Submitted by Brett Stevens on Wed, 07/30/2008 - 16:17.
Every day 85 million barrels of oil are produced around the world. And 21 million of those are used here in the United States.
In one year, a 3-megawatt wind turbine produces as much energy as 12,000 barrels of imported oil.
21,000,000 / 12,000 = 1750 wind turbine-years per day
1750 * 365 = 638,750 wind turbines required
That's one ginormous shitload of ugly, giant towers to build.
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Nice wrap-up of all of this
Nice wrap-up of all of this via TreeHugger.
The turbine - barrel of oil
The turbine - barrel of oil equivalent is merely illustrative. The oil consumption cited is mostly transportation fuel, and the plan only assumes there will be about a third reduction in current oil imports (15 M bbl/day) following the implementation of the conversion of a portion of the automobile fleet to natural gas (which is silly, but I digress). Additionally, only 20% of US electricity consumption is envisioned as part of this specific plan, which is supposed to be transitional.
Pickens said his plan calls for the addition of 200,000 MW of new wind-powered capacity that would eventually replace the 20% share of the nation's fuel mix now provided by gasfired generation.
Source
200,000 MW / 3 MW per turbine = ~67,000 turbines
Point taken on the aesthetics; there is a not-so-irony in the \uglifying properties of the turbines as one part of the plan, with the related assumption that car culture (and all its ugly accoutrements) will be maintained.