Common knowledge states that wind energy's big drawback is that the wind doesn't blow all the time, so you have a big problem when it doesn't. Denmark's DONG Energy doesn't see it that way.

By 2007, Denmark was getting about 20% of its electricity from wind. As an existing power company integrating wind, it has enough conventional generation to supply demand any time the wind isn't blowing. The problem is when the wind is blowing during a time of low demand (i.e. overnight). In that situation, the wind farms generate more electricity than needed to meet demand. In other words, there is not a market for all the electricity that can be generated by wind, and as a result, DONG Energy is giving up a significant portion of the return on their investment because some of the electricity goes unsold. This is particularly frustrating because DONG Energy is under pressure from Danish political leaders to add more wind energy.

The last couple of days have given us major announcements of electric car infrastructure projects.

As the keynote speaker at the L.A. Auto Show, Nissan (NSANY) CEO Carlos Ghosn announced a partnership with the Oregon Transportation Department and Portland General Electric to install charging stations around the state. Nissan will provide a fleet of electric vehicles to the state, and Oregon will offer a tax credit to buyers of electric vehicles.

If you’ve been paying attention, you will notice a major change in the Pickens Plan.

The original plan was this: Use wind energy to replace the use of natural gas in generating electricity, and take the saved natural gas and use it in compressed natural gas cars, like the Honda GX (NYSE: HMC), to replace gasoline. This shift would greatly reduce the amount of oil that we need to import. T. Boone Pickens said that this would get us started toward energy independence while we are waiting for the development of other technologies like plug-in electric cars, which he described as ‘not quite there yet’.

Wind power generating capacity has been growing quickly in the U.S. In 2007, wind capacity grew by 46%, adding 16 million megawatt-hours of electricity to our annual production. The wind turbines were manufactured by seven companies.

With plug-in electric cars starting to ship, and many more scheduled to come online in the next few years, the market for electric vehicle batteries is heating up.

Electric vehicles put new demands on batteries. In particular, batteries need to hold a lot of energy (to go a long distance on a single charge) and they need to have a long life (years of dependable service).