The Cheney Plan (also known as National Energy Policy: Report of the National Energy Policy Development Group (May 2001), available on-line at http://www.whitehouse.gov/energy/) goes into great detail about oil and gas, as well as electricity transmission infrastructure that would make it easier for large companies to generate anywhere and sell anyplace. However, it provides no quantitative analysis of the enormous wind energy potential of the United States. The top twelve states in terms of wind energy potential after land use exclusions, such as national parks or areas with dense populations, is shown in the table. The wind potential of many other states is considerable, but is lower than the ones listed below due to a combination of factors such as wind speed, population density, and/or other land use restrictions.

Only about one-and-a-half percent of the potential wind resources in these top twelve states would, over 40 years, be equivalent to the entire oil reserves of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (assuming they are as much as 10 billion barrels). Of course, the wind energy potential would still be available after that, while the oil reserves would be exhausted.

A development of the wind energy potential on a significant scale would require the development of transmission infrastructure to feed wind generated electricity into high voltage transmission lines and the infrastructure of some new transmission line corridors in some states. The most expedient approaches in the short term may be to connect Wyoming, Montana, and New Mexico westward, and the Midwestern states with high wind potential to the east.

For more information on wind energy, see IEER's 1999 report, Wind Power Versus Plutonium: An Examination of Wind Energy Potential and a Comparison of Offshore Wind Energy to Plutonium Use in Japan. A summary of this report can be found in Science for Democratic Action vol. 8 no. 1 (November 1999).