Energy

This question cannot be answered clearly because the methods used by those organizations to estimate oil and gas resource volumes are often not publicly available to compare step-by-step.  One common reason different organizations get different results is based on what the assessments include. USGS estimates are for undiscovered, technically recoverable oil and gas resources. The USGS does not...

The USGS regularly re-examines our assessments to see if updated information warrants a reassessment. Sometimes more information is available either from USGS research or industry production, and the USGS decides to conduct a new assessment. Learn more: USGS Energy Assessments

According to a report from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (Table 30), depending on make and model wind turbines are predominantly made of steel (66-79% of total turbine mass); fiberglass, resin or plastic (11-16%); iron or cast iron (5-17%); copper (1%); and aluminum (0-2%). Many turbine components are domestically sourced and manufactured in the United States. According to the Land...

A key challenge facing the wind industry is the potential for turbines to adversely affect wild animals both directly, via collisions, as well as indirectly due to noise pollution, habitat loss, and reduced survival or reproduction. Among the most impacted wildlife are birds and bats, which by eating destructive insects provide billions of dollars of economic benefits to the country’s agricultural...

The number of turbines installed in the U.S. each year varies based on a number of factors, but on average 3,000 turbines have been built in the U.S. each year since 2005. Learn more: Wind Energy U.S. Wind Turbine Database

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) maintains a database of proposed structures that they are evaluating as potential obstructions to airspace. However, an FAA determination of “non-hazard” is just one step of many in the permitting process, and many turbines evaluated by the FAA are never built. Learn more: U.S. Wind Turbine Database

The U.S. Wind Turbine Database (USWTDB) includes all utility-scale turbines that have been installed in the United States. As of January 2019, only one offshore wind farm has been constructed in the U.S. - the Block Island Wind Farm off Rhode Island. However, according to the Department of Energy, several other offshore projects are in advanced stages of development. If and when those projects are...

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the average U.S. home uses 893 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity per month. Per the U.S. Wind Turbine Database, the mean capacity of wind turbines that achieved commercial operations in 2020 is 2.75 megawatts (MW). At a 42% capacity factor (i.e., the average among recently built wind turbines in the United States, per the 2021 edition of...

No. To our knowledge, the U.S. Wind Turbine Database (USWTDB) is unique. Other datasets might be available from other countries on an ad hoc basis, but we are not aware of any central repository of those data. For general information and statistics on international wind projects, see thewindpower.net.

The U.S. Wind Turbine Database (USWTDB) is designed to be a comprehensive source of information for utility-scale wind turbines in the United States; residential-scale turbines are excluded. We have removed turbines known to be residential scale and have excluded turbines that are both less than 65 kilowatts (kW) in rated capacity and less than 30 meters in total height. We are not aware of a...

The U.S. Wind Turbine Database project compiles wind turbine information from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s (LBNL) Wind Technologies Market Report dataset, the American Wind Energy Association’s (AWEA) wind turbine and project datasets, and the United States Geological Survey’s (USGS) legacy (2014) wind turbine dataset, as well as online sources...

We suggest the following citation for use in academic papers and where applicable:  Hoen, B.D., Diffendorfer, J.E., Rand, J.T., Kramer, L.A., Garrity, C.P., Hunt, H.E. (<year of USWTDB access>) United States Wind Turbine Database. U.S. Geological Survey, American Clean Power Association, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory data release: USWTDB Version # (Version Date). https://eerscmap.usgs...