Go Green
Reaping the Wind
There is enough wind energy produced every year in the United States to power every home and every business in the country. The problem is that some states are not able to generate the necessary wind to support their region?s energy needs.
Reaping the Wind
There is enough wind energy produced every year in the United States to power every home and every business in the country. The problem is that some states are not able to generate the necessary wind to support their region’s energy needs.
A solution can be found in identifying the areas that do produce the wind energy sufficient to provide enough power for those areas that fall short. The United States government has taken some steps to create a viable method to study the available wind resources that can be developed in ways that make sense both environmentally and economically.
The Wind Energy Program, working hand in hand with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, is in the process of developing methods to measure wind resources across the United States, to create standards for categorizing the characteristics of wind so as to utilize its energy potential, and to create a mapping system that can be applied to and accessed by individual state development programs.
Currently, the Wind Energy Program has made available a national wind resource map that measures wind readings between approximately 65 feet to 150 feet from the ground. This range covers what would be considered the general height parameters of any practical system of wind resource application. The characteristics of wind are classified by density and speed, and are given a rating from fair to superb as far as any potentiality for sustainable wind power.
The resolution of the datasets that have been gathered in this study have been adjusted to compensate for those areas of the United States that are at this time considered unlikely to be available for wind resource development because of current land use and environmental issues. Another factor which affects the mapping of wind energy is taking into consideration those geographical features which inherently produce higher wind characteristics, such as mountain ridges and certain bodies of water.
The greatest challenge in the development of wind as a sustainable energy resource will be in creating a national system that will be able to provide the necessary energy garnered from the wind in a sufficient and an equitable way.
The resource is there, and a sensible solution may be close at hand.
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