From Windmills to Turbines The Journey of Wind Technology

Wind energy produced 4.7% of America's electricity in 2015. As of 2015, 40 states had at least some installed wind power systems, with the largest share on the ... This is of course lower than traditional thermal power plants or flexible hydropower. These power plants can have a capacity factor of up to 90 ... However, as a renewable resource, wind power has tremendous potential for use today, especially in western Oklahoma. With late-nineteenth- ... For millennia, humankind has been aware of how valuable wind power can be in our daily lives, from sailboats to windmills. For over a century, ... Today, modern wind power and other forms of renewable energy are the fastest-growing energy sources in the world, with wind making up about 10 ... The blades are connected to a drive shaft that turns an electric generator to produce electricity. The newest wind turbines include engineering and mechanical ... Advances in wind turbine technology and increased interest in renewable energy sources have led to a rapid expansion of the wind energy industry in the ... European countries and China lead the world in offshore wind electricity generation capacity. Many other countries have and are developing offshore wind energy ... Wind power has traditionally been a boom-and-bust business — booming in times when energy prices soar, and going bust they fall ... For most of the 20th century, electricity-generating wind turbines were mainly used to power rural farms that had little access to publicly ...