The permit application for the offshore wind farm slated for the North Sea has been approved. Now the partnership Evelop International and Ballast Nedam Concessies has the exclusive right to develop Scheveningen Buiten. Rijkswaterstaat Noordzee announced the approval includes the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA). The wind farm, Scheveningen Buiten, which will be built outside the 12-mile zone off the seaside resort of Scheveningen, approximately 30 kilometers (km) from the coast, is expected to be finished by 2011. It will generate more than 300 megawatts (MW).

While most members of the European Union have joined in the push for wind energy, some, like Italy, face resistance. Anti-wind groups are pushing for a moratorium on new wind-power projects, claiming the wind turbines negatively affect the landscape and surrounding wildlife. They also say developers take advantage of residents in small towns with bad deals, and they question the reliability of a power source that is highly variable.

The European Commission on Wednesday called for a “new industrial revolution” via increased investment in renewable energy and nuclear power to combat climate change and curb Europe’s energy dependency. The proposals come as concerns over Europe’s energy security are making headlines as a bitter dispute between Russia and Belarus has disrupted the transit of oil supplies to Europe. The commission’s proposals are based on a forecast that the region’s energy imports will jump to 65% of consumption by 2030, when 84% of gas and 93% of oil will come from overseas, and sets out ways to reduce the block’s dependence on Russia and other suppliers. As its main measure, the paper proposes a 20% reduction in greenhouse-gas emissions from the European Union’s energy consumption by 2020 and calls for a sharp increase in the use of renewable and biofuels.

LISBON (AFX) - The Economy Ministry said it plans to press ahead with talks with shortlisted bidders for new wind farms, on the grounds that the public interest outweighs the objections of Iberdrola SA, which last week won a court order suspending the auction, Diario Economico reported.

PALMA DE MALLORCA, Spain: Spain will cut subsidies to wind-power plants following an overhaul of the way it calculates aid for renewable power sources, hurting earnings at utilities including Iberdrola, the world's largest producer of wind power.

MILAN, Italy, May 10 New technologies are making an effort to mitigate environmental concerns over bird fatalities caused by wind turbines in Europe. A new monitoring program called WT-Bird has passed preliminary tests and will enter the next phase of testing. The WT-Bird, created by the Energy Research Center of the Netherlands, uses several techniques to monitor bird collisions.

Stocks of companies that generate electricity from solar or wind power -- or make the equipment to do so -- soared during the last three years. But the global credit crunch, higher prices for raw materials like polysilicon used in solar panels, and cuts in government subsidies to consumers, such as in Germany last month, have made investors much warier. High oil prices, analysts say, can't compensate for all that. "Some months ago, it was still true that a rising tide lifts all the boats," said Thomas Germann, an analyst at Zuercher Kantonalbank. "But investors are now scrutinizing what's going on at the company level, because cost efficiency has become more important." ..."The easy money has been made," said Jean Ryan, who oversees three funds with about €2 billion in assets at KBC Asset Management International Ltd., a unit of Belgium-based KBC Group NV.

Some 55 metal wind turbines visible from the local coastline could be in place by 2008 if Oriel Windfarm’s proposal to develop an energy generating facility get the go-ahead. The turbines will be visible from 45 separate locations along the coastline. The tubular wind turbines will be 86m, made of steel and generally painted light grey. Their finish is matt, to reduce reflected light, and the developers claim they ‘they will only appear as small pins on a corner of the horizon on a clear day’.

Twenty-eight of the schemes are being developed by private companies including oil company Shell, wind energy firms Hibernian Wind Power and Atlanticwest Energy and the newly formed Liffey Cable Car Company. The remaining 25 schemes so far submitted to the planning board are being developed by State agencies including Bord Gáis, Bord na Móna, the Railway Procurement Agency, the Dublin Airport Authority, the ESB and several local authorities.

Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs inaugurated last Friday the first European Wind Day, a pan-European awareness campaign, which aims to celebrate the power, popularity and effectiveness of wind energy in the European Union. This campaign, coordinated by the European Wind energy Association (EWEA), will include events taking place simultaneously in Brussels, Copenhagen, Madrid, Athens, Vienna and other major cities.

A failure in one of the wind turbines owned by the Iberdrola company in the Pedregal Mountains, Esteiro (Muros), resulted in a forest fire that razed a hectare of the mountain.

