TORONTO - American consumers are driving bigger gas-guzzling cars and buying more air conditioners and refrigerators as the overall energy efficiency of such products improves, a report released on Tuesday found.
In what the study calls "the efficiency paradox," consumers have taken money saved from greater energy efficiency and spent it on more and bigger appliances and vehicles, consuming even more energy in the process.

"While seemingly perverse, improvements in energy efficiency result in more of the good being consumed -- not less," said Jeff Rubin, chief economist and chief strategist at CIBC World Markets, which conducted the study.

The study concludes that stricter energy efficiency regulations aren't the answer to concerns over climate change and the depletion of oil supplies.
"The problem is, energy efficiency is not the final objective," Rubin said. "Reducing energy consumption must be the final objective to both the challenges of conventional oil depletion and to greenhouse gas emissions."

The study found that energy use increased by 40 percent from 1975 to 2005 while energy efficiency improved in the same period. The sectors with the greatest increases in energy use -- transportation and residential -- are also the areas where the US government is promoting energy efficiency the most.

The average mileage per gallon of gasoline has increased since 1980, but Americans have responded by driving larger vehicles and further. The average American drove 9,500 miles annually in 1970. These days he or she drives more than 12,000 miles.
The energy used to heat and cool homes is also rising as homes become larger. The study notes the area of the average home has increased from 1,000 square feet in the 1950s to the current 2,500 square feet. More households are also buying air conditioners.
Rubin believes energy efficiency is needed more than ever, but that government's current initiatives won't help.

"In order for efficiency to actually curb energy usage, as opposed to energy intensity, consumers must be kept from reaping the benefits of those initiatives in ever-greater energy consumption," he said.
(Reporting by Sharon Ho; editing by Frank McGurty)
http://www.planetark.com/avantgo/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=45617

Solar panels like these near Munich could capture heat in areas of the Mediterranean under the plan proposed by Prince Hassan bin Talal. Photograph: Alamy

Europe is considering plans to spend more than £5bn on a string of giant solar power stations along the Mediterranean desert shores of northern Africa and the Middle East.

More than a hundred of the generators, each fitted with thousands of huge mirrors, would generate electricity to be transmitted by undersea cable to Europe and then distributed across the continent to European Union member nations, including Britain.
Billions of watts of power could be generated this way, enough to provide Europe with a sixth of its electricity needs and to allow it to make significant cuts in its carbon emissions. At the same time, the stations would be used as desalination plants to provide desert countries with desperately needed supplies of fresh water.

Last week Prince Hassan bin Talal of Jordan presented details of the scheme - named Desertec - to the European Parliament. 'Countries with deserts, countries with high energy demand, and countries with technology competence must co-operate,' he told MEPs.
The project has been developed by the Trans-Mediterranean Renewable Energy Corporation and is supported by engineers and politicians in Europe as well as Morocco, Algeria, Libya, Jordan and other nations in the Middle East and Africa.

Europe would provide initial funds for developing the solar technology that will be needed to run plants as well as money for constructing prototype stations. After that, banks and financial institutions, as well as national governments, would take over the construction programme, which could cost more than £200bn over the next 30 years.
'We don't make enough use of deserts,' said physicist Gerhard Knies, co-founder of the scheme. 'The sun beats down on them mercilessly during the day and heats the ground to tremendous temperatures. Then at night that heat is radiated back into the atmosphere. In other words, it is completely wasted. We need to stop that waste and exploit the vast amounts of energy that the sun beams down to us.'

Scientists estimate that sunlight could provide 10,000 times the amount of energy needed to fulfil humanity's current energy needs. Transforming that solar radiation into a form to be exploited by humanity is difficult, however.

One solution proposed by the scheme's engineers is to use large areas of land on which to construct their solar plants. In Europe, land is costly. But in nations such as Morocco, Algeria, and Libya it is cheap, mainly because they are scorched by the sun. The project aims to exploit that cheap land by use of a technique known as 'concentrating solar power'.

