Wind power catch-up

An offshore wind farm in the Baltic Sea, off the coast of Denmark.

The rapid rise of wind turbine development and implementation continues to generate impressive data, big plans and cautious concern.  Some recent highlights:

• The market for small-scale wind turbines (100 kW or less capacity) has grown 78% in 2008 according to The American Wind Energy Association.
• Meanwhile, a Dutch study has found that small turbines are economically inefficient compared to solar power at the same scale.
• The North Carolina state senate weighs a ban of large turbines from its mountaintops on the premise that they are an aesthetic blight.
• The Long Island – New York City Offshore Wind Project has reached out to developers with a proposed 350 – 700 MW-generating wind farm 13 miles off the coasts of the Rockaway Peninsula, which they hope to connect to the New York State power grid by 2015.

(via Jetson Green, Clean Technia, and  TreeHugger)