In the first six months of 2008 the USA generated more electricity from wind power than any other country in the world. The previous number 1, Germany, still has more capacity (around 23,000 MW compared to 18,000 MW), but the winds were stronger here in the US it seems allowing the US to actually generate more power.

In terms of percentage of power generated by wind turbines though, the US is still a long way behind other countries at the top of the wind power table. Germany generates 7% of its electricity from wind power, Denmark 20%. The USA comes in with just over 1%.

Pickens Plan
Wind power plays a major part in the T. Boone Pickens plan for removing the US dependency on foreign oil. Pickens is the founder and chairman of BP Capital Management, and has spent his whole life working in the oil industry. Now though he says:

America is in a hole and it’s getting deeper every day. We import 70% of our oil at a cost of $700 billion a year - four times the annual cost of the Iraq war.

I’ve been an oil man all my life, but this is one emergency we can’t drill our way out of. But if we create a new renewable energy network, we can break our addiction to foreign oil.

And he has a plan to break that addiction, part of which includes increasing wind power generation from today’s 1% number up to as much as 20% (which the US Department of Energy believes is possible).

[Via GreenBlog]

Tags: electricity, pickens, turbines, wind

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