Great Graphic: Wind Resource Potential

Since the Solar Energy Potential Map is the most popular post on the blog, I thought we should look at another form of renewable energy: Wind.

This map from the Department of Energy (you can check it out in more detail here) depicts the predicted mean annual wind speeds at 80 meters above ground (a 24 story building). According to the website, Areas with annual average wind speeds around 6.5 m/s (14.5 miles per hour) and greater (the purple, red, and orange areas) are considered suitable for wind development.

Also on the site is an excel table that breaks down the wind potential even more. In total there is almost 3 million square kilometers (1.15 million square miles) of land considered suitable. That 32% of the total land area of the United States. However, once you exclude protected lands (national parks, wilderness, etc.), and incompatible land use (urban, airports, wetland, and water features) you are left just over 2.1 million square kilometers (846K square miles) available land. Still that is over 23% of the land in the US. For you visual thinkers out there this graph breaks it down.