Six Gigawatts of Wind for Scotland!

A coalition of energy companies and the Crown Estate (who owns the land) are hammering out a deal to build six gigawatts of wind power off the coast of Scotland. You heard that right, gigawatts. That's the equivalent, roughly, of seven humongous nuclear power plants and will account for tens of billions of dollars in investment.

The Crown Estate (that's right...the Queen) owns the rights to develop the land off the coast of the U.K.. They're working with nine different energy companies on the deal, and have granted each of them access to build wind farms on specific plots of the continental shelf.

Unfortunately, this isn't the same as the projects being a done deal. They each have to be regulated by the Scottish government (wouldn't it be simpler if the UK were still a monarchy?) That isn't expected to be completed until sometime in 2010, and then the projects will have to find funding. Depending on how well the economy recovers (or doesn't) by 2011, that could be a tall order.

Via Earth2Tech

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Joe
written by joe, February 17, 2009

"If the UK were still a monarchy" It is! I think you mean't 'what if the monarch still had absolute power' Well then you would have to deal with the monarch of Scotland as well. Congratulations to Her Majesty on her support of such projects. As an Aussie she is my Queen too!

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written by John, February 17, 2009

glad to see at least somebody is willing to start making the hard decisions, renewable solar and wind wont make any difference unless they are done on a large scale and accompanied by overall reduction in energy consumption. this is a great step forward!
cheers!

2, not 7 nukes
written by SeattleDave, February 18, 2009

Given the capacity factor of wind and nuke plants and the somewhat larger size of planned nuke plants, this is really more like 2 nuke plants, not seven.

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written by Nick, February 18, 2009

Joe,

Well, actually, the Queen is the monarch of Scotland, too :)

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written by cleanfutureenergy, February 18, 2009

The UK will need some more gas power plants to balance that, or better we need to speed up development of wave power.

Solar Roofs
written by Enrique, February 18, 2009

Every new home could be run with photovaltic, thus cutting all the coal plants in the U.S.
20 KW will do the work.
Nanosolar is cutting in half the price of producing photovaltic panels.

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written by Rayatcov, Coventry, England, February 20, 2009

I hope all you people have had the goodness to ask nature to please keep the wind blowing for ever, as without that happening I doubt if you would get the power of even 2 nuke plants.

‘Global warming’ has become the grand political narrative of the age, replacing Marxism as a dominant force for controlling liberty and human choices'. --
Prof. P. Stott. Manager of Understanding and Attributing Climate Change at the Hadley Centre for Climate Change at the UK Met Office.

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