Europe's Wind Could Satisfy Electricity Demand 7 Times Over
In Europe, where 2,400 MW of offshore wind is online, wind developers are planning 140 GW of offshore wind capacity, mostly in the North Sea. There is enough harnessable wind in offshore Europe to satisfy the continent's needs seven times over.
In September 2010, the Scottish government announced it would replace its goal of 50% renewable electricity by 2020 with a new goal of 80%. By 2025, Scotland expects renewables to meet all its electricity needs. Much of the new capacity will be provided by offshore wind.
Denmark is looking to push the wind share of its electricity to 50% by 2025, with most of the additional power coming from offshore. Danish planners are turning conventional energy policy upside down: they plan to use wind as the mainstay of their electrical generating system and to use fossil-fuels to fill in when the wind dies down.
Spain, which has 19,000 MW of wind capacity for its 45 million people, got 14% of its electricity from wind in 2009. On November 8th of that year, strong winds across Spain enabled wind turbines to supply 53% of the country's electricity over a five-hour stretch.
In 2007, when Turkey issued a request for proposals to build wind farms, it received bids to build a staggering 78,000 MW, far beyond its 41,000 MW of total electrical generating capacity. Having selected 7,000 MW of the most promising proposals, the government is issuing construction permits.
In wind-rich Canada, Ontario, Quebec, and Alberta are the leaders in installed capacity. Ontario, Canada's most populous province, has received applications for offshore wind development rights on its side of the Great Lakes that could result in some 21,000 MW of capacity. The provincial goal is to back out of all coal-fired power by 2014.
On the U.S. side of Lake Ontario, NY State is also requesting proposals. Several of the seven other states that border the Great Lakes are planning to harness lake winds.
The Broader Plan
Earth Policy Institute's Plan B to save civilization has four components: stabilizing climate, restoring earth's natural support systems, stabilizing population, and eradicating poverty. At the heart of the plan is a crash program to develop 4,000 GW (4 million MW) of wind by 2020, enough to cover over half of world electricity consumption in the Plan B economy. This will require a near doubling of capacity every two years, up from a doubling every three years over the last decade.
This climate-stabilizing initiative would mean installating 2 million 2 MG wind turbines. Manufacturing 2 million wind turbines over the next 10 years sounds intimidating - until it is compared with the 70 million automobiles the world produces each year.
At $3 million per installed turbine, the 2 million turbines would mean spending $600 billion per year worldwide between now and 2020. This compares with world oil and gas capital expenditures that are projected to double from $800 billion in 2010 to $1.6 trillion in 2015.
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Adapted from Chapter 9, "Harnessing Wind, Solar, and Geothermal Energy" in Lester R. Brown,
World on the Edge: How to Prevent Environmental and Economic Collapse (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2011).
www.earth-policy.org/
