The American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) added up the numbers for 2008 and found that “the wind energy industry shattered all previous records in 2008 by installing 8,358 megawatts (MW) of new generating capacity (enough to serve over 2 million homes).”
Even though the economic slowdown caused “financing for new projects and orders for turbine components slowed to a trickle” that 8.3 MW of new production “swelled the nation’s total wind power generating capacity by 50% and channeled an investment of some $17 billion into the economy.”
AWEA CEO Denise Bode, said “The U.S. wind energy industry’s performance in 2008 confirms that wind is an economic and job creation dynamo, ready to deliver on the President’s call to double renewable energy production in three years.”
These real-life data is no surprise to Pickens Plan founder, T. Boone Pickens, who regularly quotes a Department of Energy study that showing a major effort build out the capacity to generate electric power from wind in the Great Plains would add 138,000 new jobs in the first year, and up to 3.4 million new jobs over a ten-year span.
On the emissions side, according to the AWEA, generating that much electricity from wind instead of a coal-fired plant, “will avoid nearly 44 million tons of carbon emissions, the equivalent of taking over 7 million cars off of the road.”
For a look at how the Business Journal handled this story, click HERE.
— The Pickens Team