Small Packages, Big Benefits: Economic Advantages of Local Wind Projects. The Iowa Policy Project

The sun heats the earth’s surface unevenly creating areas of high and low pressure. Air mol-ecules flow away from areas of high pressure towards areas of low pressure. We know this phenomenon by sight, sound and touch as wind. The speed and duration of wind are un-predictable, but what is predictable is that in many places the wind will eventually blow with enough force to be a significant power source. This fact has been relied on and wind’s kinetic energy has been harnessed for centuries to do things such as pump water and grind grain. Windmills that helped Americans from settlement times until the 1930s are still visible on much of the nation’s rural landscape – including Iowa’s – yet they are now found in various states of disrepair. Today the relic sentinels of the coun-tryside are being joined in their towering positions by sleek new wind turbines. These modern machines and the clean power they generate are a sign of the prosperity they can bring to their landowners and communities. Although wind power only accounted for one-tenth of 1 percent of the nation’s total electric power generation capacity in 2003, this is four times the capacity that was in place in 1990. From 1999 to 2003, wind power capacity had an average annual growth rate of 28 percent,