When the U.S and Denmark had success with wind power many countries began to test and research wind power including Russia, Germany and Spain. Many European countries continued to have growth in wind power during the twentieth century the United States began to move away from wind energy because of the Rural Electrification Act (REA) of 1930 (Bergey,1990). The REA encouraged the creation of cheap fossil fuel power plants, because of the huge demand for cheap energy. Through the middle of the twentieth century, the REA caused the United States to fall behind in research and development of wind power. The energy crisis in the United States in the seventies renewed the interest in all renewable energy sources including wind power. Fears of shortages and over dependence pushed the formation of Energy Research and Development Administration (ERDA) that was responsible for starting the Nation's solar energy program (Krenz,1980). Wind energy was one program that was considered by the solar energy program because wind power is non-depleting, nonpolluting, and wind is a free abundant resource. Like all renewable resources wind energy has significant limitations. Its consistency and physical requirements are the biggest limitation. .
Windmills create power by slowing the air that passes through it; this creates kinetic energy from the wind. The kinetic energy is proportional to the wind velocity so that doubling the wind speed quadruples the output because of this wind speed is very important to high-energy output. The United States has huge untapped wind energy potential and because the best wind resources are located in rural areas, wind energy development can contribute to the nation's energy supply and help rural economic development. The amount of wind energy theoretically available for use in the United States is about 40 times the annual energy usage for the whole country (Blackburn,1987).
