Originally published September 24 2005
Wind industry rapidly growing
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
In the past five years the wind industry has tripled in size, and is the single fastest-growing electricity-generating technology in the world.
"Wind energy is real, it's no longer a dream," said Bob Thresher, director of the National Wind Technology Center (NWTC) at NREL.
According to the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA), businesses around the world invested $9 billion in wind energy technologies in 2003.
This great progress in wind energy is largely the result of the research and development activities conducted under the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE's) Wind Energy Program by NREL and Sandia National Laboratories with their wind industry partners.
"From watts to megawatts, from design to integration, NREL has worked by the wind industry's side for more than 20 years to advance the technology and make wind energy cost effective," said Thresher.
Another important goal for the year 2007 is to produce electricity from small, distributed wind systems in Class 3 wind resource areas---areas with average annual wind speeds of 5.6 meters per second (m/s) at a height of 10 m above ground---at a cost of 10� to 15�/kWh.
Today, that's the cost of producing electricity in Class 5 wind resource areas, with average wind speeds of 6.4 m/s at 10 m. Photo of NREL's new resonance blade test system at the NWTC.
The new system, which will test blades manufactured for giant multimegawatt turbines, will be the only one of its kind in the world.
Today's turbines are almost as tall as the Statue of Liberty (93 m), with rotor diameters larger than the wingspan of a jumbo jet (64 m), and they produce enough electricity to power more than 500 homes.
The second solicitation identified 21 public-private partnerships to be negotiated by NREL and Sandia National Laboratories.
The United States is home to more than 700 Native American groups and corporations that control 38.8 million hectares (96 million acres) in the United States.
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