Notes From All Over, Part 2 -- July 25, 2019

The road to Europe isn't going to be lined with wind turbines, folks. From NewsEurope --

• with all the "stuff" that should positively affecting wind, Europe actually installed less onshore wind energy in 1H19 compared to same period last year
• 1H19: new 2.9 GW wind installed in Europe; 
• 1H18: new 3.3 GW wind installed in Europe;
• installations were particularly poor in Germany, which had its worst first half of the year since 2000
• Germany will pick up the 2H19 but as a whole will be lower than historical levels
• of all European countries, France has the most onshore installations with 523 MW
• France: 523 MW for the entire 1H19, and that was the biggest in Europe? give me a break -- in Williams County alone, one county in North Dakota --

From Geoff Simon's top ND energy stories this past week:

Work set to begin on Williams County wind far, Tradewind Energy; 300-MW Aurora Wind Farm; northeaster Williams County; up to 121 turbines spanning 44,000 acres; centered five miles northwest of Tioga; range in size from 2.0 to 4.8 MW; includes construction of a 20-mile 345 KV transmission line; will terminate at Basin Electric Power Cooperative's Tande Substation east of Tioga in Mountrail County; $385 million.

And that's on top of existing wind farms in Williams County.

From the linked NewsEurope article:

“With France, which had a good first 6 months, Spain, Norway and Sweden will now have to help pick up the slack in the second half of the year,” Tardieu said. “The EU has set a renewable energy target of 32% for 2030 and is talking about a net zero economy by 2050. The rate of installations we’ve seen so far this year won’t get us there,” he argued.

******************************

The Wildlife Page