The Danish Experience

Denmark's Wind Power Experience: Costs and Consequences

Watch this interview on YouTube with Martin Agerup of CEPOS and Hugh Sharman of Incoteco discussing Denmark's experience with wind energy.

Denmark produces the equivalent of 20% of their electricity from wind,
but they must export most of it to neighboring countries.
Often this electricity is sold for much less than it costs to produce it, and the Danish taxpayer pays the difference.

Denmark again

http://www.windturbinesyndrome.com/news/2011/the-courage-and-necessity-of-we-the-people-denmark/

This article begins:

"I have long argued that Big Wind must be stopped by civil disobedience. Not lawsuits (they don’t work), not public hearings (they’re a farce), not invoking empirical scientific, clinical, or economic evidence (it’s routinely ignored and trivialized).

By civil disobedience I don’t mean violence. Violence is never acceptable. Violence is absurd (I speak as a professional historian)."

Please read it all - there are photographs from Denmark as well.

Latest news from Denmark

This is the latest news sent to us by Peter Skeel Hjorth.

"July 28th 2011 Two activists were arrested Thursday morning in Østerild Klitplantage in Thy, Denmark.

One was bitten by a police dog. Activists went through a police bar. Police dogs were sent into the area, and one of the activists had superficial scratches, as the dogs stopped him, a police spokesman said . The activist who was bitten is Amos Stenner, who Tuesday made ​​himself noticed when he sat for hours in a tree to be cut down.

"We were going to build a nest in one of the trees that have not yet been harvested. There was no police bar or warnings. When the police came, we would leave, but I forgot my jacket and phone at the nest, and went back to retrieve it. Suddenly a German shepherd came behind me and bit my arm," Amos Spener from the activists' camp in Østerild told the press.

"The dog bit my arm and my leg. It was very painful", Amos Spener said. He has spoken with his lawyer. And it may well be that this ends with a lawsuit. At hospital Amos Stenner had his wounds cleaned at hospital. He is released, while the other arrested activist was kept for interrogation. Both can expect a fine of 4000 Dkr = 550 Euro."

Peter also sent us a link to these photos by Egon Bennetsen:

The place with the flag at half mast shows the place where the activists had their tents, until the police demanded they moved. The other photos show how it looks after cutting down trees. One photo shows the police who still watch the area.

Activist in tree

More from Peter Skeel Hjorth:
This morning one of the activist crawled up into a tree before the police
could stop him. He is refuse to come down and is still sitting there. Here
is a link to Danish TV2 News:

http://nyhederne.tv2.dk/article.php/id-42048540:aktivist-n%C3%A6gter-at-komme-ned-fra-tr%C3%A6.html

Here's a link showing it translated (Google Translate)

http://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&sl=da&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fnyhederne.tv2.dk%2Farticle.php%2Fid-42048540%3Aaktivist-n%25C3%25A6gter-at-komme-ned-fra-tr%25C3%25A6.html

Watch this video!

http://nyhederne.tv2.dk/article.php/id-41917327:politiet-p%C3%A5-umulig-opgave-i-%C3%B8sterild.html

This is a link to a video showing protesters running to stand in front of the machines that were advancing on the forest where they planned to build 250m high turbines. As each protester is carried away by the police, more come to take their place. In the end, the police gave up.

Why didn't this happen at Romney Marsh, or Fullabrook Down, or Cefn Croes? Until people see industrial wind turbines with their own eyes, and become aware of the environmental damage that they cause, they don't usually understand the problems associated with them. It is easy to be misled by the PR of the wind industry, with their photographs of happy families with small and inoffensive-looking turbines in the background. Make no mistake, as more and more turbines are forced onto our landscapes against the will of the local people, this will happen here too, as it is in Demark, and the USA.

Photos

Thanks to Egon Bennetsen for allowing us to show this and other photographs (on our Facebook page) of activists at the blockade against the Danish test centre for giant wind turbines.

Well done to all these brave Danish activists!

A quick attempt to translate using Google translate wasn't that successful, but the first words seem to be:

"We are nature's friends"

and that is something all fighters against industrial wind power agree with.