IT’S been a contrasting week for renewable energy advocates on opposite sides of the Atlantic. The UK announced plans to make wind power in its coastal waters “what the Gulf of Arabia is for the oil industry”. Meanwhile, hopes for the solar equivalent in the American Southwest’s largely uninhabited desert have been derailed by a tortoise.
UK prime minister Gordon Brown wants to build 3000 turbines around the UK’s coast, part of a plan that will see renewable energy provide 30 per cent of the nation’s electricity by 2020. The US Bureau of Land Management is less bullish. It plans…
