The Wind Industry Around the World

After reading "Wind-Power Politics" by Mark Svenvold which describe's the efforts of Bluewater Wind to develop a wind farm off the coast of Deleware, I became interested in the wind industry around the world and how much of an impact it has made in the energy market. To my amazement, wind farms across the globe are responsible for generating 94,000 megawatts of energy. The popularity and effectiveness of this particular form of energy is growing at a considerable rate (over 45% increase in the U.S. in just the past two years). So why haven't we heard more about this new frontier and where exctly does the U.S. fit among the world nations as far as the capacity to generate wind power?
Currently in the United States, 34 states use wind turbines to generate nearly 17 Gigawatts of power with the states of Texas, California, Minnesota, and Iowa leading the way. However, in the bigger picture, wind energy in the United States is responsible for only 0.4% of the total energy produced; seeminlgy insignificant when you consider the influence created by the energy giants such as coal, oil, natural gas, and nuclear energy. This is likely to change however, as the the U.S. Depatment of energy is working towards a goal that invovles harnassing 20% of the total energy demand from wind power by the year 2030.
While the wind industry in the United States is growing at a considerably high rate, it is shadowed by Germany, although the U.S. is likely to surpass the European nation by the end of this decade. Other notable countries that are harnassing this renewable resource are Spain, India, and the People's Republic of China.
So even though oil, natural gas, and coal continue to blaze the trail in the production of electricity on our planet, the future for harnassing renewabe resources such as wind and water looks very promising.

- Information from this entry was obtained from industry.org