Windustry

COMMUNITY WIND - Ready to Deliver

Innovative new technologies are continually being developed that will help us to reduce carbon emissions and address climate change. Despite these efforts, the Earth’s atmospheric CO2 levels continue to rise. According to NASA’s Jim Hansen and other leading scientists, the number one way to cut emissions quickly and get below 350ppm – the estimated safe upper limit of CO2 in the atmosphere – is to stop burning fossil fuels and convert to more renewable sources – as soon as possible.

Unfortunately, most of the proposed strategies for doing this – such as modernizing our nation’s electricity grid – are proving to be very slow and costly to implement. In the meantime, the Earth’s atmospheric CO2 levels continue to rise.

In the meantime, community wind power can deliver large amounts of renewable energy affordably to many people, and can be deployed now, allowing us to realize clean energy benefits much sooner. Because community wind is often built to serve local energy needs, it doesn't need to wait for new transmission lines. With increasing constraints on regional transmission systems, community wind can play a vital role in meeting demand for renewable energy now, while the large transmission grid is being expanded and upgraded.

The potential to reduce greenhouse gas and other toxic emissions through increased community and small wind development in the U.S. is significant. Community and small wind in the U.S. has the potential to offset the production of over 78.7 billion pounds of CO2 per year - the equivalent of removing nearly 7 million passenger vehicles from the roads, avoiding the burning of nearly 200,000 railcars of coal annually, or taking 8.4 coal-fired power plants out of production.

For more than 15 years, Windustry has been working to overcome the barriers to community-owned wind energy through advocacy, outreach, technical assistance, and education.

Windustry's vision is for communities to become involved with the production of the energy they consume. In most areas of the U.S. wind is the most cost-effective form of energy and, because of the urgency of the climate crisis, its rapid deployment is our highest priority. Windustry envisions wind turbines dotting the outskirts of small towns and in large open spaces of urban areas, such as mall parking lots and near athletic fields.

Donate now and help Windustry to achieve this vision – and begin seeing real and immediate reduction in CO2 levels. We don’t need to wait for the grid to be modernized – we have the knowledge and the technology to realize the potential of community wind right now. Why wait?

Some of the important projects in which Windustry is currently engaged, include:

• In the past year, we produced five regional Community Wind Across America (CWAA) conferences, offered in regions throughout the United States: Denver, Colorado; St. Paul, Minnesota; State College, Pennsylvania; Ludington, Michigan; and Albany, New York.
• We continue to make valuable progress in each of the states where our Landowner Wind Energy Association (LWEA) Resource Center is working with groups to establish a community-owned wind energy project: Wisconsin, Montana, and West Virginia.
• Working with the Minnesota Region Nine Renewable Energy Task Force, we launched and are administering a Small Wind Bulk Buy Program to help rural enterprises take advantage of the state's wind resources and net-metering laws.
• We partnered with wind installer experts to develop a Small Wind Installer Training Curriculum designed to prepare technical students for engagement and certification in the growing small wind industry. Instructors from Minnesota community and technical colleges, who attended a training session in June, are now using this curriculum in their home schools.
• And of course, for the sixth year a row, we developed and staffed the Wind Energy Center within the Eco Experience building at the Minnesota State Fair.

Stay in touch with our ongoing work by visiting our very popular and heavily used website – www.windustry.org – and by following us on facebook and Twitter.