Insanely Great Wind Graphic

Some wind-inspired art and data for your Friday.

Eric Wesoff April 06, 2012

Eric Wesoff

Editor-at-Large
Greentech Media

Eric Wesoff is Editor-at-Large at Greentech Media. Prior to joining GTM, Eric Wesoff founded Sage Marketing Partners in 2000 to provide sales and marketing-consulting services to venture-capital firms and their portfolio companies in the alternative energy and telecommunications sectors. Mr. Wesoff has become a well-known, respected authority and speaker in these fields.

His expertise covers solar power, fuel cells, biofuels and advanced batteries. His strengths are in market research and analysis, business development and due diligence for investors. He frequently consults for energy startups and Silicon Valley's premier venture capitalists.

Brilliant data visualizers Fernanda Viégas and Martin Wattenberg (formerly of hint.fm and now part of Google) bring their graphical talents to wind energy and wind patterns in the following image. It's a dynamic visual -- so be sure to click on the image for a link to the original project.

Armed with surface wind data from the National Digital Forecast Database, the duo have created a stylized but meaningful snapshot of hour-by-hour wind patterns in the U.S. The levelized cost of energy (LCOE) of wind in the U.S. has never been lower but U.S. wind energy policy is contrary to industry growth.

Viégas and Wattenberg now lead Google's Big Picture data visualization research group.