Wind power, already the world's fastest-growing source of electricity, is picking up still moremomentum.The wind industry in Europe— the epicenter of wind power adoption—expects that one-quarter of the continent's new electricity-generating capacity in the next de- cade will come from wind. To both spur and serve this demand, manufacturers are developing colossal new offshore wind turbines with blade spans that exceed the length of a football field—including the end zones. Today's largest commercial wind turbine has a blade span of 104 meters and produces up to 3.6 megawatts of electricity—enough to power 1,000 average U.S. households.,But in February, Repower Systems of Germany switched on a demonstration turbine near Hamburg that produces five mega- watts and has a blade span of 126 meters. And General Electric is developing a design for a 70-meter blade, which translates to a total blade span topping 140 meters.
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