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Originally Posted by Ted Pearson  Denmark is doing very good, (if you can say that 20% is good) because they have in infrastructure heavy in hydroelectric power. |
I can assure you that Denmark has almost no hydroelectric power at all. Sweden and Norway have plenty - on the other hand, neither Sweden nor Norway uses wind power much.
I don't buy the nuclear argument. The embedded energy in a nuclear power plant is huge and there's still no solution to the waste problem - neither high-grade or low-grade. Like coal, just because a lot of the pollution is invisible, people can be misled into thinking it's clean, when it's not.
The long and the short of it is this: we're going to have to reduce our energy use across the board by a substantial amount - but don't worry, reducing your standard of living can actually improve your quality of life.
As for wind farms being bad for birds: seems to me to be just another 'nimby' argument, and the people who oppose renewable energy development will probably be the first to start shouting 'why didn't we do more, earlier' when energy supplies reach their, on current projections inevitable, tipping point.
Birds aren't stupid. They'll learn to live with wind farms just as they've learned to live with shotguns. If in doubt, just watch a wood pigeon in an area where people shoot at them.