Agricultural land remains mostly unchanged after wind projects

View a distribution of wind turbine locations across the US

As of May 2025, the US Wind Turbine Database maps and provides technical specifications for 76,051 onshore and offshore turbines from 1,794 projects, ranging from small installations to large-scale wind farms.

Selection of wind farm sites considers wildlife impacts and wind resource potential

Environmental impact studies, wind energy maps, anemometer data, and local, state, and federal regulations factor into wind farm projects, including offshore farms. Wind projects on public lands require additional permitting.

From 1990 to 2020, wind turbine height and blade length have more than tripled

Wind turbines' energy generation capacity—or maximum power rating—also increased by 375% from 1998 to 2023. As of that year, wind turbines can produce more energy per dollar than solar panels, though transportation and installation challenges remain.

Technological advancements will make future wind turbines more efficient and quieter

Manufacturing larger, more powerful turbines will result in future wind farms requiring fewer of them to meet energy demands. Larger turbines will meet these demands while rotating at lower speeds, reducing risks to avian wildlife.

As of 2022, just 0.5% of installed renewable energy capacity worldwide is geothermal

Despite being able to generate electricity regardless of the weather, solar (28%) and wind (27%) are far more prevalent, primarily because of their lower upfront costs. Geothermal plants use 88% less space than solar farms to produce the same energy, but have been restricted to geologically active regions.

Wind turbines are limited to capturing no more than 59.3% of incoming wind energy

In 1919, German physicist Albert Betz applied the laws of conservation of mass and momentum to airstreams to calculate the theoretical limit. However, real-world turbines only convert 35 to 45% of available wind energy into electricity.

The carbon footprint of manufacturing a wind turbine is offset within seven months

Despite initial carbon emissions during manufacturing, wind turbines generate nearly zero pollution across their 20- to 25-year lifetimes. Offsets occur when turbines replace energy generation from coal and natural gas plants, which emit carbon dioxide.

Why decarbonizing the entire electric grid is impossible with its current infrastructure

Fossil fuel plants can be built anywhere and have thus typically been built near highly populated areas, such as coastal cities, where electricity demand is high. However, certain renewable resources operate most efficiently in specific regions, such as wind turbines in the Midwest, and therefore require substantial transmission infrastructure to be constructed to transport the generated electricity.

Wind farms are targets for conspiracy theories due to their visibility and complexity

The proliferation of misinformation and conspiracy theories surrounding wind farms is driven by deep-seated anxieties about change, distrust of government, and resistance to confronting the complexities of modern energy solutions.

Fiberglass and epoxy resin on blades complicate the recycling of wind turbines

Between 85 and 95% of a turbine's materials—except for the blades—can be recycled. Blades have been left in landfills when not repurposed into playgrounds and sheds, but new processes may allow them to be made into pellets for injection plastics and concrete.

Imagining the farms of the future

About 10,000 years ago, humans began to farm. This agricultural revolution was a turning point in our history and enabled the existence of civilization. Today, nearly 40 percent of our planet is farmland. Spread all over the world, these lands are the pieces to a global puzzle we’re all facing: in the future, how can we feed every member of a growing population a healthy diet? Brent Loken investigates in this seven-minute video.

Solar panels can create pollinator-friendly habitats by protecting flowering plants

An example of agrivoltaics, where land is used for solar energy production and agriculture, the panels provide clean energy while also shading plants from excessive sunlight. Pollinator-friendly plants can improve water quality and reduce soil erosion by obstructing the wind.

Wind helps trees develop resistance to collapse

Scientists at Biosphere 2 found that trees grew faster in the facility than those in the wild but collapsed more quickly when replanted outdoors. Researchers uncovered that trees build resistance when pushed and pulled due to wind stress, strengthening their foundational root systems.

View a photo essay of renewable power landscapes in China

Using a drone, Chinese photographer Weimin Chu captured the deployment of solar and wind power installations across the country, which accounted for half of all global installations in 2025. The images show modern infrastructure juxtaposed with natural landscapes and was featured in an award-winning exhibition presented by Greenpeace in 2025.

Agricultural intensification has accelerated declines in pollinator populations

The practice of using farmland more frequently to increase its yield increases the number of residual pesticides and decreases botanical biodiversity. These processes tend to decrease carrying capacity for pollinators by eliminating food sources and nesting habitats.

As of 2025, wave power projects remain in early research and testing phases

Waves can become a steady source of renewable energy because they do not pause like wind and solar power do. However, funding gaps and the effects of storms, salt exposure, and biofouling—mussels and other sea creatures attaching to wave machines—have presented challenges in scaling the technology beyond testing sites.

Some renewable energy sources may weaken the resiliency of electric grids by removing outage buffers provided by coal- and natural gas-fired plants, which provide the system with more time to find a new power source if a plant goes down.

Roughly 10% of US apartments were owned by private equity firms as of 2025

Almost half of those apartments were purchased after 2021. However, local community groups across the country are experimenting with ways to put residential and commercial real estate in the hands of community members.

