Status of wind energy

No renewable energy is growing as fast as wind energy, and yet, those giant wind turbines are built one every 4 hours and they only represent the 1% of electricity in the United States. To reach the 20% proposed by George Bush, the production of a turbine should be every 15 minutes for the next 25 years, says the vice president of General Electric Renewable Vic Abate.

GE, a major renewable technologies company, cannot see that this production to be realistic and says that the percentage of electricity generated by wind energy is actually irrelevant.

But there is a push for larger scale of wind energy. Last month the company announced its Clipper Britannia Project, a program to develop the largest wind turbine in the world. A giant turbine of 150 meters in diameter, and capable of generating 7.5 MW. Twice the size of the current wind turbine in business.

Although wind power is moving rapidly in Europe, not in the United States, where the price difference is doing very well with GE. The cost of wind power today is 8 cents per kWh and sold at 10.5 cents. This has enabled GE from being a $ 250 million company, when Enron was bought, to a $ 4 billion company annually.

Share and Enjoy: