[Ed. note: resurrecting a two-year old topic from Dailykos]

A 1991 report by the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) estimated potential US windpower generation at 10,777 million mWh, at that time nearly three times the electricity generated in the United States. A great deal has changed since that time, with improved technology lowering the kWh cost of electrcity generated from windpower, while the introduction of high resolution wind power density maps and growing cognizance of the need to exclude certain land types (urban areas, forested areas, environmentally sensitive lands) has limited the area available for development. Overall, the trend is towards lower costs (both economically and environmentally) and greatly expanded capacity.

See the rest of this diary here

Energize America has joined 29 other organizations in writing to Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi to call on them to ensure that the stimulus package doesn't put tax increases on America's unborn, but

All I want for Christmas is a safe, habitable world for generations to come - the gift that truly keeps on giving - is that too much to ask? If there was a simple and effective way to take action, today, that will help to ensure that, would you do so?

This holiday season, it seems that a lot of my neighbors have festive lights decroating their houses, more than last year - and some of them have absolutely outlandish displays with thousands of lights. As I look at all those bulbs twinkling, I can't help but think about this on a national scale - how many tons of CO2 are being released for this festival of light across the USA? Myself, I pay extra for my electricity to ensure that all of it is generated with renewable resources, but how many of the folks with dazzling light displays were using the same service? I started toying with the idea of an open letter to my decorative neighbors, but I couldn't pin down my thoughts well enough to make sense of it until I saw a DailyKos.com diary from the incomparable Dood Abides the other day.

I just followed a link from a Dkos diary about the HVAC industry to this Stanford and University of Delaware study which directly measured the wind resources from North Carolina to Massachusetts. They say that, using existing technology, the area can support all of the energy needs for the nine states from MA to NC, with room to grow by 50% - follow the link and read it, very promising stuff!

Here's a few choice quotes:

Willett Kempton, Richard Garvine and Amardeep Dhanju at the University of Delaware and Mark Jacobson and Cristina Archer at Stanford, found that the wind over the Middle Atlantic Bight, the aquatic region from Cape Cod, Mass., to Cape Hatteras, N.C., could produce 330 gigawatts (GW) of average electrical power if thousands of wind turbines were installed off the coast.