US Kind of a World Leader in Wind Power Generation
According to the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA), the capacity the US has for generating wind power is expected to increase 45% in 2008. America’s currently installed capacity stands at 19,549MW, up a total of 2,726MW from the end of 2007. Thanks to this number, AWEA is announcing that America is now the US world leader in wind electricity generation.
However this is an announcement based on stats that AWEA is hoping the rest of the world won’t look at too hard.
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According to AWEA’s second quarter 2008 market report, they bill the US as the new world leader in the generation of wind power electricity. Looking at Germany’s capacity, for example, sees them with a total of 23,000MW, but never using that full capacity. Apparently the winds in America are stronger, and thus max out the US capacity.
But one important little factoid has been left out of this announcement, allowing the AWEA to make a perfectly legitimate statement, but based in marketing reality.
The US may have a capacity of 19,549MW, expected to grow another 4774MW by the end of this year, but it also has a population of 304.8 million people living on a total area of 9.8 million square kilometers of land. Germany, on the other hand, has only a population of 82 million and a total area of 357,000 square kilometers.
Needless to say, I’m going to say that Germany, and many of the European nations, are doing a lot better in terms of their actual rollout of wind power across their entire country.
And things get worse for the US in light of Congress’s failure to re-extend the production tax credit (PTC). This credit, which once provided a 1.9-cent per kilowatt-hour benefit for the first ten years of a renewable energy facility’s operation, provided not only a benefit but an incentive to install such stations.
According to AWEA executive director Randall Swisher, many projects currently in production are being rushed to completion, so that they can complete prior to the expiration of the PTC at the end of this year. In addition, investments in new projects following the expiration have stalled. “If there is a great deal of uncertainty in the market and in policies in the market, that investment capacity will be deployed elsewhere”, he said. “It’s just ludicrous that the Congress is letting this opportunity slip away.”
So, there you have kind of-good news and bad news for the production of renewable energy in the US; pretty much a sign of the times, really.
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Wind energy will only become more prevalent. Just look at the wind’s contribution in pushing Columbus here and later, the Mayflower. Hell, the big coal and nuke plants could even rig up some extra turbines to generate more electricity from their polluting stacks. Most politicians could do the same with their jabber-jaws. There are so many ways to generate electricity, it can be so extremely accessible that it should not be considered a commodity anymore but an expected right and freedom.
Wind energy is 7 times more cost efficient than solar panels. Countries like Denmark are on track to generate 50% of their electric power needs with wind energy. Obviously in a climate with as little sun as Denmark it was an obvious choice. Some of the USA has good wind, other parts have no wind resources. Unfortunately Enron grabbed up much of the wind rights (subsquently sold to GE), so again megacorporations control it all, which means higher prices and slow progress.
Americans are very stubborn about accepting windmills, and wind energy will be slow to catch on here. Too bad because it is a really clean and easy way to generate electricity.
I really think there’s merit to wind power; but its obviously not the only solution. Oil is tough thing to replace.
Tom
http://www.darebelieve.com
The U.S. is so very far behind in this category. It’s not just about volume to volume, the per capita is what we’re trying to increase.
The financing will get there from anyone who is watching the market potential of renewable energy and the carbon market.
Wind is a great resource.
[...] all this came a report that projected United States as the global leader in wind energy. Also by certain estimations, by 2020 US could increase power generated from wind energy to 150 [...]