While America continues to wring its hands over the perceived esthetic ugliness of wind turbines, Europe continues to make the most of this eco-friendly, eternally renewable energy source. We are apparently terrified that these fields of what the Germans call "wind wheels" will ruin the countryside. From personal experience, Lucie and I can tell you that, having seen hundreds of the turbines in 3 countries, it is no big deal. Not literally: these things are enormous. The latest models are 600 feet high, with a "wing span" diameter of the propellors of nearly 400 feet!
At present, the total energy produced by wind power in Germany alone is 29 Gigawatts which, if memory serves, is just about what Doc Brown needed to power his DeLorean back to the future. It's a lot of power, about 15 times what Hoover Dam is capable of. And the number will rise to 51 Gigawatts by 2020, with the introduction of many new wind farms off the northern coast.
I'm not sure what it will take for America to start to think about the future, and about modern solutions to old problems. Europeans focus on wind and the sun; we focus on more offshore drilling and maybe a new natural gas pipeline or two from Canada.
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