please no hippy talk of " yeah first in pollution" don't spoil the party with your downer comments

we're only 3 times as big as germany (po
written by bobbobberson, December 29, 2008

I think population is a better gauge of how well we're doing, we have between 3 and 4 times the amount of people that germany does and so per capita we're not doing as bad as km^2. Since wind power takes people to install and design and test and use etc.etc.

But yes area may be a more reasonable measure to use since wind power takes area. To sit back and think of it does seem rather shocking that we can generate 27 times the electricity from wind power as Germany already does (no pun intended).

27 * 20,000 MW equals 540,000 MW, now thats alot of spark.

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written by EV, December 29, 2008

To sit back and think of it does seem rather shocking that we can generate 27 times the electricity from wind power as Germany already does

Not necessarily. Just because we have 27 times the land area, does not directly translate to 27 times the wind power. Wind power is heavily dependent on *drum roll* the wind. Not all areas receive the same amount of wind.

To use Solar as an example, who do you think can generate more solar power per unit of area? Mexico or Canada?

"A" for effort but could (easily) do bet
written by Jon, January 06, 2009

Rather than wind-energy-capacity/population, a better measure yet would be energy wind-energy-capacity/energy-consumption-per-person. You see there are two ways to be "greener", one is to produce more clean-energy and the other is to reduce your consumption. The second is where Americans fall short, while their production of clean-energy is to be applauded, their consumption of energy is 2 or 3 times more than their closest rivals.

Nevertheless, go USA! good for you, "A" for effort but could (easily) do better.

Ha! Awesome Take...
written by Eric, January 06, 2009

well said - and so concise. good article.

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U.S. Now Largest Wind Power Producer, Still Kinda Lame

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