Sen. Mark Udall atop a Siemens test turbine near the National Wind Technology Center just south

of Boulder, Colorado, at Rocky Flats where the U.S. used to build plutonium triggers for nuclear warheads.

Sen. Mark Udall atop a Siemens test turbine near the National Wind Technology Center just south

of Boulder, Colorado, at Rocky Flats where the U.S. used to build plutonium triggers for nuclear warheads.

You don't have to go back too many years to find experts forecasting that wind power wouldn't be a major generator of electricity for the next 50 or even 100 years. A few brave souls challenged these disappointing forecasts but they were mostly ridiculed. And the government's premiere forecaster in such matters, the Energy Information Administration, helped the pooh-poohers by making terrible forecasts for the spread of wind (and solar) power in the United States.

For instance, in 2005, it predicted the nation would have 9 gigawatts of installed wind-generating capacity by 2013 and 63 gigawatts by 2030. By comparison, we are right now at 62.3 gigawatts and there are 13.2 gigawatts in 105 projects under construction. In 2012, the EIA made another bad forecast—that U.S. wind-generating capacity would only reach 87 gigawatts by 2040. There is good reason to believe that we will reach that figure before 2020.



Growth in wind power has been volatile year to year in great part because of inconsistent government policy. But if that growth continued at even half the rate it is now, by 2040 U.S. wind-generated electricity could hit 250 gigawatts, or in the neighborhood of 20 per cent of our total electricity output. If the current growth rate were maintained, it would be 30 percent.

In that light, a new report released Tuesday concludes that an aggressive approach could have the wind generating as much as 19 percent of total global electricity by 2030. And 25 to 30 percent by 2050.

The graph below comes from that report—Global Wind Energy Outlook 2014—published by the Global Wind Energy Council and Greenpeace International. The report offers three global wind energy scenarios for 2020, 2030 and 2050. They compare the International Energy Agency's main scenario from its World Energy Outlook with "moderate" and "advanced" scenarios showing how much electricity wind power might generate by those decadal milestones. Included as well in the scenarios are estimates of CO 2 emission savings, cost reductions and jobs.

Here's Giles Parkinson at RenewEconomy:



[The report] shows that wind power could reach 2,000 GW [gigawatts] by 2030, and supply up to 17-19 per cent of global electricity by that time. By 2050, wind power could provide 25-30 [per cent] of global electricity supply. “Wind power has become the least cost option when adding new capacity to the grid in an increasing number of markets, and prices continue to fall,” said Steve Sawyer, CEO of GWEC. “Given the urgency to cut down CO2 emissions and continued reliance on imported fossil fuels, wind power’s pivotal role in the world’s future energy supply is assured.” Wind energy installations totalled 318 GW globally by the end of 2013, and the industry is set to grow by another 45 GW in 2014.

You can view a larger graph by clicking here

Some will call those estimates as overly optimistic as the EIA's have been pessimistic. But by turning those forecasts into policy goals, that level of wind power seems every more achievable despite the claims of the naysayers. Wind isn't a silver bullet that will, by itself, take us off fossil fuels. But in the past 15 years it has become far from the joke that some critics have made of it.

Blast from the Past. At Daily Kos on this date in 2013—Bush not Cheney's puppet, Peter Baker's new book says. Iraq invasion done to kick 'somebody's ass':



For more than a decade, ever since Dick Cheney used his assignment to select a vice presidential candidate for George W. Bush to pick himself, the conventional wisdom has been that the former secretary of defense and former CEO of Halliburton pulled Bush's strings. In 2008, for example, Barton Gellman and Jo Becker of the Washington Post won a Pulitzer prize for their four-part 2007 series—Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency that reinforced the view of Bush as willing and weak-willed marionette. Peter Baker's 650-page new book—Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House—presents a different view of the relationship between Bush and Cheney. Baker, who covered the Bush administration first for the Washington Post and subsequently The New York Times (where he is now chief White House correspondent), agrees that Cheney was the "most powerful vice president" of modern times. But he does not present George Bush as second-in-command to the imperious Cheney […]

As one senior official who came to rue his involvement in Iraq put it, “The only reason we went into Iraq, I tell people now, is we were looking for somebody’s ass to kick. Afghanistan was too easy.” It wasn't just "somebody's ass." Hussein's Iraq was a specific target of the neo-conservative Project for a New American Century long before Cheney, one of its charter members, even considered running for vice president. While Cheney and Bush may well have been at odds, that wasn't enough to stop slaughter in Iraq, torture everywhere and a legacy of tens of thousands of brain-damaged American veterans plus a $3 trillion-plus hole in the Treasury.

Tweet of the Day

@TNeenan Guys, you can make your twitter notifications scary this halloween simply by giving yourself a female username and voicing an opinion.

On today's Kagro in the Morning show , James O'Keefe has attempted a thing.discusses the saga of the NBC chief medical editor who broke her quarantine, travel bans & other Ebolamania news. The Hot Zone. Media polarization. NHL & domestic violence. "Obama is a Republican."says the final FL-GOV debate has banned fans. FL constitutional amendments. Iran & Iraq cooperating. Considering the Saud-ish context of beheadings. Unforeseen consequences of GunFAIL. Unlimited capital + unlimited data collection, storage & analysis capacity = the end of privacy? Some think the spies at Whisper were done wrong by The Guardian.