Entry bubble Will Wind Power Work?

By: Nancy | July 10, 2008 | Category: General

I know to expect them. But I still gasp in awe as I round the bend, the trees clear and I catch sight of the wind towers when I drive through Thomas, West Virginia. In groups and rows, the towers seem like synchronized swans, perpetually flapping, but never able to take off from their perch on Backbone Mountain.

wind farm

The 44 wind turbines on Mountaineer Wind Energy Center's wind farm sure don't look like the grain grinding windmills that Don Quixote went after. But these tall, white poles with three-blade rotors are the kind of wind machines that are at the center of a new energy plan for America that oil billionaire and philanthropist T. Boone Pickens proposed this week. He says the key to getting out of the country's oil woes is to focus on renewable energy forms like wind power.

In a typical day, wind power facilities nationwide produce enough electricity to power the equivalent of more than 4.5 million homes. That's about 1% of the US electrical supply. But in a recent report, the US Department of Energy promoted the concept of as much as 20% of America's energy coming from wind power by the year 2030.

Wind power's not without its environmental concerns. Bats by the thousands are being killed by wind towers and many people don't want wind farms near their homes because their construction causes land disturbance and the towers change the view. As an alternative to wind farms located on land, America's first offshore wind farm has just been approved to be built off the coast of Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.

Could a wind farm be coming to your town? Take a look at this map and see and then tell me what you think: is America's energy future really blowing in the wind?

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