26,400 turbines to wean Britain off its carbon habit
By Michael Savage, Political Correspondent
Revolutionary plans for a massive expansion of offshore wind farms have been unveiled in a £100bn project designed to usher in a new era of green energy for Britain.
A quarter of the country's electricity needs would be met through wind power by 2020 under the strategy, with the construction of 6,400 turbines within nine sites dotted around the coast. The programme amounts to the biggest energy supply shake-up since the discovery of the North Sea oil and gas fields more than 40 years ago.
Walt Musial from US Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratories tells the story of Wind Energy in the USA, from the 'Wind Rush' of the 1980s, challenges of scaling up, to proposals for huge offshore, floating, wind turbines.
Right up with world trends, Australian Heinz Dahl, of Next Gen Wind, tells how Australian and New Zealand manufacturers are talking of huge, 10 Megawatt, Wind Turbines; Wind Turbines for cyclone-prone areas; floating Wind Turbines, and more.
Wind power can easily replace 40% of Coal, Oil, Gas and Nuclear for electricity generation in the UK. Wind expert David Milborrow shares his 30 year of experience in grid integration and penetration of wind resources and all variability associated with electricity grid supply and demand. David Millborrow in conversation with Matthew Wright of Beyond Zero Emissions.
Paul Gipe, author of 'Wind Energy Basics' talks to Scott Bilby about how the Canadian province of Ontario plans to close all its coal power plants by 2014, how people in Vermont wanting to own their own energy sources pushed politicians into instituting feed-in tariffs, and much more. And a warning for Australians: Beware FITINOS - Feed-in Tariffs in Name Only!
A new study claims that there is 16 to 20 times more wind power avaiability in the USA than is needed to generate all the electricity used, says Michael Goggin of the American Wind Energy Association.
