5.089

Wind energy has taken many decades to develop to its current state of acceptance, possibly because the first generation in this field of modern energy engineers were once toddlers who ran and played with little plastic pinwheels. The simplicity of the concept just couldn’t be taken seriously, even though windmills were in use in the Middle East as far back as 200 B.C.

By the 14th century, Dutch windmills were prevalent and grew in common use for many industrial purposes. By the 1900s, as many as 2500 were used throughout the country as pumps and grist mills. Wind technology research continued in Denmark and Europe, as well as by the Germans during World War II. Today Denmark has more than five universities which offer degrees in wind engineering.

Wind energy also captured the attention of a growing America, which installed as many as six million windmills for irrigation on mid-west farms during the latter half of the 19th century. Concurrently, in 1887, the first electricity windmill was built at a college in Glasgow, Scotland and a large industrial wind-driven electric generator for an engineering company in Cleveland, Ohio.

In the 1970s and 80s, the U.S. government, in an effort to encourage renewable energy sourcing, finally started funding investments in wind generation for commercial use, but it wasn’t until the 1990s that businesses in the United States began to seriously consider wind energy's efficiency and profit potential. Once recognized as viable, the Government began issuing energy credits to taxpayers and investors in such businesses.

By year 2000, commercial wind power began expanding at approximately 30 percent per year, partly due to the decrease in wind generator costs (per power unit generated) by approximately four percent per year. The improving technology and growing acceptance of wind farms, the increasing experience of turbine operators and engineers, and the development of ever-larger wind turbines, continued to spur growth.

With fluctuating fossil fuel costs, and no guarantee that they will not balloon again in the future, considerable investment is now being poured into alternative energy sources. Over one third of power production in the U.S. last year was from wind power, creating 10,000 jobs. On the downside, the Enron scandal of 2001 rarely mentioned or stressed that Enron was Enron Wind Power Services, and their business was in wind turbine manufacturing and wind farm operation. It left a sour taste that, with the current economic woes, may have tainted the industry with investors.

Starting in March 2009, with growing interest in this field, the wind energy industry’s top legislative priorities include production and small wind investment tax credits, a renewable electricity standard, renewable energy transmission highways, national climate change legislation, seeking federal support for siting wind power projects and transmission lines, and high-prioritizing wind energy research and development.



Jason Grace
on behalf of the
BascoTec Internet Limited
Technologie Park 13
33100 Paderborn
Germany

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