Wind energy has come of age as a source of electricity.

From the mountain passes of California to the shores of the North Sea, wind turbines are now producing commercial quantities of electricity without the emission of global warming gases. 

Wind energy is actually an indirect form of solar energy -- the wind is mainly driven by temperature differences on the earth's surface caused by sunlight. Uneven warming of the atmosphere results in rising and circulating air currents which can be used to generate electricity. Wind turbines, usually with just two or three blades, collect kinetic energy from the wind, which drives a generator and produces electricity. Wind turbines are placed on towers where the wind blows harder and more steadily. The longer the blades -- up to 82 feet -- and the faster and more constant the wind speed, the more electricity the turbines generate.

According to the US Department of Energy, the world's winds could provide as much as 5,800 quadrillion British Thermal Units (BTUs) of energy each year, or more than 15 times the world's total energy consumption in 1992. Wind power is now one of the fastest growing sources of new electricity generation -- capacity is increasing by more than 1,000 mega-watts per year. By the year 2000 wind turbines are estimated to produce enough electricity to offset 20 to 40 billion pounds of carbon dioxide.

Wind energy is cheap and clean. Unfortunately, it faces an American, and world, energy market heavily slanted towards fossil fuel technology through subsidies and tax incentives. If we are to curb pollution from electricity generation, this must change. There is enormous potential for greater use of wind energy in the US, especially in the Midwest, and using that potential would mean an economic boon. States such as Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota hold the potential of becoming the Saudi Arabia of wind power.