A CSP station consists of banks of several hundred giant mirrors that cover large areas of land, around a square kilometre. Each mirror's position can be carefully controlled to focus the sun's rays onto a central metal pillar that is filled with water. Prototype stations using this technique have already been tested in Spain and Algeria.
Once the sun's rays are focused on the pillar, temperatures inside start to soar to 800C. The water inside the pillar is vaporised into superhot steam which is channelled off and used to drive turbines which in turn generate electricity. 'It is proven technology,' added Knies. 'We have shown it works in our test plants.'

Only small stations have been tested, but soon plants capable of generating 100 megawatts of power could be built, enough to provide the needs of a town. The Desertec project envisages a ring of a thousand of these stations being built along the coast of northern Africa and round into the Mediterranean coast of the Middle East. In this way up to 100 billion watts of power could be generated: two thirds of it would be kept for local needs, the rest - around 30 billion watts - would be exported to Europe.

An idea of how much power this represents is revealed through Britain's electricity generating capacity, which totals 12 billion watts.

But there is an added twist to the system. The superheated steam, after it has driven the plant's turbines, would then be piped through tanks of sea water which would boil and evaporate. Steam from the sea water would piped away and condensed and stored as fresh water.
'Essentially you get electricity and fresh water,' said Knies. 'The latter is going to be crucial for developing countries round the southern Mediterranean and in north Africa. Their populations are rising rapidly, but they have limited supplies of fresh water. Our solar power plants will not only generate electricity that they can sell to Europe, they will supply drinkable water that will sustain their thirsty populations.'

There are drawbacks, however. At present electricity generated this way would cost around 15-20 eurocents (11 to 14p) a kilowatt-hour - almost twice the cost of power generated by coal. At such prices, few nations would be tempted to switch to solar. 'Unless it is extremely cheap, it won't stop people using easy-to-get fossil fuels,' John Gibbins, an energy engineer at Imperial College London, told Nature magazine last week.

However, Desertec's backers say improvements over the next decade should bring the cost of power from its plants to less than 10 eurocents a kilowatt-hour, making it competitive with traditionally generated power.
Other critics say the the plants would be built in several unstable states which could cut their supplies to Europe. Again, Knies dismisses the danger. 'It's not like oil. Solar power is gone once it hits your mirrors. It would simply be lost income.' The European Parliament has asked Desertec to propose short-term demonstration projects.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/dec/02/renewableenergy.solarpower

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There are many reasons for this dramatic increase. Certainly, industrialization, urban sprawl and population growth has played an important role in widespread deforestation. So, too, have political and economic conditions.

In many cases, cutting down forests promises short-term profit for farmers and landowners in developing countries who use the land for cattle grazing or to grow cash crops, such as soybeans.

Connected issues In recent decades, researchers have established direct links between deforestation and climate change.

Forests are vital for absorbing and storing the world's carbon dioxide (CO2). When forests are cut and burnt en masse, the damage is two-fold: the world's capacity to absorb CO2 is reduced, while large amounts of stored carbon are released into the atmosphere.

"About a fifth of current greenhouse gas emissions are from deforestation - this is often overlooked in the public debate," says Wolfgang Cramer of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) in Germany.

"Hence stopping deforestation is direct climate protection," adds Cramer. "Besides, there are some indications that Amazon rainforests might be threatened by substantial losses of rainfall due to climate change. Therefore, stabilizing the climate might also help stabilize these forests."

The problems of climate change and deforestation also reinforce each other through human economic and agricultural practices. Some experts project that global warming will drive more people into poverty, and encourage the unsustainable environmental and agricultural practices brought about by economic need.

Projects under way "We have been seeing similar statistics about deforestation for twenty or thirty years now," says Steve Howard, CEO of The Climate Group, an international NGO that advises governments and businesses about climate-friendly policies. "Now is the time to make a push to do something about it."

Several like-minded NGOs and organizations agree. The Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) and Conservation International, for example, are two NGOs deeply involved in protecting thousands of hectares of rainforest and old-growth forest, as well as promoting consumer awareness, forest restoration projects, and sustainable forest

At the international policymaking level, there are some efforts to incorporate forestry issues in wider initiatives to slow climate change. International policies, such as the Kyoto Protocol and the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme, allow nations and companies meet commitments to cutting greenhouse gas emissions by supporting projects that aim to cut emissions and slow global warming.

