Government: Off-Shore Wind Could Power Every UK Home by 2020

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A recently completed study from the Department of Energy and Climate Change has concluded that off-shore wind power may be the key to the UK’s energy future. According to the study, 5,000-7,000 new turbines could be built off the coast by 2020. The turbines could generate 25GW of power— the equivalent of 25 large coal-fired plants. 8GW of additional offshore wind power are already planned.

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There’s just one problem— many of the current UK off-shore projects may not even be completed. Emily Highmore, a spokeswoman for the London Array project, warned, “Off-shore wind has always, and will always be, very expensive. We can’t be confident it will go ahead, but we believe it’s a cracking project and very important to helping the government meet its renewables targets.”

However, if current and future projects come to fruition, up to 70,000 new jobs could be created and UK carbon dioxide emissions could be cut by up to 14%.

Photo Credit: CC licensed by Flickr user phault