American Wind Projects

The U.S. wind industry is on its way to charting another record-shattering year of
growth. That capacity will generate over 60 billion kWh of electricity in 2009,
enough to serve over 5.5 million American homes and eliminating the burning of

* 30.4 million short tons of coal (enough to fill two 1,000-mile-long coal trains),
* 91 million barrels of oil per year, or
* 560 Bcf of natural gas (about 9% of the natural gas used for electricity generation)

Hull, Massachusetts – Offshore Wind Turbines
This resort town, population 11,000, plans to moor four 260-foot-tall turbines a (more…)

Just as there are huge wind farms now providing backup power for conventional
electricity generation, central solar power towers will likely do the same in
the future.  The facilities generate electric power from sunlight by focusing
concentrated solar radiation on a tower mounted receiver.  Hundreds of
thousands of small sun-tracking mirrors reflect sunlight to the receiver.  In
some technologies, liquid salt is pumped and heated through the receiver and
then stored until power is needed from the plant.  The molten salt is then (more…)