The international community is currently discussing practical ways of incorporating forestry and land-use activities - such as afforestation (the planting of trees on non-forest land), reforestation (planting of trees after the destruction of a forest), and avoided deforestation - into its policies, with the wider aim of slowing global warming.

Protection through better management
The Climate Group's Steve Howard acknowledges some movement on forestry in international politics. But the reality, he adds, is that the global scale of protected and better-managed forests needs a "massive ramp-up" to make a positive impact on the climate. Wolfgang Cramer of the PIK agrees, emphasizing the importance better forest management in breaking the dangerous cycle of deforestation and climate change. 

"It is not sustainable, nor necessary, to build fences around the world's forests and thereby limit access to forest products on local and global markets," says Cramer. "But a lot more can be done in order to manage forests so that they can continue to provide the services people derive from them, such as timber, water, recreation, biodiversity and biofuels.

Much of current deforestation is the direct opposite of sustainable forest management." Cramer, Howard and others argue that locally adapted solutions will play a key role in promoting sustainable practices and preventing illegal timber harvesting, since many factors - such as land tenure practices, poverty and governance - converge to drive deforestation, and because these factors vary from place to place.

"What is needed is a combination of local initiative and real commitment from the developed world to create a flow of resources to promote local solutions," says Howard. "If we got it right, we could do something we could be proud of."
http://knowledge.allianz.com/en/globalissues/climate_change/natural_desasters/
deforestation_climate_cramer.html?gclid=COmJscTAnJACFQKhIgodfDk-ow

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Maize / Corn

Major cultivation region: United States
Worldwide corn production in 2006/07: 702 million tons
Corn is one of the most important crops worldwide and is increasingly processed into bio-ethanol. The world’s largest producer of corn is the United States, accounting for about 40 percent of the world’s total production, up to one third of which is processed into ethanol.

The U.S. government has promoted ethanol fuel production with subsidies, claiming it reduces dependence on imported petroleum.

Producing ethanol from corn, however, is not very efficient. Growing corn requires more fertilizer and pesticides than most other crops.
To process it into usable fuel, corn kernels have to undergo energy-intensive distillation and chemical extraction processes. Refined ethanol still has to be shipped to its final destination, which adds further costs.

All in all, corn-based ethanol can currently only be produced with high subsidies. The surge in biofuels has dramatically increased demand for corn. While corn farmers profit, importing nations are severely affected. Mexicans, for example, have had to cope with rising prices for corn, due in part to the ethanol boom in the United States.

Rapeseed / Canola

Major cultivation region: European Union, China, Canada, India
Worldwide rapeseed production in 2006: 46 million tons
With annual production of around 12 million tons, China is the world’s largest producer of rapeseed oil. The countries of the European Union collectively produce another 16 million tons.

Traditionally used for oils, soaps, and plastic manufacturing, rapeseed oil has become the basis for biodiesel in Europe.

In 2006, some 4 million tons of rapeseed oil went into biodiesel, making Europe the global leader in oilseed biodiesel.

This dominance is due to the EU’s heavy subsidizing of rapeseed cultivation to meet its carbon dioxide reduction targets. Production will have to double over the next few years in order for the EU to realize its plan pf supplying 10 percent of all vehicle fuel from biofuels by 2020.

Without technological breakthroughs, this will only be possible through further subsidies. Currently, production of biodiesel from oilseeds is two to three. times more expensive than petroleum-based diesel.

Growing rapeseed requires fertilizers, extracting the oil from the plants further aggravates the plants energy balance. Researchers say biodiesel from rapeseed oil is not as efficient as sugar cane-based biofuels, because its production uses more energy and releases more carbon dioxide.

Sugar cane

Major cultivation region: Brazil
Worldwide production in 2006: 1.3 million tons
Brazil is the world’s largest producer of sugar cane, and accounts for about 45 percent of global ethanol production.

