At least someone is trying

http://news.scotsman.com/politics.cfm?id=1497442006

Is wind a good source?

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Its very good that Britain starts to lay some more focus on wind energy, but the movement comes from another part in Europe. Its Germany and Denmark where the world leading companies in wind energy are at home. To see the dimensions a chart could help:




Its said but considering the fact that the US was once the leading force in that developement, it is allready now at least 3 times surpassed by Europe. And Europe keeps expanding on this.

And here perhaps a stat to show you the dynamic of the capacity expansion:


(blue= number of facilities, red=electric capacity in MW)


Of course, wind energy is controversial, every source of energy is. It has its advantages and disadvantages, no question. But it also has to have a fix place in the energy mix of the future. And the point is that with the help of wind energy you get relatively cheap alternative energy, while the ecological impact is in comparission to other forms of energy production relatively low.

Wind energy has allready reached in Germany 6-10% or so of the overall electricity production. I am not sure but the technological reasonable limit would be somewhat 20% or so. Denmark has even 20% of its whole electricity from wind energy. (keep in mind that the single market also exists in the electricity market. That means fluctuations, surpluses and deficits are compensated and traded on a European base. As a consequences countries like Denmark might be even able to even expand it further if there is potential)


Long speech short:
Is wind energy a good source? Yes it is, one out of a handfull important future sources.

Thanx for the heads up and I am pleased to see that at least someone is trying for alternative energy. If only the US would get on the boat.

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Its not (only ) because we are so nice and idealistic people but sheer necesserity for Europe. Being considerably dependant on the flow of energy resources from Russia and the Middle East, significantly more than you are, it should not be the worst idea to look for alternatives.

Not really on topic but have you heard about the energy-plans of Sweden? It has set itself the goal to abolish fossiles as energy source in the next 15-25 years or so. It would be the first country on earth to do so. And it takes decissive actions to reach that goal.

The problem here in the States is that, like the 700 mile proposed wall, alternative energy is just given lip service. A wind farm was proposed in the New England area, but liberals said no. So the ones that make the biggest fuss about it are the ones fighting it when it comes to putting it into practice.

Isnt the American politician that promise currently the most on environmental issues, and has also quite a focus on it for the election campaign, Schwarzenegger? Its funny to see a Republican who shares the same party with Bush talking like this. But California was alllways on the forefront in the US on environmental considerations.

I wouldn't call Arnold that much of a Republican, more along the lines of a Democrat that is just scared to put the D there. As for California being on the front of the environmental movement.... if by putting major restrictions on business and driving them out of the state... then yes.

He is married with a Kennedy after all

WRT environment. No its not just about random restrictions. At least in Europe helping alternatives to take off is an important tool. That does not hurt the economy that even fosters it. For example in Germany. The leading position among wind power plant producers, is today a major factor and mostly due because of export revenues. Once this was the case with California...

Overall you do sound like you would prefer to have environmental law a la Chinese. It probably doesnt matter that they are working currently on their own substance, destroying and contaminating vast areas etc. If we spin your argument further, the US has to competely abolish those unnecessary regulations to be able to compete with China and India again. Good luck.

Let's be honest--vast fortunes will not be made from alt energy and thsat is the motivator here.

As for Sweden, bless their hearts!

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I think you err on this. Allready today the alternative energies and sustainable developement sector is an important part of the European economy. And its the fastest growing one.

I do not doubt that within the next decades it will become a major pillar of it. Simply out of necessarity. (And I am not only referring to the fossile issue here).

And one factor keeps to be ignored or overlooked regularely in the US. Sustainable concepts and developements are not just a pile of regeluations that do nothing else than costing the economy a fortune. True things like pollution filters etc cost quite much (but I guess we agree both on it that they are worth it), but a huge sector of sustainability meassurements, is not against the very own economic interests but in accordance to them. Often its enough when managers loose their prejudices.
For example here in Europe factories do not only sell anymore their products. No, in many cases they are selling (and the tendency is that their number constantly grows) also their rear-products, ie heat to the heat distribution system (saves tons of energy for unnecessary energy needing cooling), they are more and more becoming resource deliverers themselves (recycling), or even start to reuse resources in their own factory again.

In my eyes the problem of the Americans is that they have a dangerous old mannered view on the production process. They see resources coming to a factory being their processed to a product and the product to be sold. In their mind a factory is a black box where unneeded stuff simply disappears. Everything thats not needed anymore goes to the trash. As far as I know just for (poisonous) air pollution there is allready a consciousness.

In Europe we have changed that perspective allready to a large part. That goes as far as even the management of our companies at least know of it, some of them being themselves glowing supporters, (some old school types still try to evade it at all costs though.) A factory does not need a very diverse range of resources it also produces a diverse range of products and rear products. All in all, nothing is ever lost, there exists only transformation. If you put myriads of resources into a factory but just a tiny little product leaves it, (that does not have to be automatically bad) you have to question yourself what happens with the rest? If its transformed into heat, sell it, if its transformed into something that can be purified or filtrated, sell it, if its dangerous unusable stuff, try to reduce it...

Long speech short: We have to get away from this linear thought model that seems to have burried itself deep in our minds. The future belongs to the circular model, customers are at the same time sellers, resources never disappear they get transformed. A product has not only to be produced, and used, it also has to be recycled. The latter is as important and has to be considered as much in the design as the former. For the society as a whole its insignificant how much the production alone costs, it's essential how much a product over its whole life-cycle costs.


PS:
Wind energy is allready a extremely rentable business btw. That is directly related to the fix prices for it that are granted and all energy consumers are forced to support with their share. But the technology is so fast improving and oil is getting increasingly expensive that it wont take too long anymore until wind energy is fully compatible. And dont forget, atomic energy just exists because its up today heavily subsidized, as coal power is (at least in Germany, in Austria we dont relly that much on coal). If you consider the subsidies for them, wind power will be probably allready today more rentable than them.