European Commitment to Wind Power Grows
The world today is full of those who promise to be greener, promise to do more for the environment, promise to make the world a better place. But empty promises mean as much to us as an empty jar of peanut butter does to me; nothing! So it is gratifying to see that Europe is picking up the gauntlet of creating a cleaner place for us to live.
Much of the push for cleaner environmental standards over the past decade have come out of Europe; the German Chancellor Angela Merkel being a prime example. So it comes as no surprise to see that the European Parliament has set a target of having 25% of their energy come from renewable energy by 2020. Of that 25%, half is planned to come from wind energy.
Europe is already well on their way to making this happen as well, with 5 countries (Denmark, Spain, Portugal, Ireland and Germany) having more than 5% of their energy provided by wind farms. Currently there exists 80 GW of installed wind capacity in the EU, though only 3.5 GW of that is derived from wind farms built off-shore.
Off-shore installations are especially significant in Europe, due to the large amount of shallow waters. Deeper waters incur further expenses for wind farms, which necessitate additional engineering challenges in the deeper and subsequently rougher waters.
If the 2020 goal is met, wind energy could total 38% of the EU-15’s Kyoto Protocol obligations, and avoid 133 mega-tons of CO2 in the process. Regardless of any plans though, if these plans are to be met, continued government and business involvement is a must, as the will power is there, the money simply isn’t.
Image Courtesy of phault via Flickr
Source via ENN
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