The most striking feature of the Danish landscape as I
recall it upon arrival in Copenhagen (I was quite tired at the time) was the
wind park located offshore. The wind turbines made an impression partly because
there was no missing them but also because of the proposed wind energy project
on Haida Gwaii.
I never felt strongly one way or the other, I like to think
that I keep my mouth shut when I am uncertain or uninformed, I came to no
conclusion about the Naikun wind proposal but it did get me thinking about
energy on island and wondering why wind power wasn’t a good option to supply
island power.
Travelling around Denmark it hasn’t taken long to realize
that the offshore wind park is not the only wind energy around, wind turbines
dot the landscape everywhere we have been. This past weekend Gus and I traveled
to a soccer tournament with his coach and I was able to ask some locals about
the turbines, they admitted they didn’t know much, they had heard nothing about
noise pollution but had heard something about effects of being too near (I
didn’t quite catch it). A woman sharing the ride told about her parents who had
bought into a turbine project and in return received electric incentive, she
thought that wind power in Denmark provided about 10% of the electricity used,
but when I did some research Wikipedia statistics suggested that wind power
accounted for 30% of the domestic electricity usage.
So if wind power can supply 30% of the electricity for a
nation of 5.6 million….
I speak from a place of ignorance regarding wind power, what
do I know? I know that diesel is expensive, dirty, and not the way of the
future. Could wind provide energy to an island the size of Haida Gwaii? The
residents of Samso Island(diagonal line through o) would likely say yes.
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