by Sunny Lam on September 23, 2009
Photo via The Wind Power database
Denmark is the leader in wind energy. Not only do they have a country full of powerful breezes they also have the vision, foresight and willpower to pull it off. An amazing 19% of Denmark’s electricity power comes from wind.
Denmark’s Wind of Change – TIME: “But technology, like the wind itself, is just one more part of the reason for Denmark’s dominance. In the end, it happened because Denmark had the political and public will to decide that it wanted to be a leader — and to follow through… As a result, wind turbines now dot Denmark, the country gets more than 19% of its electricity from the breeze (Spain and Portugal, the next highest countries, get about 10%) and Danish companies control a whopping one-third of the global wind market, earning billions in exports and creating a national champion from scratch. “They were out early in driving renewables, and that gave them the chance to be a technology leader and a job-creation leader,” says Jake Schmidt, international climate policy director for the New York City-based Natural Resources Defense Council. “They have always been one or two steps ahead of others.”"
(Via Time Magazine.)
Denmark’s people are a bright example of where words and ideas are backed up by committed action and execution. After all, what is an idea without action?
VN:F [1.8.1_1037]
Rating: 0.0/10 (0 votes cast)
VN:F [1.8.1_1037]
Technorati Tags: alternative, Energy, renewable, turbines, wind power
by Sunny Lam on April 19, 2009
The Solarshuttle boat on the Serpentine in London has proved popular but experts fear for the future of new solar projects. Photograph: D Burke/Alamy/Alamy
Solar power companies in plea to maintain green jobs |
Environment |
The Observer: “Staff are being laid off by British solar power companies weeks after the government promised to create thousands of jobs in the ‘green’ economy. Companies from across the industry will this week accuse ministers and civil servants of damaging their business with funding cuts, ‘delay and disinterest’.”
(Via Guardian.)
If the government were a person on Twitter they’d definitely have been marked “fail whale” by @apesphere or @TomRaftery (and many others). We all know governments these days are so mired in bureaucratic red tape they might as well as be drowning in it. The economic crisis didn’t help either.
Of course if any government were serious about building real partnerships and doing their best to keep as many promises as possible, cutting green power funding is not strategically sound. Of course fighting the status quo and the inertia behind it is tough. Odds are that Canada isn’t going to fare much better considering the current government in power. Then again if we all made strategically sound decisions, the authors of Predictably Irrational would have had nothing to write about (an amusing read by the way).
So if one were to try to forecast the future of green energy it remains very uncertain (you try looking through the haze). Germany is certainly ahead of the game except even their go-to-man Dr. Hermann Scheer admits that Canada has a long way to go (see the CBC documentary The Gospel of Green for more details). There are a lot of bureaucratic, systemic and political barriers at work (like ramming your head into a brick wall – has the OPA come out with a better Standard Offer yet? I heard vague rumours they might be killing it off).
“Change is going to require some serious torch lighting if the latest protest riots at the G20 London summit were any indication.”
Remember: Solving the power crisis is only 1 pie part of saving the human race from itself-the other ones are water, food and of course population.
VN:F [1.8.1_1037]
Rating: 0.0/10 (0 votes cast)
VN:F [1.8.1_1037]
Technorati Tags: barriers, British, bureaucracy, Canada, challenges, Energy, EU, Germany, government, green, Hermann Scheer, management, politics, power, renewable, sustainable, UK, uncertainty
