U.S. Census Bureau Daily Feature for October 19: Wind Power

WASHINGTON, Oct. 19, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Following is the daily "Profile America" feature from the U.S. Census Bureau:

WIND POWER

Profile America — Monday, October 19^th. Throughout the decades since the oil embargo of 1973, increasing research and development has gone into renewable sources of energy. Some of the results are seen atop windswept hills and plains across America — large electricity generating windmills. While the concept sounds very modern, the first practical wind turbine generator goes back 74 years. It was on this date in 1941 that Palmer Putnam of Vermont demonstrated his device. His wind turbine had blades 66 feet in length, and in over 700 hours of operation, produced almost 300,000-kilowatt hours. In the U.S. today, there are over 2,700 electric power generating establishments producing 4.1 million megawatt hours. Wind power provides about 4.5 percent of the country's electricity production. You can find more facts about America from the U.S. Census Bureau online at www.census.gov.

Sources:
Kane's Famous First Facts, 3557
Putnam's windmill: http://ethw.org/Palmer_Putnam%27s_1.5_MW_Wind_Turbine 
Electric power generating establishments/NAICS 22111: http://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?pid=BP_2013_00A1&prodType=table 
Electric power generated nationally: http://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.cfm?t=epmt_1_01 
Wind power: http://www.awea.org/MediaCenter/pressrelease.aspx?ItemNumber=7294

Profile America is produced by the Center for New Media and Promotions of the U.S. Census Bureau. These daily features are available as produced segments, ready to air, on the Internet at http://www.census.gov (look for "Multimedia Gallery" by the "Newsroom" button). 

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SOURCE U.S. Census Bureau