The National Environmental Research Institute, a part of the Danish Ministry of the Environment, reports (click the title of this post) that Denmark is committed under the Kyoto Accord to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 2012 to 21% below 1990 levels. But, as they also report, almost as a footnote, by 2003 emissions had instead increased 6.2%.
This is the (non)achievement of about 3,000 MW of wind power capacity for 5.3 million people, about 1 MW for every 1,700 people. [Look at this map showing how saturated that country is by giant wind turbines.] In Vermont, that would be 353 MW, 59 times the existing Searsburg plant. In New York, that would be 11,176 MW. For the whole U.S., 170,588 MW, taking up over 13,000 square miles. But U.S. per-capita energy consumption is twice that of Denmark's, so these numbers would have to be doubled. And greenhouse gas emissions would continue to rise.
Thanks to Mark Duchamp for this reference.
categories: wind power, wind energy, wind farms, wind turbines
