Wind power is one of the primary renewable energy sources being aggressively pursued by government and industry as one solution to fossil fuel dependence. In July 2008, the Department of Energy (DOE) released a feasibility study on wind energy 20% Wind Power by 2030, Increasing Wind Energy's Contribution to U.S. Electricity Supply. The report provides a roadmap for reaching the report title's goal. Also, 26 states have now established Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS) mandating that utilities provide a certain percentage of electric power from renewable energy sources. Soon after the release of the DOE report, T. Boone Pickens, an oil man, announced his Pickens Plan, which aims to replace natural gas-fueled electric power plants with wind generated power and use the freed-up natural gas to fuel transportation vehicles. The above efforts, along with the maturing of wind power technology, are fueling the rapid growth of the wind energy industry. This past summer the U.S. wind energy industry became the world's leader, surpassing Germany, in wind energy generation capacity with 20GW installed. However, this is still only 2% of the Nation's total electric supply. The DOE report estimates that to reach the goal of 20% of the electric supply will require 300GW of wind power capacity. Today's typical wind turbine generates a max power of 1.5MW, so reaching the goal would currently require the installation of about 200,000 wind turbines across the country. In Fig. 1 you can see that installed wind power capacity is indeed accelerating.
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