Wind Power Number of the Day: 59.3%
59.3% -- Albert Betz calculated in the early 20th century that the maximum theoretical efficiency of a wind turbine is 59.3%.
50% -- Currently, modern wind turbines are efficient at about 50%, a very impressive number.
15% -- According to GE, when it entered the wind turbine market in 2002, the average wind turbine was out of commission about 15% of the time.
3% -- Nowadays, wind turbines are down only about 3% of the time. That helps drive the cost of wind power down and get the most out of each turbine. Uptimes can probably be improved even further.
8 -- Electricity produced by a modern wind turbine costs about 8 cents per kilowatt-hour.
5 -- Electricity produced by coal power plants costs about 5 cents per kilowatt-hour, but that is without counting the cost of "externalities" (air pollution, global warming, coal mining, mercury emissions, etc). According to a study by MIT, coal-produced electricity would cost about 8 cents kwh with a carbon tax of $30/tonne.
30% --Worldwide wind power capacity is growing at about %30 per year, and it should pass 100 gigawatts this year.
10,000 -- A farmer from Iowa who gives up 1/10 of an hectare for a wind turbine could earn about $10,000 per year, compared with about $300 for the same area if he/she grew corn for ethanol.
Queen of England Buys World's Biggest Wind Turbine (7.5 Megawatts!)
Norwegian Wind Power Could Become Europe's Battery
Cost Of Wind Power Turbines Is SkyRocketing
Urban Modular Architectural Wind Power Microturbines!
Source: The Economist.