Wind a New Opportunity for Community Colleges

We've all read about campuses that have natural gas or oil being pumped from them. Now, some - especially rural - community colleges are finding that they need to pump out graduates trained in wind energy skills:

Community colleges in North Dakota and other states are jumping at the chance to help fill that need and develop a niche for themselves at the same time through wind tech programs.

"The demand (for wind techs) is such that some (colleges) have been trying to keep companies away from the program because they want everybody to graduate first," said Christine Real de Azua, a spokeswoman for the American Wind Energy Association. "In some cases, students are being picked up after only a couple of months."

Last year, 3,200 new wind turbines were installed across the nation as power companies responded to the push for more green energy. It brought the total number of towers with wind-catching blades to more than 25,000, the association said.