Where the Wind Blows

The wind industry is getting a leg up from NASA.

The space agency has been collecting global weather data for almost a decade, which it initially used to predict storms and keep track of other weather patterns. But as part of that research, NASA’s QuickSCAT satellite has also been monitoring the speed, direction and power of wind traveling over the ocean’s surface.

That’s pretty useful information for anyone considering an offshore wind farm, and NASA published it all this week in a scientific journal. Some of the best sources of potential wind energy are off California’s Mendocino coast (I know it’s been plenty windy just about every time I visited), Tasmania, and Tierra Del Fuego, regions where land formations channel wind into a concentrated jet that blows almost year round. I’m sure the locals could probably have tipped off wind developers to these spots, but NASA’s findings also identified a few areas in the middle of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, which could be candidates for floating wind farms.