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of the turbine, the shapes of blades and predictions of the winds. This research will continue to improve the wind turbine efficiency and further reduce the cost of wind energy.

By almost any measure, wind generated energy is exploding. The growth is primarily limited by turbine availability as the higher efficiency turbines are introduced. The global wind-power industry has grown from $11.8 billion in 2005 to $17.9 billion in 2006. Clean Edge Research projects the market will triple to $60.8 billion by 2016. In the United States in 2006 wind was the second-largest source of new generating capacity, trailing only natural gas. More than 2.4 GW of new capacity was installed, a 27% increase that brought total U.S. wind generating capacity to 11.6 GW, enough to power about 2.9 million homes , according to the American Energy Association. Over the past 20 years, a strong DOE-funded R&D effort combined with private partnerships has lowered the base cost of wind energy from around 80 cents/kWh to as low as 4 cents/kWh. When combined with the government tax incentives which provide an incentive of 1.9 cents/kWh for the first 10 years of a project, and other tax considerations, the cost of wind energy becomes very competitive, and is sometimes lower than conventional generation sources.

In Canada the wind generating capacity nearly doubled in 2006, .adding 657 new MW for a total of more than 1.3 GW. The Canadian Wind Energy Association's goal is for 10,000 MW of installed wind energy in Canada by the year 2010, enough to supply 5% of Canada's electricity needs. Denmark currently generates over 20% of its power from the wind, an attainable goal for Canada. If wind energy were to generate 20% of Canada's electricity, it would be the second largest source of electricity behind hydro and ahead of nuclear, natural gas and coal.
European countries are leading U.S. and Canada in the adoption of wind energy. The total capacity of new wind turbines brought on line across the European Union last year was 8,554 MW, an increase of 935 MW on the 2006 total. Total wind power capacity installed by the end of 2007 will avoid about 90 million tones of CO2 annually and produce 119 Terawatt hours in an average wind year, equal to 3.7% of EU power demand. In 2000, less than 0.9% of EU electricity demand was met by wind power. The European countries have resolved that wind energy will be 20% of their generating capacity by 2020.

The Asian nations are also quickly adopting wind energy. India added 1.8GW of wind energy in 2006. Suzlon Energy, based in Pune, is the world most consistently profitable wind turbine maker. Meanwhile, China, which had installed capacity of 2.6 GW in 2006, plans to install more than 30 GW, enough to power 30 million average Chinese homes by 2020.

The common hurdles to Acceptance of Wind Energy are:

Not in my backyard
People do not like the sight or the sounds of windmills in their backyards. This seems especially true for ocean views. This is a major hurdle to conquer. It may be that the wind energy generating platform needs to go further out which brings energy transmission problems.

Kills Birds and Bats
This concern is becoming less each day. A few studies to date have shown that the location of the wind turbine(s) is the major problem. Those turbines in migration paths cause the most problems. Thus the location of future turbines recognizes the concern for birds and bats. Also, different colors for the blades and warning noises are being studied to remove this hazard.

Hurts Tourism
There are small studies on this opinion, but there are no statistical conclusions. If the turbines can be put out of sight everyone is happy, but we may not always have this luxury...

Learn more about this author, Paul Calhoun.
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