The country has mass-produced biofuel since the 1970s, and has pioneered the use of ethanol for transportation fuel.
Sugar cane can be distilled down to produce bioethanol. It needs little energy input, because its bagasse (a byproduct of sugar cane) is used to heat the distillation process. The plant also grows very fast and converts up to two percent of incident solar energy into biomass, which makes it one of the most efficient energy-producing plants.

While sugar cane is often produced in large plantations, ethanol plants are limited by the fact that sugar cane has to be processed within 48 hours.

Environmentalists say that growing sugar crops fuels deforestation and boosts sugar prices.

Ethanol from sugar cane does not need subsidies, critics say however that the ecological degradation caused by expanding sugar cane production outweighs any environmental gains from using biofuels.

Palm oil

Major cultivation regions: Tropical regions, Indonesia, Malaysia
Worldwide production in 2006: 33.3 million tons
Malaysia and Indonesia are the key players in the palm oil market, accounting for 85 percent of global production.

Growth is driven mainly by demand from industrialized countries for biodiesel. According to some estimates, production costs of palm oil biodiesel are around 30 percent lower than rapeseed biodiesel.
This is largely due to the productivity of oil palms, which on average produce 2.5 times more oil per hectare than rapeseed.

Environmentalists, however, strongly condemn producing biofuels from palm oil. They say that large tracts of rainforests in Indonesia and Malaysia are being cleared to make way for new plantations. This destroys the habitat of endangered species like the Orangutan. Diverting land away from food production may also have negative consequences, because palm oil is an important part of the diet of millions of people who are now faced with rising prices.

Jatropha

Major cultivation regions: India, Myanmar, Mali, Philippines
Worldwide production in 2006: not known
Formerly used to make soap and candles, experts have identified this hardy plant from Central America as an efficient source of biofuel.

Jatropha seeds contain up to 40 percent oil that can be burnt in a conventional diesel engine after extraction.

The plant grows in difficult terrains, needs relatively little water, generates topsoil, and helps to stall erosion.

A jatropha bush lives for up to 50 years, producing oil in its second year of growth.

On the other hand, the plant is poisonous to men and cattle, and must be harvested by hand making it very labor intensive.
Until harvesting jatropha can be mechanized, large-scale production is only viable in countries with high unemployment and cheap labor.

In India, government experts have identified more than 11 million hectares that would be suitable for growing jatropha. Critics, however, fear that jatropha could replace urgently needed food crops.

The Rockefeller Center Christmas is secured on Nov. 9. The 84-foot-tall, 60-year-old Norway spruce will be lit Nov. 28 using energy-saving LED lights.

NEW YORK - The Rockefeller Center Christmas tree is going "greener" — with energy-saving lights replacing old-fashioned bulbs on the towering evergreen this year.

Weather permitting, the tree will also get some of its electricity from 363 solar panels just installed atop Rockefeller Center.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg said he hoped the change to the midtown Manhattan display will inspire the tens of millions of New Yorkers and tourists who see the tree every year. "Now they will see an example of green leadership which may inspire them to make greener choices in their own lives," Bloomberg said Tuesday.

The 84-foot-tall Norway spruce will be covered with 30,000 multicolored light-emitting diodes, or LEDs, strung on five miles of wire.

Using the energy-efficient LEDs to replace incandescent bulbs will reduce the display's electricity consumption from 3,510 to 1,297 kilowatt hours per day.

The daily savings is equal to the amount of electricity consumed by a typical 2,000-square-foot house in a month.

The owners of Rockefeller Center, Tishman Speyer, also showed off a new solar energy array that will generate electricity on the roof of one of the complex's buildings, the largest privately owned solar roof in Manhattan.

The solar panels will help light the tree and are also tied into the city grid. In fact, their biggest contribution will be in summer when the grid is often near capacity due to air conditioning use.

After the official tree lighting ceremony on Nov. 28, the Christmas tree will be illuminated from 5:30 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. most days through the first week of January.

The Rockefeller Center tradition was started in 1931, when construction workers building the first part of the office building complex erected a 20-foot Balsam fir amid the site's mud and rubble. After the tree is taken down in January, it will be cut into lumber to be used in houses built by Habitat for Humanity

Mark Lennihan / AP
Solar panels on the roof of one of Rockefeller Center's buildings are unveiled on Tuesday in New York..

