The United States was caught flat footed by World War II, but we turned on a dime, responding in amazing fashion to the provocation.

We churned out almost a hundred thousand tanks and armored vehicles along with just over three hundred thousand aircraft in the period from 1939 to 1945. 2,751 Liberty ships containing 7,176 tons of steel each were produced and the statistics are too scattered to make a good statement about all of the other naval construction, both combat and merchant marine.

Why are we talking about this on a renewable energy site? If you look at a modern turbine what do you see? Airfoils like the wings of planes, a gearbox and generator setup in a nacelle that weighs a little more than a modern battle tank, and a hundred meter tall tubular tower built in a similar manner to how a Liberty ship was constructed.

Our economy, should we choose to treat peak oil and global warming as the deadly perils that they are, is more than capable of churning out enough wind turbines to solve a large portion of the problem if we're operating on a war footing and even in the face of a major depression. I know we're able to do it, I'm just not certain we'll be able to muster the political will.