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Hurdles, resistance remain in wind-friendly Europe

Human impacts, News, Wind turbines Add comments

Just came across a fairly detailed article looking at wind energy in Holland, and more generally, in Europe.  The article focuses on local resistance to a large windfarm being planned on the coast of Holland, but it included this section, citing the European Wind Energy Association on the long project timelines and high rate of local resistance and legal challenges:

“In Holland, there’s hardly any project that doesn’t get delayed,” said Michiel Muller, the wind unit manager of Ecofys, a research and consultancy firm on sustainable energy, who is not connected with the Urk project.

Across Europe, each installation faces a slew of hurdles, starting from the required Environmental Impact Assessment to regulatory approvals by often more than a dozen authorities. It takes an average of 55 months to wade through the bureaucratic tangle before work can begin, the European Wind Energy Association said.

Of some 200 wind energy projects studied in 2007-8 in Europe, 40 percent were ensnared in lawsuits, and 30 percent more faced slowdowns because of local resistance or questioning from nonprofit environmental groups, the association said. It had no figures on how many projects were killed before they got started.

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