A sharp increase in wind-power capacity in Europe is challenging utilities to stabilize their electric grids in the face of sometimes wildly fluctuating wind-energy levels, while calling into question some of the greenhouse-gas reducing claims of windmills, according to a recent study.

French oil company Total believes wind energy must prove it is competitive by 2020 and solar power must do the same by 2050 if they are to avoid being sidelined, it said on Tuesday. In France, Total aims to spend 500 million euros ($627 million) by 2010 on renewable energy sources, including 100 million euros in research and development partnerships. “For renewable energies to become viable we need to see significant technological progress over this period,” Gilles Cochevelou, head of renewable energy at Total, told Reuters on the sidelines of a conference. “But we will need all existing energy resources by 2050,” he said adding it was wrong at present to eliminate any single energy resource or push any single one forward.

Maud Olofsson, Centre Party leader and new industry and trade minister, wants to construct more wind turbines in the wilds of Sweden, according to Dagens Nyheter. "We have a lot of wilderness areas where there are relatively few people but plenty of wind. Why should we not be able to use these areas to produce electricity?" said Olofsson, whose ministerial portfolio includes energy matters.

But while the problems faced on either side of the Atlantic are much the same, America and Europe have taken different paths toward finding solutions. Neither side can claim victory. Despite a host of initiatives, new technologies and regulations, alternative energy remains a patchwork affair that has done little to offset needs. Increasingly, both sides are looking to the other to see what can be learned. The guiding principal in Europe has been government mandates. European Union member states are led by ambitious long-term targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Rules also require they develop increased energy capacity from renewable sources. By comparison, Washington, D.C. still prefers to let technology be the driving force in the quest for low cost alternatives to fossil fuels. While some tax incentives do exist (for ethanol and wind energy), there are no federal energy mandates besides a meager Renewable Fuel Standard passed last year by Congress to boost production of ethanol and biodiesel. Mostly it’s left up to the individual states.

Large swathes of scenic countryside are being ruined by massive wind turbines which damage people’s lives and the environment. That was the blunt message yesterday at the launch of a new nationwide alliance of communities fighting wind farms. Believing the answer to Ireland’s energy needs is not blowing in the wind, the Irish Wind Energy Truth Alliance (IWETA) insisted that the turbines damage the environment and, because of their inefficiency, do nothing to tackle the energy crisis.

Ireland must install 936 MW of green power capacity by 2010, including 867 MW of wind turbines. To reach the target of 13.2% from renewables by the end of 2009, it must install 1,433 MW of renewables, of which 1,100 MW should be wind, 240 MW hydro, 92 MW of bioenergy and 1 MW of tidal energy, says Sustainable Energy Ireland in its report, ‘Renewable Energy Development 2006.’ By late 2004, generating capacity was 497 MW, of which 233 MW was wind, 240 MW hydro, 26 MW bioenergy and 0 MW from tidal.

OSLO, Sept 20 (Reuters) - Wind power could generate almost 30 percent of the world's electricity by 2030 and is growing faster than any other clean energy source, a wind business group and environmental lobby Greenpeace said on Wednesday.

On the back of a recent expansion of wind power in the Irish Republic, the government has announced an increased renewables target of 15% of total generated output by 2010. The increase is supported by the recently-announced renewable energy feed-in tariff (REFIT) program, but this method of financial support raises more questions than answers over the economics of Irish green power.

The Government is committed to trebling the amount of electricity produced from renewable energy sources in Ireland by 2010, Minister Noel Dempsey said today.

Sweden has underlined its intention to become a leading nation for wind power after approving construction of the Baltic Sea’s largest wind turbine park, offshore from the southern city of Trelleborg.

MADRID: Even as Britain, following a detailed review, mulls the need for increased nuclear capacity, Spain has the bit between its teeth as it champions renewable energy.

Needless to say not everyone is impressed with the UK’s latest energy review.

HIGHER reliance on renewable energy like wind-power and robust competition to the ESB’s dominant position in the Irish energy market will be the cornerstone of the Government’s energy policies over the next decade, Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resource Noel Dempsey vowed yesterday.

Europe likes to think of itself as a place that has moved beyond its sooty industrial past, with energy that comes from the windmills that dot the Dutch countryside and the Danish coastline or the carbon-free nuclear plants that dominate France's power industry. But with oil prices soaring and worries rising about the reliability of gas piped from Russia, Europe must depend heavily on that great industrial-age relic, coal: a cheap, plentiful fuel, but one that emits twice the carbon dioxide of natural gas. Coal-fired plants generated half the power in Germany and Britain during the chilly winter just past.

President Vladimir Putin is reportedly planning to increase the number of nuclear reactors in Russia from 29 to 59 and to upgrade old power stations to extend their lives. Mr Putin is expected to provide more details of the rebirth of nuclear at the forthcoming G8 summit of leading economies in St Petersburg next month.

Cracks are developing among environmentalists. They hate nuclear power but like renewables. Sun is not always reliable. Wind, often lazy and slow. They are unreliable and add totally a small percentage. If we need power that is always available, we have to have it from coal or natural gas or nuclear.

IRELAND could soon be importing green energy from Scotland in an ambitious revenue-raising scheme.

Fourth European country to begin phase out

Wind energy is gaining a strong foothold in the European Union, with generating capacity approaching levels targeted for 2010, the EU statistics agency said Monday.

This has led some to question whether the country's focus on nuclear power has been a strategic mistake.... Wind farms are creating their own political storm. There's one near Beaumont-Hague with five gray turbines about 250 feet tall. On a recent afternoon, the blades weren't moving amid a still wind. Germaine DuPont, who lives with her husband and children about 380 yards away, said she wishes that were always the case. When the blades whirl, "the noise is crazy," she said, adding that she takes sleeping pills to get some rest. "It's intolerable."