New Report: More Wind, Less Warming

What kind of an impact would a major expansion of wind power in the U.S. have on global warming?

It’s a question well worth asking. American wind power has already seen explosive growth since 2001, over that time displacing more than a year’s worth of carbon dioxide emissions from the entire country of Canada. We already know wind power is a proven, and increasingly inexpensive, way to generate electricity. And with the effects of global warming already being felt across the country and the planet, America desperately needs a change to its energy sector: If U.S. power plants were an independent nation, they would be the third-largest emitter of carbon dioxide pollution in the world, behind China and the United States as a whole.

We set out to find an answer in our latest report, More Wind, Less Warming: How American Wind Energy’s Rapid Growth Can Help Solve Global Warming. To get there, we estimated the carbon dioxide emission reductions that would occur if America were to achieve the aggressive, but entirely possible, goal of generating 30 percent of its electricity using wind power by 2030.

Hitting this goal would require speeding up construction of wind farms, but not at a rate too far beyond what’s been done in the last ten years. Furthermore, 30 percent wind is well within the limits thought possible by government technical studies, which have estimated that America has enough wind energy potential to power itself 10 times over. And America’s sizable offshore wind resources are still completely untapped.

We found that by achieving 30 percent wind by 2030, America could dramatically reduce its carbon dioxide emissions:

• If the nation were to obtain 30 percent of its electricity from wind power in 2030, that year America could avert carbon dioxide emissions equivalent to 254 U.S. coal plants.
• Hitting this goal would provide an enormous  boost to achieving the EPA’s draft Clean Power Plan, by reducing U.S. power plant emissions to 40 percent below 2005 levels. The draft Clean Power Plan calls to reduce power plant emissions to 30 percent below 2005 levels by 2030.

America doesn’t have any time to waste. As global temperatures rise, our power plants continue to release millions of tons of carbon dioxide every year. If the world is to avoid the worst impacts of global warming, America must take the lead. Dramatically expanding wind power is a great place to start.