Explaination:

Wind is a more complex phenomenon than you might think! As the Sun warms the Earth and the planet rotates, it leads to areas of high and low atmospheric pressure that interact with terrain like mountains, oceans, plains and valleys to produce wind. The Energy Department studies wind patterns extensively to identify the best places in the U.S. for wind energy development.

Explaination:

The Persians are believed to have pioneered the use of windmills to pump water around 600 B.C. Grinding grain was another early use for the windmill in places like the Middle East, China and ancient Greece — although there’s no evidence that anyone outside of “Don Quixote” ever tried to fight one.

Explaination:

In 1887, James Blyth’s revolutionary “wind engine” used cloth sails to generate electricity for his cottage in Marykirk, Scotland, making it the first wind-powered home in the world. Later that same year, Charles Brush completed America’s first wind turbine in Cleveland, Ohio, a 60-foot tower design (pictured above) that supplied 12 kW of electricity to his mansion for 20 years. Georges Darrieus is credited with later developing the less-common vertical-axis wind turbine, sometimes called the “eggbeater” shape.

Explaination:

The nacelle of a wind turbine, where the tower meets the rotor, houses important components like the gear box, which converts the relatively slow rotation of the blades into the higher RPM of the turbine’s generator. The yaw drive is a motor that turns the nacelle to keep the rotor facing into the wind at all times. 

Explaination:

From large tower segments to complex gearboxes, wind turbines are composed of more than 8,000 separate components.

Explaination:

The average hub height (measured at the center of the blades) of most utility-scale U.S. wind turbines is 82 meters (269 feet), about as tall as the Statue of Liberty. According to Energy Department research, next-generation wind turbines with towers 110 to 140 meters (360 to 460 feet) tall could reach stronger, more efficient winds high above the ground, unlocking access to wind power in all 50 states.

Explaination:

In 2016, Iowa got more than 36% (36.6% to be exact) of the electricity it generated in-state from wind, followed by South Dakota at more than 30% (30.3% to be exact) and Kansas at more than 29% (29.6% to be exact). Texas leads the United States in total wind installed capacity with more than 20,000 megawatts (20,320 MW), accounting for 12.6% of its electricity generation.

Explaination:

The United States ranks second in the world behind China in wind “installed capacity” — that is, how much total energy its turbines could generate if they were turning constantly.

Explaination:

Wind energy is now the cheapest form of power in some parts of the country, with new power purchase agreements in 2016 averaging about 2 cents per kilowatt-hour. That’s even cheaper than building conventional power plants like coal, natural gas and nuclear!

Explaination:

At the end of 2016, the wind industry workforce stood 101,738 strong — up 32% from 2015. Wind turbine technician is the fastest growing American job of the decade, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Explaination:

“Distributed wind” is the term for a wind turbine (or turbines) providing power directly to a local area (via a microgrid) or site like a home, school, office building or farm, instead of being connected to the main electric grid. Total distributed wind capacity in the U.S. is about 1 gigawatt.