Good News For A Change

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jan/03/european-unites-renewable-energy-supergrid

Europe's first electricity grid dedicated to renewable power will become a political reality this month, as nine countries formally draw up plans to link their clean energy projects around the North Sea.  It would connect turbines off the wind-lashed north coast of Scotland with Germany's vast arrays of solar panels, and join the power of waves crashing on to the Belgian and Danish coasts with the hydro-electric dams nestled in Norway's fjords.

The network, made up of thousands of kilometres of highly efficient undersea cables that could cost up to €30bn (£26.5bn), would solve one of the biggest criticisms faced by renewable power – that unpredictable weather means it is unreliable.  With a renewables supergrid, electricity can be supplied across the continent from wherever the wind is blowing, the sun is shining or the waves are crashing.

Good news for a change:  governments with the acumen and political will to prepare for a low carbon future.  I am going to email the Canadian Prime Minister (again) and bring this Northern European example to his attention.  I wil also email the Premier of this povince as a renewable energy super grid may be something the members of the Western Climate Initiativewill be interested in.