I was talking with an old friend last week about how much renewable energy and energy efficiency can do for us. Pretty much everything is my argument. We are making progress along these lines that is sometimes breathtaking.
There was a breakthrough announcement on renewable energy last week from the British: They will be deploying offshore wind farms that will be able to meet 25% of UK electricity demand – by 2020. In ten years! That’s just one technology, built out in just one environment, and in ten years time.
The Crown Estate owns and manages commercial properties, farms, and offshore assets held in common for the country. There are 32.2 gigawatts of power in the projects that the approved developers for the nine sites are saying they’ll generate. The Crown Estate press release quotes Ed Miliband, Energy and Climate Change minister: “Our island has one of the best wind energy resources in Europe and today’s news shows we’re creating the right conditions for the energy industry to invest in harnessing it.” The British are also working on a number of other fronts, very much including tidal and wave power, combined heat and power, energy efficiency, as well as other clean tech. Beyond Britain too, wind is busting out all over, but the UK government seems particularly smart about it.
Here’s a video of the announcement. (I particularly like the footage of offshore wind farms being built.)
The PM, Gordon Brown, had this to say about the Crown Estate projects: “This announcement will make a significant and practical contribution to reducing our CO2 emissions and the Government will work with developers and the Crown Estate to support the growing offshore wind industry and help remove barriers to rapid development.”
Contrast this to the United States which has exactly zero kilowatts of offshore wind up and running. There are projects on the drawing boards, to be sure, but the first one that sought approval, Cape Wind, is at nine years and counting. The opposition, cynical and moneyed, was savagely – and fairly – depicted in a wonderful book a few years back. (See my review of the excellent Cape Wind.)
The Cape Wind project had been gathering momentum in the recent past, though, with the support of Governor Deval Patrick in Massachusetts, and then the advent of the Obama Administration. The latest roadblock, however, is opposition from two local American Indian tribes. They contend that the farm, as a recent “NY Times” editorial puts it, “…would interfere with their spiritual greeting of the sunrise and disturb ancestral burial grounds, now underwater.” The editorial notes that Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has said that he will decide whether or not this creates an impediment to the project. The Times concludes that Salazar “…can and should decide on his own to allow Cape Wind to proceed.” The Cape Wind folks include other editorial comment at their website.
I’m thrilled that the British have moved so far, so fast, but I’m sad that we in the US are still lagging so badly on what could be an enormous opportunity for economic development, energy security, and a big leg up on mitigating the climate crisis.
