Britain Launches National Wind Power Revolution

UK Secretary of State for Business John Hutton is set to announce the nation's biggest renewable energy initiative ever. Under the plan, offshore wind farms will generate 50 percent of Britain's electricity and power every single home by 2020. And just a few weeks ago, Hutton was trying to kill it. Odd. From The Independent:

In a confidential memorandum, Gordon Brown was advised that the target was expensive and faced "severe practical difficulties". It went on to warn how it would reduce "the incentives to invest in other technologies like nuclear power".

So what's behind Hutton's about face?

The Prime Minister -- Gordon Brown himself. He overruled Hutton and his department's nay-sayers and forced the new energy plan in a stroke of executive climate leadership and bold vision.

Good for Brown. Especially since the scheme is hugely ambitious -- on the order of a moonshot.

Currently, the UK generates just two percent of its power from renewables, and wind accounts for less than one gigawatt. The plan would increase wind's contribution to 33 gigawatts in 13 years. If it comes to fruition, in just eight years, the UK's offshore wind industry will be double the size of that of any other nation.

To do so, it will take building 7,000 new turbines in the North Sea, Irish Sea, and the coast of Scotland. That's a wind installation about every half-mile around the coast.

It's a revolution. A much-needed one.

The UK is chasing the tough EU goal of 20 percent renewable energy by 2020. The offshore wind plan would get them there, and secure Britain as the world's wind luminary in the process.

And it could add to the government's coffers too. While offshore wind is still relatively costly, its returns on investment hold tremendous promise. The European Tribune explains in a December 9 article:

The great advantage of wind in that respect, of course, is that once it is built, the cost is fixed: you only have to repay the initial investment, a fixed amount, and not to buy fuel, whether coal, natural gas or oil, whose prices can also increase - and indeed have. And an other overlooked advantage is that wind's marginal cost (the cost of production of an additional kWh) is close to zero, so whenever wind blows, this takes out more expensive producers and reduces prices for everybody. In fact, a Danish study has demonstrated that the resulting savings for that country are now larger than the subsidies provided to wind.

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