The World in 2030

208 The World in 2030
Because of recent increases in the price for fossil fuels,
wind power has, in some instances, become as cheap or even
cheaper than fossil fuel energy. There is now a great rush
in many parts of the world to install more farms of wind
turbines to capture more of this ‘free’ energy.
Fuel-hungry United States is leading the rush, as The
Washington Post reported in March 2007:
Like mail-order brides, thousands of long-limbed
wind turbines are coming to the empty outback of
Washington and Oregon, where they are being married
off, via the electrical grid, to hulking old hydroelectric
dams.
The Pacific Northwest is hardly alone as it chases the
wind for clean power. Anxiety about climate change
and surging demand for electricity have triggered a
wind-power frenzy in much of the United States,
making it the fastest growing wind-energy market
in the world. Power-generating capacity from wind
jumped 27 per cent last year and is expected to do
the same this year. 398
And the cost of wind turbines has decreased dramatically
over the last thirty years while efficiency has also improved
significantly. In a June 2007 survey of renewable energy
sources, The Economist reported:
During the wind boom of the 1970s turbine blades
were around 5-10 metres long, and turbines produced
no more than 200-300kW of energy each. The