Clegg wants jobs for British wind turbine workers

[James McLauchlan]

Clegg wants jobs for British wind turbine workers

Nick Clegg wants expansion of Britain’s offshore wind energy capacity to be converted into extra jobs in disused shipyards.

The Liberal Democrat leader is appalled that 90 per cent of the £1.75 billion contract for a wind farm off the Kent coast has gone to foreign contractors.

He wants investment in infrastructure for a green economy to help tackle the country’s unemployment problems.

"New off-shore turbines, with blades the size of the London Eye, need to be built and launched from modern docks, so we need to upgrade our shipyards to take advantage of this massive opportunity," he said.

"Just imagine the docks and shipyards along the coastline of Britain coming to life and leading the world in this new technology."

The Lib Dem manifesto is set to include a pledge to create 57,000 new jobs by investing £400 million in upgrading disused shipyards to enable the production of offshore wind turbines.

[James McLauchlan]

We could do with a bit of that approach in the Offshore Oil & Gas Sector!

[iROV]

Jump start to the Third Industrial Revolution 💡

"We have the science and technology to do it, but it will mean nothing unless there is a change in will." — Jeremy Rifkin

We are on the cusp of a Third Industrial Revolution that could give us a door open to a new post-fossil fuel era. It was the first Industrial Revolution that brought together print and literacy with coal steam and rail. The second combined the telegraph and telephone with the internal combustion engine and oil. What we now have now is the possibility of a distributed energy revolution. We can all create our own energy, store it, and then distribute it to each other. Twenty five years from now millions of buildings will become power plants that will load renewable energy. We will load solar power from the sun, wind from turbines and even ocean waves on each coast. We can also make the power grid of the world smart and intelligent; we call it inter-grid. Not far from now, millions and millions of people will load power to buildings, store it in the form of hydrogen and distribute energy peer-to-peer; just like digital media and the internet. The first inter-grids are going up in the United States this year in Houston, Boulder Colorado, and Southern California. The "Third Industrial Revolution" is an economic game plan. We have the science and technology to do it, but it will mean nothing unless there is a change in will.

[iROV]

Ten industry leaders form new organisation to advance Offshore Supergrid
Monday, March 08, 2010

Leaders from ten global companies gathered in London today to announce publicly the formation of the "Friends of the Supergrid" (FOSG) which has been set up to progress policy towards the construction of a pan-European Offshore Supergrid. Through the combination of their respective areas of expertise, the FOSG members have unique insight into the policies needed to create the Supergrid and have the capability to deliver it in practice.

The FOSG is the only representative body that combines companies in sectors that will deliver the High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) infrastructure and related technology, together with companies that will develop, install, own and operate that infrastructure. It brings together the organisations that will design the physical equipment, with those who will build the structures at sea.

The founding members include 3E, AREVA T&D, DEME Blue Energy, Elia, Hochtief Construction AG, Mainstream Renewable Power, Parsons Brinckerhoff, Prysmian Cables & Systems, Siemens and Visser & Smit Marine Contracting.

Speaking at the launch on behalf of the members, Mainstream Renewable Power’s Chief Executive Dr Eddie O’Connor said," The UK government has recently shown its commitment to large-scale offshore wind by announcing the development of up to 50GW by 2020. We now need to integrate this huge resource into Europe to enable the open trade of electricity between Member States. The Friends of the Supergrid is uniquely placed to influence policy-makers towards creating the Supergrid and ultimately changing how we generate, transmit and consume electricity for generations to come."

In December last year, nine EU Member States, including the UK and Germany, signed a political declaration for the "North Seas Countries Offshore Grid Initiative". Last month Norway signed the declaration, whose aim is to develop policy to advance offshore interconnection in Europe. The FOSG is solely able to present "cradle to grave" interconnection solutions to the policy-makers and others looking to develop energy policy across Europe through to 2050.

FOSG will be run by an Executive and directed by the Board of members. Membership will be kept to a maximum of 20 companies and aims to have both an industrial and geographic cross-section, with its base in Brussels.

The concept of the Supergrid was first launched a decade ago and it is defined as "an electricity transmission system, mainly based on direct current, designed to facilitate large-scale sustainable power generation in remote areas for transmission to centres of consumption, one of whose fundamental attributes will be the enhancement of the market in electricity".

The Supergrid will open markets, strengthen security of supply and create another global opportunity for European companies to export sustainable energy technology. The technology underpinning the Supergrid will give competitive advantage to the companies involved with its specification and design. This type of integrated AC/DC grid will be a template for what will be needed in other global markets including the US and China.

http://www.friendsofthesupergrid.eu/

[Author]

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