PORTLAND, Ore. - For years, Pat de Garmo's Christmas tree was her aging yucca plant. She doesn't like the idea of killing trees, and the size of her yard prevents her from getting a potted one. So year after year she strung lights and ornaments on the indoor yucca plant, hanging toy drums and colored orbs from its stiff branches.

For environmentally conscious consumers like de Garmo — and their numbers abound in this liberal Northwest city — a venture that rents out living Christmas trees is filling a void.

The Original Living Christmas Tree Company founded by John Fogel, 39, has rented out 419 Christmas trees this holiday season, starting at $55 for a 7-foot Douglas fir.

The trees are taken out of the ground, roots and all, put into pots, and delivered to families in the Portland area.

Soon after New Year's, Fogel and his crew pick up the trees and deliver them to parks, school districts and other groups who pay around $10 to have the trees planted on their property.

'No guilt' "It seems like to cut a tree and put it in your house and have it dry out and then just toss it away is such a shame. This way, I know it will be replanted — no guilt," said the 61-year-old de Garmo, a retired nurse, who hasn't decorated her indoor plants since she discovered the rent-a-tree business three years ago.

Officials at the National Christmas Tree Association say they know of no other rent-a-tree business venture in the United States. While Fogel says he could grow beyond his current orders, he maintains a strict policy of accepting no more orders than he can find buyers willing to plant the trees come January. "Just the idea of cutting all of these trees — these living things for decorations — kind of appalls me," said 44-year-old Glen Jacobs, a high school theater teacher in Portland, who along with his family has turned renting a tree into a yearly tradition.

While tree-rental businesses appear to be a rarity, buying live Christmas trees that have been placed in pots is less so. Steve Mannhard is a board member of the National Christmas Tree Association. About a decade ago customers began showing up with shovels at his sprawling Christmas tree farm on Alabama's Gulf Coast. "People started trying to dig the trees out of the ground. I asked them: 'Why are you doing that?' They said, 'Because I want it to live,'" said Mannhard, 57, who began offering potted trees in addition to cut ones at Fish River Trees, near Summerdale, Ala., in 1992. Last year, out of a total of nearly 5,000 trees he sold, about 1,000 were potted, said Mannhard — a fact he says underscores the popularity of the living tree concept. "Trees and human beings have a close relationship — and some people are more sensitive to that," he said.

Fogel started the Original Living Christmas Tree Co. in 1992. He says the seed was planted by his father decades ago in upstate New York, when he read to him a fable about a lonely tree in the forest that longed to be decorated by a loving family.

On a recent December afternoon, Fogel watched his two helpers lean a Douglas fir against a green house in a leafy Portland neighborhood. The owners were not home, so he left an envelope tucked among the tree's branches, outlining a few simple instructions on how to care for the tree — and the date when he planned to return.

"My market happens to be people that feel guilty about cutting trees," Fogel said. "But this also happens to be a convenient alternative."

Artifical trees gaining popularity And that is what makes his venture unique, said Bruce Judson, an expert on small businesses at the Yale School of Management, who points out that the $791 million Christmas tree industry has been reeling from the growing popularity of synthetic trees.

In 1990, 35.4 million households put up real trees and 36.3 million displayed artificial ones, according to a consumer survey by the National Christmas Tree Association. A decade later, the split was 32 million live and 50.6 million artificial.

Those numbers show that Americans are increasingly choosing convenience over tradition, said Judson — and a venture like Fogel's neatly straddles both worlds. "This gives you the convenience of a plastic tree with the aesthetics and environmental values of a live tree," he said.

While Fogel's trees have become a yearly tradition in hundreds of Portland homes, the endeavor has not yet made him rich. Someday, he hopes his business will support him year-round. But come January, he'll be out looking for a part-time job.

"I've probably made 17 cents an hour over the last 15 years," Fogel said, "but at least I'm working for myself."

