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This chapter shows that the electricity sector has undergone two transformations since the 1990s. First, small, traditional wind turbine manufacturers have become industrial heavyweights, and traditional power plant manufacturers have recognized that wind turbine manufacturing is big business. Second, new companies specializing in wind‐farm development and operation have emerged, while growing numbers of electric utilities have invested in wind farms. This chapter demonstrates that the environmental movement contributed to these transformations when environmental activists gained control of energy companies and professional societies, criticized the traditional logic of energy production, and offered practical solutions. By becoming entrepreneurs, innovators, advocates, and champions, environmental movement activists and sympathizers made an essential contribution to wind turbine manufacturing. By forming wind turbine cooperatives, founding wind‐farm development companies, and constantly pressuring utility companies to invest in renewable energy, environmental organizations and activists also had a major impact on wind‐farm development.

This chapter examines the way in which environmental groups and activists shape the energy policymaking processes. Based on case studies of countries that adopted early and strong feed‐in tariff (FIT) policies—Germany, Denmark, and Spain—it shows that the environmental movement contributes to both the adoption and implementation of those policies through campaigns against nuclear power, air pollution, and global climate change. The chapter also shows that environmental groups' ability to influence the adoption of pro–renewable energy policies depends on their ability to mobilize large green‐energy advocacy coalitions, to take advantage of favorable political contexts and an unbiased mass media, and to instill positive public opinion. Environmental groups vigorously defended the implementation of feed‐in tariffs whenever they were threatened by the fossil‐fuel, nuclear power, or utility lobbies. Environmental groups fighting for strong policies have been successful, particularly when they could build large pro–renewable energy coalitions with unions, farmers, and civic associations; when they had allies among political elites; and when mass media's coverage of environmental issues was favorable and public opinion was positive.

This chapter examines the way in which environmental groups and activists shape the energy policymaking processes in countries that have very good wind potential but a social context that is less favorable to the environmental movement. It shows that the environmental movement can contribute to the adoption and implementation of policies such as a renewable portfolio standard (RPS) through its campaigns against nuclear power, air pollution, and global climate change. However, while environmental groups mobilize large green‐energy advocacy coalitions to shape the adoption and implementation of pro–renewable energy policies, their ability to reach their goals is severely limited when they lack influential political allies and when they face a biased mass media and less‐favorable public opinion. The environmental movement in the United Kingdom influenced the revision of the Renewables Obligation (RO) policy and the adoption of a feed‐in tariff. In the United States and Canada, environmental groups had little impact on the federal policymaking process but contributed to state and provincial governments' decisions to adopt renewable portfolio standards and feed‐in tariffs.

This chapter examines the origins of the modern wind turbine industry and explores the wind innovation system that has emerged in China. It also highlights the nation's current wind energy policy regime. The beginnings of the modern wind turbine can be traced back to rapid industrialization in Europe and America during the late nineteenth century with the advent of the steam engine and then electricity. However, it was not until the oil embargoes of the 1970s that wind technology gained interest worldwide, triggering an explosion of research and development in Western nations. Global trade made it possible for wind technology to reach China, which pursued the development of an indigenous wind power technology industry. The chapter discusses two parts of localization: locally making or manufacturing something, and adapting the locally manufactured product to meet the demands of the local context or market.

In 1997, the European Union (EU) resolved to increase the overall share of renewable energy sources (encompassing heating, electricity generation, and transport) within the EU to 12 per cent by 2010. The main reasons for adopting these targets are to mitigate climate change and to increase the diversity and security of European energy supply. This chapter examines some of the obstacles that must be overcome by European energy laws and policies, and assesses the effectiveness of measures that have been adopted to date. Because the legal issues that arise differ depending on the form of renewable energy in question, the chapter concentrates on renewable electricity generation in general, and on wind power in particular. Furthermore, because the means of achieving European renewable targets have, until now, been left largely to individual member states, albeit constrained by European Commission law, two case studies of the development of wind energy in Denmark and the United Kingdom are explored.

This chapter focuses on the legal issues associated with proposals for offshore grid development in the EU and the US, and compares the means by which these might be addressed. The chapter is organized as follows. Section II examines the international legal framework for offshore development and considers the key question of whether it provides sufficient support for offshore grid projects of the type that are now being proposed. Section III considers how suitable regimes could be put in place to regulate the development and use of transmission infrastructure in the North Sea. Section IV provides an overview of the gradual progress that is being made towards creating a regulatory framework for offshore electricity generation and transmission in the US. Section V concludes by identifying key legal considerations that should be taken into account in strategic planning for combined offshore wind energy generation and transmission projects in general.

