US Passes Germany in Overall Wind Energy MW Production
By Nick July 29, 2008
The US and Germany are in a new, silent arms race that will actually benefit society this time around. The Daily Times reported the very closely watched statistics of 2008 world wind energy generation. For the first time ever, the US has finally surpassed Germany in terms of megawatts of wind energy produced because of the faster US wind speeds, even though Germany has more capacity and turbines. This feat wasn’t expected to have occurred yet, so the American wind association is pretty pleased.
While this is a small battle one, it should be expected considering the US’s much larger size, population, wind speeds, and need for alternative renewable energy sources. Here’s a simple comparison between the two countries.
| Germany | US | |
| Population | 80 million | 300 million |
| Carbon Emissions | 800,000 thousand metric tons | 6,000,000 thousand metric tons |
| Electricity Consumed | 546 million megawatts | 3.8 billion megawatts |
| Wind energy capacity | 23,000 MW | 18,000 MW |
| Percentage of energy from wind | 7% | 1.2% |
As the numbers show, the US’s gains really aren’t too special considering the per capita use of wind electricity versus normal electricity consumption. The US does have some plans in place to raise that meager 1.2% wind energy to 20% though. The Department of Energy has a program 20% wind by 2030 which, as its titles suggests, is a PR push towards making wind energy a very much more serious contributor to US energy consumption.
So, if we’re lucky, public policy will be put in place to let us reach Denmark’s current 20% wind energy by the year 2030.
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