By Fiona Woo, World Future Council
Winds of 60 km per hour hit us as soon as we alighted from the bus at Hvide Sande – “White Sand” – on the west coast of Denmark, home to a community-owned wind energy project comprising three 3MW turbines. All that could be heard was the powerful wind: the generators cannot be heard over the considerable sound of the wind.
I was joined by 40 policy makers and experts from 15 European countries as part of a workshop on 100% Renewable Energy in European Regions, organised by the World Future Council and the Climate Service Center at the Nordic Folkecenter, Denmark. The region serves as a living example of 100% renewable energy already in action. Wind plays a big role in this area of Europe: 87% of the country’s electricity consumption that day was covered by wind power, and, in Denmark as a whole, €16 million from local residents is being invested in renewable energies.
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Angelika Pullen
By Angelika Pullen, WindMade
This, I have to admit, is a real coup for WindMade: Bloomberg US is the first news organisation in the word to receive the WindMade certification label.
This is also good news for the environment: as much as 58% of the power consumption of Bloomberg’s US operations are covered by wind power, and a further 25% by biomass energy. These shares are much higher than the 25% entry level WindMade requires!
Bloomberg believes that this move will give them a competitive edge, and they might well be right – consumers love renewable energy. Once again, this year’s edition of the Global Consumer Wind Study[i] comes to this conclusion, showing that 79% of respondents would prefer to have their electricity generated by renewables, compared to 5% for fossil fuels and 7% for nuclear. And, what’s more, 74% of consumers answered that they would have a more positive perception of brands that use wind power as their main energy source.
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US Presidential candidate Mitt Romney
While there is no doubt that the US is the number one economy in the world and its international influence — from popular culture to military power — is second to none, trying to understand the nation’s domestic political scene is far from an easy task.
Take for example recent stories regarding climate change denial, a wind power-related lawsuit, and a new poll showing the majority of Americans favour wind energy.
Last week, at the first of three scheduled Presidential TV debates, a number of newspapers and websites have reported that neither Democrat candidate Barack Obama nor Republican Mitt Romney are even speaking about climate change.
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That’s not a title you have been expecting is it? But this week, as models graced the catwalk at the Paris fashion week, wind turbines did exactly that.
Karl Lagerfeld sent out model’s clad in Chanel’s spring-summer collection on a solar-panelled catwalk dotted with a dozen towering, white, swishing wind turbines. Not only that but throughout the collection there were hints of renewable energy: a disc-shaped hat with a giant transparent rim that recalls a spinning turbine, a mini-dress embroidered in a blue solar panel-like pattern and a t-shirt festooned with sketches of turbines.
Asked about the inspiration for his latest wear, Lagerfeld talked about “volume” and “lightness” and reportedly called turbines “beautiful”. “If I had to build a house, I would put them in the garden,” he said according to France 24. Click here to see the renewable energy catwalk.
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Hundreds of defects have been detected in nuclear power stations across Europe, according to a European Commission report leaked to German and French media. Fixing these faults could run up a bill of €10-25 billion, the report says.
Die Welt, a German daily newspaper, says that the European Commission investigation into the continent’s nuclear fleet – originally prompted by the Fukushima nuclear disaster – paints a devastating picture of the safety measures in the EU’s nuclear power plants.
French daily Le Figaro claims that none of France’s 58 nuclear power plants met standards outlined by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Some 19 French reactors have no seismic measuring instruments, and some have inadequate safety and rescue equipment, the paper said.
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