— Pat de Garmo
Rent-a-tree consumer

Wind energy technology

Text and figures based on a factsheet produced by the European Wind Energy Association
Improvements in technology continue to make turbines cheaper and more efficient.

Wind turbines produce electricity by using the natural power of the wind to drive a generator. The wind is a clean and sustainable fuel source, it does not create pollution and it will never run out. Wind energy technology is developing fast, turbines are becoming cheaper and more powerful, bringing the cost of renewably-generated electricity down. Europe is at the hub of this high-tech industry.
The need for clean energy
Conventional methods of generating electricity burn fuel to provide the energy to drive a generator, usually by using the heat to provide steam to drive a turbine. These technologies may use fossil fuels, - coal, oil or gas - or nuclear fuel. Using fossil fuels creates pollution, such as oxides of sulphur and nitrogen which contribute to acid rain, and carbon dioxide which contributes to global climate change.

Although conventional sources of power dominate the energy needs of European countries, wind energy is growing rapidly. Renewable energy sources currently provide nearly 5.4% of the European Union's primary energy needs and have the potential to provide much more.

How wind turbines work
Almost all wind turbines producing electricity for the national grid consist of rotor blades which rotate around a horizontal hub. The hub is connected to a gearbox and generator, which are located inside the nacelle. The nacelle houses the electrical components and is mounted at the top of the tower. This type of turbine is referred to as a 'horizontal axis' machine.

Rotor diameters range up to 80 metres, smaller machines (around 30 meters) are typical in developing countries

Wind turbines can have three, two or just one rotor blades. Most have three.
Blades are made of fibreglass-reinforced polyester or wood-epoxy.

The blades rotate at 10-30 revolutions per minute at constant speed, although an increasing number of machines operate at a variable speed.

Power is controlled automatically as wind speed varies and machines are stopped at very high wind speeds to protect them from damage.

Most have gearboxes although there are increasing numbers with direct drives.

The yaw mechanism turns the turbine so that it faces the wind. Sensors are used to monitor wind direction and the tower head is turned to line up with the wind.

Towers are mostly cylindrical and made of steel, generally painted light grey. Lattice towers are used in some locations. Towers range from 25 to 75 meters in height.

Commercial turbines range in capacity from a few hundred kilowatts to over 2 megawatts. The crucial parameter is the diameter of the rotor blades - the longer the blades, the larger the area 'swept' by the rotor and the greater the energy output. At present the average size of new machines being installed is now super megawatt, 1.3-1.85MW, and there are larger machines on the market. The trend is towards moving to these larger machines as they can produce electricity at a lower price.

There are many different turbine designs, with plenty of scope for innovation and technological development. The dominant wind turbine design is the up-wind, three bladed, stall controlled, constant speed machine. The next most common design is similar, but is pitch controlled. Gearless and variable speed machines follow, again with three blades. A smaller number of turbines have 2 blades, or use other concepts, such as a vertical axis.

Most turbines are upwind of the tower - they face into the wind with the nacelle and tower behind. However, there are also downwind designs, where the wind passes the tower before reaching the blades.

Stall and pitch control
There are two main methods of controlling the power output from the rotor blades. The angle of the rotor blades can be actively adjusted by the machine control system. This is known as pitch control. This system has built-in braking, as the blades become stationary when they are fully 'feathered'.

The other method is known as stall control. This is sometimes known as passive control, since it is the inherent aerodynamic properties of the blade which determine power output; there are no moving parts to adjust. The twist and thickness of the rotor blade vary along its length in such a way that turbulence occurs behind the blade whenever the wind speed becomes too high. This turbulence means that less of the energy in the air is transfered, minimising power output at higher speeds.

Stall control machines also have brakes on the blade tips to bring the rotor to a standstill, if the turbine needs to be stopped for any reason.

Most wind turbines start operating at a speed of 4-5 metres per second and reach maximum power at about 15 m/s.

Factors affecting performance
Most important is the windiness of the site. The power available from the wind is a function of the cube of the wind speed. Therefore a doubling of the wind speed gives eight times the power output from the turbine. All other things being equal, a turbine at a site with an average wind speed of 5 meters per second (m/s) will produce nearly twice as much power as a turbine at a location where the wind averages 4 m/s.

