Dutch fall out of love with windmills
Towering over the waves of the North Sea like an army of giants, blades whipping through the wind, the turbines were the country’s best hope to curb carbon emissions and meet growing demand for electricity.
The 36 turbines — each one the height of a 30-storey building — produce enough electricity to meet the needs of more than 100,000 households each year.
Last week Barack Obama visited a wind turbine plant in Pennsylvania touting his goals for clean and secure energy. There are times I simply cannot fathom what passes for thought in Obama’s mind and this was one of them. While there, he said
“I think that what you do here is a glimpse of the future, and it’s a future where America is less dependent on foreign oil, more reliant on clean energy produced by workers like you.”
Wind power supplies about 2% of the energy in the US and in 2009 that was expected to rise to 20% by 2030. The construction of wind farms is buoyed by the 30% tax credit for investment in them but the price for electricity generated by wind energy has fallen recently in to rates below those for electricity generated by natural gas in some areas.
