[Environment Report]:Study Says Wind Power to Lead Growth in Renewable Energies in US, Canada


This is the VOA Special English Environment Report.

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A study says wind power will leadthe growth in the use of renewable energy in the United States andCanada over the next ten years. Renewable energy also includes formslike power from the sun. Navigant Consulting in the United Statescarried out the study. Energy companies helped pay for much of theresearch.

The use of wind energy has grown in the United States, butremains less than one percent of all the energy produced.

Lisa Frantzis led the study. She says the researchers expectadditions of as much as one-thousand-five-hundred megawatts fromwind power projects each year. That is about equal to the energyproduction of one nuclear power station.

The study says there have been major improvements in theperformance of all renewable energy technologies in the past twentyyears. For example, the study reports a ninety percent drop in theprice of electricity produced from wind. In the nineteen-eighties akilowatt hour of wind power cost about thirty-eight cents. Now, akilowatt hour is closer to three cents.

The study found that government support must continue and grow topermit renewable energies to compete in the power industry.

However, some renewable energy companies face criticism. In fact,wind energy producers usually have to deal with opposition fromcommunities they try to enter.

Currently, a wind energy company is trying to set up business inCape Cod, Massachusetts, in the northeastern United States. The CapeWind company wants to place more than one-hundred windmills innearby waters. The windmills are hundreds of meters tall. Cape Windsays the project could provide Cape Cod with seventy-five percent ofits electricity needs. And, it would not create pollution.

But, a number of people who live on or visit the Cape say they donot want the windmills. They say Cape Cod is a national treasurethat should not be open to industry. They argue that building thewindmills would hurt fish and birds in the area. And, they say itwould hurt tourism. They say the windmills will ruin the beauty oflooking out to sea from the coast.

Environmental groups, however, look at the situation differently.They ague that a source of energy that does not cause pollutionwould protect natural environments like Cape Cod.

This VOA Special English Environment Report was written by CatyWeaver.

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