ABSTRACT
World energy demand is predicted to increase from ~430 EJ/year (14 TW) in 2002 to ~1400 EJ/year (44 TW) in 2100 (Reilly and Paltsev, 2007). Any effective energy contributor needs to be implemented on a very large scale (e.g. provide 10% of the year 2100 demand). Among the current energy technologies with low or zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, electrical generation using wind turbines is percentage-wise the fastest growing energy resource worldwide. In the US, it has grown from 1.8 GW of capacity in 1996 to more than 11.6 GW (~0.37 EJ/year) in 2006, but this is still negligible compared to future energy demand.
