By Alex Felsinger •
April 13, 2009
Huh? What kind of protest involves 114 people “conspiring” to enter and vandalize a power plant? Sounds like a few dozen were involved in logistics, and the rest had volunteered to go along for the ride. Does their willingness to participate really constitute conspiratory thought?
By Timothy B. Hurst •
February 7, 2009
Forty-two offshore wind farm workers who became stranded on a barely-anchored barge were rescued after several uneasy hours in the stormy seas off the coast of Cumbria northwest of England.
Late last week, The Maritime and Coastguard Agency reported that the stranded wind farm workers were aboard the 270ft UR 101 barge laying cables between turbines at at the partially operational Robin Rigg Wind Farm, 9km out to sea between England and Scotland, when 16 foot seas and winds of 48 knots caused three of the barge’s four anchors to snap. Tethered by just one anchor, the barge was in real danger of breaking free in a vast marine field of turbine foundations.
By Andrew Williams •
September 30, 2008
Last week, E.ON Climate and Renewables officially opened its massive new wind farm in Roscoe, Texas. The site is now capable of generating an impressive 335.5 MW of electricity, a figure set to rise to 781.5 MW when the farm is completed in mid-2009.
When finished, the Roscoe site will become one of the world’s largest wind farms, boasting a total of 627 wind turbines capable of powering more than 250,000 of the state’s homes.
The world’s biggest offshore wind farm was revived yesterday when German-based energy group E.ON and the Danish utility Dong Energy agreed to acquire Shell’s 33% stake in the 1,000-megawatt London Array.
The two firms, which each own a one-third stake in the project will now become 50-50 partners by buying out Shell, the former third partner. Shell decided to withdraw from the London Array project back in May after a strategic review indicated that the project would not bring sufficient rates of return on the investment. Industry-wide cost inflation has raised the cost of the project to more than £2.5bn ($5 billion U.S.), well above the original estimates of £1.5bn three years ago.
