Wind Power

Wind Turbines, originally uploaded by Worker101.

Wind power could provide 20% of our electrical power by 2030.

The Energy Department said yesterday that the United States has the ability to meet 20 percent of its electricity-generation needs with wind by 2030, enough to displace 50 percent of natural gas consumption and 18 percent of coal consumption.

But in a report drawn up by its national laboratories, the department said that meeting the target would require more improvements in turbine technology, cost reductions, new transmission lines, an expansion of the wind industry and a fivefold increase in the pace of wind-turbine installation.[...]

The report said that, under "optimistic assumptions," expanding wind generation to meet 20 percent of U.S. electricity needs by 2030 would cost nearly $197 billion, but it said that most of that would be offset by nearly $155 billion in lower fuel expenditures. There would be, it said, other offsetting positive effects.

It will be less expensive than coal and nuclear. With some incentives from the federal government it could happen. We need to start looking to concentrated solar plants too.
Via Ezra Klein.