Second is the availability of the equipment. This is the capability to operate when the wind is available - an indication of the turbine's reliability. This is typically over 98% for modern machines. Last is turbine arrangement. Turbines in wind farms must be carefully arranged to gain the maximum energy from the wind - this means that they should shelter each other as little as possible from the prevailing wind.

Wind energy production and electricity demand
The wind is an intermittent energy resource - it does not blow all the time - but this does not reduce its value as a source of power. The variable output from wind energy poses no special difficulty for power system operation.

Electricity demand is constantly fluctuating, and supply and demand have to be matched on a minute to minute basis, 24 hours of the day, every day of the year. The fluctuation caused by the introduction of wind to the system is not discernible above these normal fluctuations, and will not be until electricity generated from wind turbines reaches approximately 20% of the total system supply.

Wind energy effectively 'shaves off' some of the demand which has to be met by conventional generating plant. This is often described as having a 'negative load' effect on the electricity network.
Wind energy coincides well with period of peak electricity demand. Demand often peaks on cold windy winter days - just when wind turbines are at their most productive

Capacity credit
Another way of looking at the value of wind energy is to look at its capacity credit.

The capacity credit of a certain amount of wind energy can be thought of as the amount of conventional plant which could be 'replaced' by wind power, without making the system less reliable. In reality wind turbines are not installed in order that conventional power stations can close prematurely; building wind farms does help avoid the need to build new thermal or nuclear power plants.

Studies on how wind energy can best be integrated into electricity networks have been carried out in several European countries. Each study concludes that wind energy does have a significant capacity credit. In Denmark a capacity credit of 20 - 25% is used in comparative studies of the economy of different new energy technologies, and the country now gets around 20% of it's electricity from wind energy!

Other benefits of wind power
Apart from generating electricity without causing pollution, wind energy has numerous other advantages.

• It is widely distributed - more countries have sizeable wind power potential than have large resources of hydro-power or fossil fuel reserves.




• It is ideal for generating electricity at a local level - European wind schemes are typically clusters of around 10 - 40 turbines, providing enough electricity for 4,000 to 16,000 households. Some countries such as Denmark and Germany also have a high proportion of single turbines. The electricity can be fed directly into the distribution network, reducing electricity distribution and transmission losses.
  By contrast, electricity from larger power stations has to be transmitted on high voltage power lines and travel long distances before it gets to the point of use.




• Wind energy is good for island communities - the supply can be connected to diesel or solar systems to provide back-up when the wind is not blowing.




• Wind energy is low risk - the relatively small unit size of each individual wind turbine (or wind scheme) also reduces the risk of technical failure or industrial action compared with larger generating units.




• Wind energy encourages energy diversity - it is sensible for any nation to have a balanced portfolio of energy technologies, rather than to rely heavily on a small number of energy sources. The energy mix among different European countries varies widely, with some countries more dependent on energy imports than others. The UK and Germany have a relatively diverse mix of fuels, whereas others are more dependent on oil (Spain and Greece), coal (Denmark) and nuclear (France and Belgium). Expanding the use of wind energy will increase energy diversity and improve the security of electricity supply. Energy diversity lessens international political sensitivity concerning fossil fuel reserves, volatility of oil and gas prices and the risks associated with nuclear power.

The future of wind energy
Improvements in wind energy technology mean that the trends which have led to the dramatic fall in the cost of wind energy are set to continue.

Countries all over the world are setting targets for wind power. It is estimated that 22,000 megawatts of wind energy capacity, in the form of 40,000 wind turbines will be installed in the next 10 years.

This represents an annual market of around 2.4 billion Euros . Europe is the hub of this global business, with six companies supplying over half of the world's turbines global wind energy market. Europe stands to benefit greatly from this move towards sustainability.

Glossary and References
1 unit of electricity = 1 kilowatt hour
1,000 kilowatts = 1 megawatt
1 The Declaration of Madrid: An action plan for renewable energy sources in Europe. CEC, 1994