Chapter 2 begins by outlining the origins and history of nuclear technology. It goes on to show how claims that nuclear fission is a low-carbon technology are false. Such claims rely on a variety of flaws, the first of which is the fact that most nuclear-emissions studies count greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions only at point of electricity use, rather than from the entire, 14-stage nuclear-fuel cycle. By thus “trimming the data” on nuclear-related GHG emissions, proponents falsely portray fission as a “green,” low-carbon technology. In reality, once one counts GHG emissions from all nuclear-fuel-cycle stages, fission has roughly the same GHG emissions as natural gas. Another flaw with the claim that nuclear GHG emissions are low is that it fails to take into account the much higher emissions that arise from using low-grade uranium ore to create reactor fuel. Third, those who claim that nuclear GHG emissions are low are inconsistent in that they fail to apply their own logic (that we should implement energy technologies with low GHG emissions) to electricity sources (such as wind and solar photovoltaic) that are much better GHG-emissions avoiders than is nuclear power. A fourth problem is the fact that reactors generate only about 25 percent more energy, in their lifetime, than is required, as input, to the 14 stages of their fuel cycle. A fifth flaw of those who propose using nuclear energy to address CC is their failure to take account of the fact that reactors massively increase risks of nuclear proliferation and terrorism. Using atomic energy to help combat CC worsens another, and equally catastrophic, energy problem: nuclear proliferation and nuclear terrorism. A sixth flaw of using fission to address CC is failure to take account of the practical difficulties of tripling the number of global reactors. For all these reasons, the chapter shows that commercial atomic energy cannot address CC.

This chapter addresses the legal, policy, and environmental issues related to the development of offshore energy, specifically wave and wind technology development. A history of energy consumption in the United States as well as an update on the status of offshore renewable energy development—on the national as well as the international levels—is provided. The regulatory framework for permitting nascent technologies in the United States is examined and compared to the permitting regime overseas. The chapter also suggests policy and legal recommendations to be implemented in the United States for promoting the development of offshore renewable energy as an option for climate change mitigation.

The TANSTAAFL principle— ‘There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch’—controls everything on our energy menu. All forms of energy have their negative impacts on sustainable development values—including impacts on the environment and human health, as well as those affecting human rights, empowerment of women, energy security, and the economy. Many ‘free lunches’ are being and will be proposed. Most will be, in the words of one of our foremost climate change experts, ‘planetary methadone for our planetary heroin addiction’ to energy. The key is always to analyse each energy source for its full life-cycle impacts. Fossil fuels have unacceptably more clear, more numerous, more severe, and more permanent risks for our world than most of the alternatives. Viewed through the lens of costs and benefits, getting ‘beyond the carbon economy’ is no longer just an environmentalist issue. It is an environmental and survival necessity. This chapter looks at a number of alternative energy sources such as nuclear power, biomass, hydropower, geothermal energy, solar energy, wind energy, and hydrogen and fuel cells.

This chapter presents a case study of Goldwind to illustrate how China is obtaining advanced wind power technology through international technology transfers. Starting as Xinjiang Wind Energy Company (XWEC) in 1986, Goldwind has come a long way in the wind turbine industry, becoming one of the top ten global wind energy companies by 2010. Through technology transfers from foreign companies, the company has significantly expanded beyond wind turbine manufacturing to include the entire wind industry value chain, from research and development, to project development and financing, to wind farm construction and operations. The company has begun to slowly expand its international presence, engaging in research, development, and demonstration projects on several continents.

Energy from renewable sources holds great promise for meeting the energy and development needs of countries throughout the world, without the negative external impacts of fossil fuels. This promise is particularly strong for developing countries where many areas have not yet committed to fossil fuel dominance, and where some two billion people have no access to electricity. Renewable energy sources vary widely in technical and economic characteristics, and include a considerable number of proven and emerging technologies. Hydropower, wind energy, biomass, geothermal energy, and solar energy are the most established and widely used types of renewable energy. Virtually every expert who has addressed the energy aspects of sustainable development and the need to move to a low-carbon future has concluded that renewable resources should play a major role. This chapter examines the economic, social, and legal barriers that prevent established renewable energy resources from reaching their potential and how they can be overcome by implementing effective types and mixes of legislation.

The chapter examines the role of government in green industries from 1980 to the present, using the examples of waste management and wind and solar energy. In waste, privatization and more stringent regulation encouraged the growth of global waste management companies, with huge differences in outcomes. The United States remained a laggard in recycling compared to Germany. In energy, the state of California virtually created the modern wind and solar industries in the 1980s; European governments, especially Denmark and Germany, made Europe the global center for renewable energy in the 1990s; the Chinese government made China and Chinese companies dominant in renewable energy from the 2000s. In all three cases there were significant inefficiencies in outcomes.

