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USA lags behind Europe in forward looking energy policy

Perhaps no single horizon better illustrates Europe’s technological advances and capacity for innovation, combined with political will and future-thinking, than its leadership in pushing the world toward a new era of renewable energy, conservation, and low greenhouse gas economies.

Obama Needs an Energy Policy Like Europe’s: Lessons From the Gulf of Mexico, THE HUFFINGTON POST, June 29, 2010 “………with millions of gallons of toxic black oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico, the United States could learn plenty from Europe about energy policy.

By forging ahead with widespread implementation of innovative conservation practices, renewable energy technologies and fuel efficient transportation, Europe has managed to reduce its ‘ecological footprint’ to half that of the United States for the same standard of living. The average European emits half the carbon of an average American and uses far less electricity. It takes 40 percent more fuel for an American car to drive a mile than a European car.

How has Europe managed to achieve this? Through smart, strategic government policy, working closely with the private sector, to advance incentives and regulations that encourage the necessary behavior from consumers, households and businesses…………….

Windmills, Tides, and Solar Besides: The European Way of Energy
Europe leads the world in the production of wind power, and Germany leads Europe. All across rural Germany giant windmills line the landscape like rows of a new-fangled crop. Nationwide more than twenty thousand windmills generate 8 percent of the country’s electricity, some 21,000 megawatts (MW) of power, enough to power ten million homes and save an estimated forty-two million tons of carbon dioxide. Germany has plans to build an additional thirty offshore wind farms in the North and Baltic seas. Britain, Spain, Portugal and Sweden also are investing heavily in wind power. Denmark already gets 20 percent of its total power from wind energy. The US has only a third of Europe’s wind power.

Solar power also has surged in Europe, with photovoltaic capacity in the European Union growing at an annual rate of 70 percent in recent years. Other energy forms are being developed, including geothermal, biomass, and small-scale hydro. Harnessing the limitless power of the sea has long been the dream of science fiction, and it is becoming reality in Europe. Imagine taking a windmill and sinking it beneath the sea — that, in effect, is what engineers have done a mile off the British coast. Like a field of windmills, these underwater ‘seamills’ create the possibility of grids of undersea turbines producing thousands of megawatts of carbon-free power……

Europe’s New Energy (R)evolution
Perhaps no single horizon better illustrates Europe’s technological advances and capacity for innovation, combined with political will and future-thinking, than its leadership in pushing the world toward a new era of renewable energy, conservation, and low greenhouse gas economies.

Steven Hill: Obama Needs an Energy Policy Like Europe’s: Lessons From the Gulf of Mexico

June 30, 2010 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | ENERGY, EUROPE | climate change, energy efficiency, global warming, renewable energy, renewables, solar, wind