Wind Energy Shutting Down in Europe : A Waste of Revenue

I wonder when the United States will wake up to the fact, as apparently many in Europe are, that green energy is a future resource, not a present replacement for fossil fuels. To allow an insignificant minority demand that the majority of citizens have their collective lives totally changed just to satisfy their ideology that defines you as the planets problems and must change their ways, but allows the instigators to live lives as they see fit. After all, who is the smartest in the room?

How is this fair? Where is the logic from the progressive socialists that they always thump their chests claiming how they are the ones saving the planet, but in reality they couldn't care less about the planet. Environmentalism is just a tool to force the population into activities that don't understand or want. No matter. just shut up and vote like you are told.

Offshore Wind Industry Having Problems
Source: Alex Morales, "Offshore Wind Industry Slowed by Birds, Bombs, Sharks," Bloomberg, February 20, 2014.

February 28, 2014

Birds, sharks and World War II-era bombs are getting the blame for holding up offshore wind farms and raising doubts about the costs of the technology, says Bloomberg.

This month, three utilities tossed aside plans to expand the world's biggest offshore wind farm in the Thames estuary in England. Over the last three months, each of the six largest U.K. utility companies have pulled back from marine energy projects, citing cost and technical challenges as well as environmental issues.

• "There's a bit of realism that unless we can deliver these projects for a lower price, then it's unrealistic to expect to continue to get political and government support," said Keith Anderson, chief executive officer of Iberdrola SA's ScottishPower Renewables unit.
• The British government has set an industry goal of reducing costs to £100 ($167) per megawatt hour by 2020. Currently, costs are estimated at £147, and meeting that target is unlikely.
• Companies are trying to find all sorts of ways to bring down costs, including building more powerful turbines.

Companies have closed down projects for a number of reasons.

• In December, ScottishPower pointed to basking sharks as their reasons for ending a wind project.
• German and British companies have had problems with finding old munitions. Two years ago, one company found a number of World War II mines as it began laying cables for a project. The discovery slowed down the cable-laying process, which was only just completed.
• Last week, EON, a German utility, along with Dong Energy A/S and Masdar Abu Dhabi Future Energy Co., scrapped expansion plans as the company could not guarantee that it could make required progress, even if it could meet the required three-year-long study on the impact that the wind machines would have on a fish-eating bird.