The schedule sounds unrealistic to me. Comments from those who know more?
Udhay
http://money.cnn.com/2007/12/10/news/international/britian_turbines.ap/index.htm
'Wind' electricity in every home: UK plan
British business secretary outlines goal of 60-fold increase in
offshore wind farm production by 2020.
December 10 2007: 3:24 PM EST
The need for self-suffiency leaves Britian no choice, says business
secretary John Hutton.
LONDON (AP) -- Britain unveiled plans Monday to generate enough
electricity through offshore wind farms to power every home in the
country by 2020, increasing production more than 60-fold and changing
the look of its coastlines.
Britain's wind-swept coasts and shallow waters are ideal for offshore
turbines, but wind generated power currently accounts for less than 2
percent of its energy generation.
Business secretary John Hutton said the government planned to reach
the target through a fourfold increase in the amount of space off
Britain's shores allocated for wind farms.
The move would change Britain's coasts, Hutton acknowledged, but said
the need for energy self-sufficiency left the country with no choice.
He said the plans would depend on environmental impact studies.
"But if we could manage to achieve this, by 2020 enough electricity
could be generated off our shores to power the equivalent of all of
the U.K.'s homes," Hutton said in a statement.
The British Wind Energy Association, a trade body that represents the
country's wind and marine energy industries, welcomed plans for more
offshore wind farm sites, but it said it would be difficult to raise
Britain's wind power production from half a gigawatt currently to 33
gigawatts by 2020 - the equivalent of the energy now consumed by
every British home.
Eight gigawatts' worth of wind generation projects are already
planned, but the group said the limited supply of turbines meant the
amount of wind energy produced by 2020 would likely be closer to 20 gigawatts.
"We'd really be struggling from a 'Where can we get the turbines?"'
point of view, said Gordon Edge, the association's economics director.
Environmental campaigners and opposition lawmakers welcomed the plan,
but some noted that wind generated power is expensive. Wind
power-generated electricity is currently costlier to generate than
its coal- or gas-generated counterpart.
Massive new offshore wind farms, such as the 1 gigawatt London
project planned for the Thames estuary in the country's southeast,
are due to go online by 2014. According to the BWEA, the country is
on track to overtake Denmark as the world's largest generator of
offshore wind power next year.
--
((Udhay Shankar N)) ((udhay @ pobox.com)) ((www.digeratus.com))
