The Department of Energy has recently released two reports that show record growth in the U.S. wind industry. The United States continues to be one of the world's largest and fastest growing wind markets. The wind industry provides power for millions of people as well as over 80,000 jobs nationwide. In 2012, wind energy accounted for 43% of all new electric additions In the United States, making wind the fastest growing energy sector in the country. The amount of electricity generated in the United States from wind and solar have more than doubled since Obama took office in 2008. This growth has been projected to continue and the Obama administration has issued a statement that they would like to see “another doubling of renewable electricity generation from energy resources like wind power by 2020”.

The reports indicated that as well as more and more wind energy being produced every year in the United States, more of the windmill components are being produced in America as well. In 2006 only 25% of windmill components being installed were made in America, but in 2012 over 75% of them were. These advances in the wind energy sector indicate the beginnings of a shift in America toward more renewable sources of energy. 

These are exciting times to be alive, especially considering the proliferation and constant innovation on the technological front.  A shining example of this is Louis Michaud's idea to harness the inherent power of tornadoes to create even more energy from previously ignored sources.  The article, originally appearing in Discover magazine, explains this new technology, the 'Atmospheric Vortex Engine': 
"Instead of directing excess heat into conventional cooling towers that simply disperse it into the air, power plants could usher the heat into the hollow, open-topped tower of a vortex engine. A heat exchanger outside the tower transfers the extra heat (piped in as warm water) to ambient air. When this warmed air is directed into the tower at an angle, it encounters cooler air and produces a circular current. This current funnels air upward into a controlled twister whose low-pressure center draws more air into the tower, turning turbines at its base. These turbines drive a generator much like a wind turbine does, except, as Michaud says, “You’ve got more oomph to push it with.”

Michaud has already demonstrated working models of the engine up to 15 feet across, but the real deal would measure 300 feet wide and half as tall, capable of producing tamed twisters that stretch nine miles high. When hooked up to the average 500-megawatt natural-gas or coal power plant, the vortex engine could produce an extra 200 megawatts of energy just by putting the excess heat to use. 

At a cost of less than 3 cents per kilowatt-hour, tornado energy is cheaper than burning coal (which rings up at 4 or 5 cents per kwh) and produces no additional greenhouse gases. "

This is an excellent development as Michaud is adapting and creating a new source of energy from what was long considered waste or useless.  It is ideas like these that will allow this planet to survive by using energy much more responsibly and efficiently, a key challenge facing our planet.