Chapter 1 begins by stressing the severity of climate change (CC) and showing how, contrary to popular belief, atomic energy is not a viable solution to CC. Many scientists and most market proponents agree that renewable energy and energy efficiencies are better options. The chapter also shows that government subsidies for oil and nuclear power are the result of flawed science, poor ethics, short-term thinking, and special-interest influence. The chapter has 7 sections, the first of which surveys four major components of the energy crisis. These are oil addiction, non-CC-related deaths from fossil-fuel pollution, nuclear-weapons proliferation, and catastrophic CC. The second section summarizes some of the powerful evidence for global CC. The third section uses historical, ahistorical, Rawlsian, and utilitarian ethical principles to show how developed nations, especially the US, are most responsible for human-caused CC. The fourth section shows why climate-change skeptics, such as “deniers” who doubt CC is real, and “delayers” who say that it should not yet be addressed, have no valid objections. Instead, they all err scientifically and ethically. The fifth section illustrates that all modern scientific methods—and scientific consensus since at least 1995—confirm the reality of global CC. Essentially all expert-scientific analyses published in refereed, scientific-professional journals confirm the reality of global CC. The sixth section of the chapter shows how fossil-fuel special interests have contributed to the continued CC debate largely by paying non-experts to deny or challenge CC. The seventh section of the chapter provides an outline of each chapter in the book, noting that this book makes use of both scientific and ethical analyses to show why nuclear proponents’ arguments err, why CC deniers are wrong, and how scientific-methodological understanding can advance sound energy policy—including conservation, renewable energy, and energy efficiencies.

This chapter examines the status of and the opportunities emanating from the unique and decisive relationship between the United States and China on energy and climate. It also offers recommendations for expanded U.S.–China cooperation on clean energy in order to advance the global transition to a low-carbon economy. As the top two countries in terms of energy consumption globally, China and the U.S. play an important role in the geopolitics of energy as well as climate change mitigation. Their cooperation is crucial in two specific instances: it would trigger the potential for a scale of deployment of wind turbine technology within the two countries that would result in substantial technology cost reductions globally; and that their advances in technology are crucial to climate change mitigation as their developments can serve as a model for other nations to follow in developing clean wind energy.

This chapter discusses the problems of obtaining community support and consent for wind farm development. Wind energy production has dramatically increased in the United States since the turn of the century, yet as wind towers become a prominent feature of the landscape, so too have controversies proliferated regarding the construction of these. Despite the myriad positive effects of wind energy production, wind energy facilities can have significant adverse impacts that include impacts on local communities (noise, tranquility, aesthetics), and the wider community (threats to birds, aesthetics). As such, these facilities often face local opposition, or NIMBY (‘not in my back yard’)-style resistance. Community Benefits Agreements (CBAs), however, can play a role in mitigating these negative impacts, especially those that land use authorities do not or cannot address.

This chapter inquires into the reasons for public opposition to wind turbine projects, and investigates the different community benefit schemes that are in use to reduce and compensate for the environmental impacts that projects may have on local communities and individual citizens. It offers some country examples of the status of developments in order to map the size of the case at hand—noting that Denmark, the United Kingdom, Germany, and the Netherlands seem to have been in the forefront not only in developing wind energy but also in developing community benefit schemes. The major part of the chapter, however, is devoted to the different instruments that are in use to meet the challenges of acceptance of further developments of wind energy.

Chapter 6 explores a case of clean energy retrenchment by a thousand cuts. Kansas first implemented a clean energy law in 2009. The state seemed poised to withstand retrenchment of the renewable portfolio standard due to strong growth in the wind energy industry. However, opponents returned to attack the law year after year and eventually wore down the advocates. Unable to directly overturn the law through the legislature, opponents—including Koch Industries and their allied Americans for Prosperity—worked to weaken support for the policy. They backed politicians in primaries and appointments that were anti-renewables, and they funded astroturfing campaigns. Advocates responded by organizing the public, but they were less politically influential— particularly after the Republican Party made supporting the clean energy rollback a requirement for election funding. Despite the established wind energy industry backing pro-renewable Republicans in primaries, the fossil fuel opponents were eventually able to retrench the law.

A wind turbine or even a wind farm, i.e. a group of wind turbines, is becoming an increasingly familiar sight in the countryside today. The wind turbine converts the power in the wind to electrical power and consists of a tower, rotor, typically with three blades as in Fig. 5.1, and a nacelle containing the power converter. From its rebirth in the early 1980s, wind power has experienced a dramatic development. Today, other than hydropower, it is the most important of the renewable sources of power. With an installed capacity equivalent to that required to provide electricity for over 19,000,000 average European homes and annual turnover greater than £5,500,000,000, wind energy has exceeded its year-on-year targets over the last decade. This growth in the contribution to electricity generation from wind power in Europe is likely to continue over the next few years, since the EU Commission has set a European target for 2010 of 12% of electricity generation from renewable sources. In the long term, the achievable limit to the contribution of wind power is estimated to be30%of the total European demand, an amount almost equal to the installed nuclear capacity. In the UK, wind power is the fastest growing energy sector. Over 4,000 people are employed by companies working in the wind sector , and it is estimated by the UK Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) that the next round of offshore wind development could generate a further 20,000 jobs. In a 2003 Energy White Paper, the UK government aspired to achieving a 60% reduction in UK CO2 emissions by 2050. In order to do so, it has set targets for UK electricity generation from renewable sources of 10% of electricity demand by 2010 and20% by 2015. Since it is the most mature of the renewable energies, much of these near term targets must be met by wind power . Irrespective of whether these targets are achieved, the potential for increase in the UK is substantial. The prospects for wind power development in the UK are dependent on the available wind resource, public acceptance, and technical development. Each of these issues is discussed below.