As energy costs continue to soar, and an increased reliance on traditional oil and coal is questioned, alternate sources of energy are examined more closely. Many in the five largest countries in Europe and in the United States like the idea of renewable energy, but do not want to pay any more for renewable energy sources. A majority of adults who have some form of responsibility for paying household energy bills in Great Britain (54%) and Germany (50%), pluralities in Italy (44%), France (42%) and the U.S. (40%), as well as just over one-third of adults responsible for paying household energy bills in Spain (35%), all say they would be willing to pay nothing more for energy if it was from renewable sources.

Residents who oppose the installation of a wind farm in Ahenny, Carrick-on-Suir, have called on the minister for the environment to protect their area against what they call “the blatant vandalism of one of the country’s most ancient landscapes.” The call comes less than a fortnight before councilliors are due to vote on the issue. The Ahenny Action Group insists that it should not be left up to local people to protect designated heritage regions from industrial development. They have written to Minister Dick Roche to demand a guarantee that no wind farm be erected in the area.

Irish wind energy company Airtricity said today the Dutch government had given it permission to build a 284 mega-watt wind farm 40 kilometres off the country’s North Sea coast. The company, which operates wind farms in Britain and Ireland and is developing further sites there and in the United States, did not say what the cost would be. However, a source familiar with the deal said Airtricity would be investing about €700 million in the project “over the next number of years”.

The race to build new sources of alternative energy from the wind is running into a formidable obstacle: not enough windmills...Numerous wind-power projects from Virginia to California have been stalled due to the shortage. But for some renewable-energy companies in Europe, where wind power has been in vogue for almost two decades, the logjam is a lucrative opportunity. These firms anticipated a shortage of turbines and locked in orders with makers. They're now using their considerable buying power to gobble up smaller utilities in the U.S. that couldn't otherwise get their hands on turbines.

With the news of the arrest of seven people linked to a government promoted renewable energy project, the regional administration has found itself embroiled in a corruption scandal the like of which it has not experienced since the revelations, several years ago, regarding a scheme to excavate a hill in Fuerteventura in the name of art.

Apart from general bottleneck problems in times of high demand -- like during periods of extremely high or low temperature -- observers have questioned the grid's ability to cope with the addition of renewable energy sources, such as wind energy, into the mix and the network. Often, large wind parks that produce hundreds of megawatts of power in remote areas put a massive strain on local grids, which were designed to bring electricity from the center to the peripheries, and not the other way around. Due to the wind's variable strength, the amount of electricity injected into the grid is fluctuating constantly, further straining the grid.

MILAN, Italy, May. 11 (UPI) -- In order to continue its high rate of growth, the wind industry has many opponents to convert and obstacles to overcome. From siting to operation, wind project developers face a barrage of challenges. First, though regulations vary, you can't put a wind turbine within a certain distance of an area of national, historic or natural value. Also, unless residents are offered a share of the project, locals sometimes oppose them, citing aesthetic concerns.

Protesters against plans for 19 wind turbines each more than 400ft high on "West Glamorgan's last wilderness" have joined a new European-wide campaign against wind energy schemes. Opponents of proposals by npower renewables (sponsors of The Ospreys rugby team) for the wind turbines on common land on hills at Mynydd y Gwair north of Swansea say the project will ruin the upland area which has remained unchanged for hundreds of years. Save our Common Environment (Socme), which is fighting the plans, has joined the European Platform against Windfarms representing growing disenchantment with the schemes.

Once-trendy biofuels like ethanol produced from corn are now being derided by the authorities, who say the fuels have little value in the fight against global warming. Vital components for windmills and solar cells have run short over the past year, requiring expensive projects to a halt. Meanwhile, subsidies for renewable energy remain at the whim of politicians, creating a boom and bust cycle for wind farms and solar projects, particularly in the United States. Such a risky environment means some bankers are placing bets on projects that are unlikely to develop into serious, profitable alternates to fossil fuels, and could ultimately slow investment flows "Some of these green investments are going in the wrong direction," said Yvo de Boer, the executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. "Very well-intentioned projects can go awry, particularly where government policies on cutting emissions aren't clear." ..."The world is repricing risk, and these are risky assets," Liebreich said, referring to renewable energy investments.