Air in motion is called wind.  It is created by the sun heating up the earth.  Air over land heats up faster than air over water, consequently as they meet, wind is formed.

Wind has been used to power things since the early Persians constructed towers and affixed paddles made from reeds to them.  The wind moved the paddles, creating energy that was used to grind grains.  Early Americans used windmills to pump water which was used in their households and on their farms to water their crops.  The windmills were also used to produce electricity in areas of this country that had no electric power supplied to them.  As the 1930s rolled around and more people were being supplied with electricity, the use of windmills subsided.

The oil shortage of the 1970's woke people up to start looking for other sources to obtain electrical power and thus, wind farms were born.  Two types of windmills are in use today, the vertical axis and the horizontal axis.  Size of the turbines also varies from single family which produces about 100 kilowatts to behemoth ones that produce 5 million watts.  These large turbines are generally grouped together into wind farms and provide power into electrical grids.

Wind energy is clean and renewable, and by 2007 was being used in 26 different countries.  The Horse Hollow Wind Energy company in Texas is the largest in the world with 421 turbines, providing enough electricity to power 230,000 homes each year.

California has the largest variety of windmills with farms in Altamont Pass boasting 6000, Tehachapi Pass another 5000 and farms near Palm Springs 3000.

Today with the threat of global warming and the rising cost of oil, wind power looks better and better every day.  But, as with anything else, there will be fights with those who do not want to use wind power, and especially the environmentalists who object to the aesthetics of the turbines.  The biggest factor on the plus side for wind energy, is that wind is free and will keep on blowing as long as the sun shines.