Wind turbines are rapidly becoming cost competitive with electricity generated by coal-fired power plants, which is good news, since Project Drawdown ranks onshore wind turbines as the second most effective strategy for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. What's more, they can be built to power a single home or an entire island; they have small footprints, occupying a small fraction of the land they sit on; and they can be built fairly quickly.  

Read the stories in this collection (see below) to learn how farmers on the Danish island of Samso are powering their island and selling the surplus to the mainland; about the booming wind energy economy in Texas; how a resourceful Malawian teen built a wind turbine from basic household materials; and how Wind for Prosperity is refurbishing used components from wind turbines in Europe and using the material to construct new turbines in the global south. This solution is one of the Drawdown Ecochallenge actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

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1.  Summarize the challenges faced by wind energy, both as a business and as a technology.

2. Discuss the implications of William Kamkwamba's construction of a wind turbine in Malawi from scrap.  Is this a model for others to use?  Is it inspirational?  What was William's motivation to construct his wind turbine?

3. Explain how the Samso island energy system works.

4.  Analyze how the Texas CREZ program has worked, and whether that model is viable in other areas of the country.  Can the CREZ model be widely applied?  Describe why or why not.

5.  In what ways is it important that non-grid power systems be delivered to the hundreds of millions--perhaps more than a billion--of people without secure or dependable power?  Describe how access to electricity changes a person's life.

6. (Group) Break into groups, and determine what combination of renewable energy sources would be best for your campus community, or your home community.  Justify your analysis.