Wind Energy

For anyone that has read my blog for a while, you will know that I have a side interest in Wind Energy. Power and renewable energy sources are obviously huge issues for the data center industry and since I live in one of the top wind energy producing states, it has always been of interest to me. Tonight I read two lines from an article about a Berkshire Hathaway meeting that piqued my interest.

"Berkshire is investing heavily on wind energy, especially in Iowa. "We'll continue to be a leader" in wind power, Buffett said. They'll also invest in additional utility businesses."

Berkshire lists MidAmerican Energy Holdings, based in Des Moines, IA as a subsidiary company. MidAmerican has some large wind projects in Iowa. As much as wind power is picking up in popularity around the world, I have to wonder what projects (specifically) Bershire is investing in.

After reading the above quote I turned on the TV (Science Channel of course) and watched one of those "future world" type programs. One of the segments was on a huge wind farm in Denmark that was producing double-digit megawatts of electricity. I 'think' they were referring to the Middelgrunden Wind Turbine Co-operative, off the coast of Amager, Denmark. I of course proceeded straight to online maps and Google Earth to check it out.

• You can see the line of wind turbines from Google Earth / Maps
• Google Earth also noted a few Panoramio photos (here and here, and here)
  
• Microsoft Live Maps has a nice bird's eye view of the turbines

An October 2008 article at Treehugger has an aritcle on the wind farm - stating that it will have 207 Megawatts by 2010.

Exiting times for Wind power as a renewable energy!

UPDATE: Thanks Sune Christesen for a link to Offshore Wind Farms - complete with a Google Earth Placemark collection!