Federal subsidies have boosted US fracking profits

Between 2000 and 2020, the US government invested tens of billions of dollars to facilitate the extraction of shale oil and gas reserves. These subsidies helped make new projects viable and kept fossil fuel companies afloat while global energy prices and renewable energy startup costs have fallen.

The decline of the landline in the US

It costs 35% less to maintain AT&T's fiber subscribers than it does to keep up its legacy copper lines, a big difference leading the major phone company to plan to end its copper lines by 2030. Tens of millions of households still utilize a landline phone in the US, but they've been trending downward for at least two decades as people have gone wireless. Learn the trends and see the data visualized in this article.

Americans throw away nearly 40% of their food supply

The US discards roughly 63 million tons of food per year, making it one of the largest contributors to landfill waste. Food scrap waste is the single largest category of material sent to landfills.

In 2024, Walden Pond was listed as an endangered place

The National Trust for Historic Preservation listed the site of Henry David Thoreau's "Walden" experiment as one of the most endangered historic places in America due to a proposed airport expansion and the proposed development of a nearby plot of land.

National parks, explained

Roughly 83 million acres of the United States are set aside as federal National Parks land, an area large as Germany. From the original Yellowstone Park to small monuments and memorials, learn the essentials on this portion of America dedicated to public enjoyment and recreation with our quick explainer video.

How global conditions have improved over 200 years

In an era of 24-hour news, it can feel as if the world is on a perpetual downward spiral. This set of visualizations zoom out, and show how global living conditions have improved in recent centuries. The percentage of people living in extreme...

Favorable conditions for wildfires are becoming more frequent in the western US

A new study of the American West shows that climate change is driving more days that are hot, dry, and windy—the perfect conditions for deadly wildfires.

Tornado chasers include scientists conducting field projects

Research teams use drones, mobile weather stations, and radar systems to capture real-time meteorological data, better understand conditions that favor tornado formation, and improve forecasting models. As of 2022, model limitations result in roughly 70% of tornado warnings being false alarms.

View the ten deadliest tornadoes in US history.

Frank Lloyd Wright's houses are historically hard to sell because they're old, subject to local landmark commissions, and often unfashionable

The use of fungi to detoxify land and water—a process known as mycoremediation—has been used to clean up natural resources affected by the 2025 California wildfires.

The American Society of Civil Engineers' infrastructure report card gave the US a C in 2025, its highest grade since the project launched in 1998.

US housing costs have risen by roughly 175% between 1991 and 2026—but a growing number of Gen Zers are becoming homeowners anyway. In 2025, 4% of homebuyers were Gen Z, up from 3% the year before.

Recent research found that the brain doesn't seem to massively rewire following amputation—upending earlier beliefs about the cause of phantom limb pain.

Scientists testing how climate change affects plants found, in a years-long simulation study, that poison ivy grew 70% faster with the resulting extra carbon dioxide.

Louisiana's 'Cancer Alley' is infamous for having some of the highest industrial pollution, toxic air emissions, and cancer risks in the US.

'Silent' fireworks have gained more interest in recent years as a quieter celebratory option.

Power lines are dotted with large, brightly colored balls to improve the visibility of these thin wires to helicopters and small planes and help prevent potential crashes.

While the first exchange-traded fund (a 'basket' of different assets that can be bought and sold on a stock exchange) in the US only launched in 1993, the global ETF market has grown to more than $10T in the short time since.

Hurricanes, which rely on air consistently spinning in the same direction, cannot cross the equator because air curves in opposite directions north and south of it.

The power and influence of the American presidency have expanded significantly over time—far beyond what the founders envisioned.

Indefinite cloning of some endangered species may not sustain their longevity because cloning success rates decrease as genetic mutations accumulate.

A 2019 Facebook event called on attendees to "Storm Area 51, They Can't Stop All of Us," resulting in countless memes, the creation of a music festival, and eventually the arrests of those who did try to approach the area.

The Russia-Ukraine conflict is the largest ground war in Europe since World War II in casualties, forces mobilized, and displacement of civilians.

44% of Americans say they pray at least once a day—discover how your state's religiosity stacks up against the rest of the country.

Most of the observable universe's volume consists of voids and supervoids—enormous regions of space with little to no galaxies, stars, or light.

Apollo astronauts left items in the moon's 'toss zone,' including golf balls, family photos, and bags of human waste, to make room for lunar rocks.

Sunflowers have long been a symbol of nuclear disarmament because they can extract large amounts of radioactive cesium from soil.

The price of gas is a composite made up of several different factors, with the federal gas tax making up less than 20% of what drivers pay at the pump.

Gerrymandering works through two techniques: cracking opposing voters across districts to dilute their power, and packing them into a few to waste their votes in lopsided majorities.

Budweiser stores yeast derived from the original 1800s strain in a secret bunker, which only the Head of Yeast Management can access—not even the CEO

How Amazon operates a 'flywheel' business model, a self-reinforcing cycle that drives continuous growth