General Electric and Vestas Wind Systems are reaping the benefits as U.S. utilities assertively add generating capacity from renewable/alternative energy sources, Bloomberg News reported Wednesday.

For example, XCel Energy (NYSE: XEL), the U.S.'s largest provider of wind power, is buying 67 General Electric (NYSE: GE) turbines for a Minnesota wind farm, and GE expects its turbine sales to increase 25% to $6 billion this year, Bloomberg News reported. GE was the largest supplier of wind turbines in 2007, with a 45% market share. Siemens AG (NYSE: SI) and Vestas are two other major global manufacturers of wind turbines that should continue to benefit as wind power usage increases: each is opening manufacturing plants in the U.S. to accommodate increased wind energy-related sales.

GE's shares gained 89 cents to $34.29, while Siemens AG rose 20 cents to $128.20 in Wednesday afternoon trading.

In my series of the top 25 stocks for the NEXT 25 years I promised you that if anything relevant or game-changing were to come about, I would write it up for your reading pleasure. Well, I have some new news on Zoltek Co. (NASDAQ: ZOLT). I wrote up the initial Zoltek report just last week, but since that publishing, some relevant good news has come up.

Zoltek is the worldwide leader in the manufacturing of carbon fiber material. Carbon fiber has hundreds of applications from sporting goods to aeronautical casings. The most popular application of carbon fiber is as the material of choice for rotor blades on huge energy-generating wind turbines. The carbon fiber is lighter, less prone to friction and therefore far more efficient and cheaper to operate than traditional materials. The Dewind Corporation (a subsidiary of Composite Technology Corp./OTC: CPTC) has contracted Zoltek for the next several years to supply it with enough carbon fiber material to satisfy its growing demand.

This comes on top of the commitment made to Zoltek by the large Danish wind generator company Vestas. Vestas is one of the leading European companies in the energy field and known for its cutting-edge choices in technology and materials.