Planet Ark : Work Starts Near Glasgow on Europe's Largest Wind Farm


LONDON - Work began in Scotland on Monday on what will be Europe's largest onshore wind farm, generating enough electricity to power 200,000 homes.
The project, opened by Trade Secretary Alistair Darling, is part of the government's pledge to cut carbon emissions and raise the amount of electricity it gets from renewable sources to 20 percent by 2020 from four percent now.
"Within three years, 140 turbines will rise above Eaglesham Moor," Darling said. "It will be the largest onshore wind farm in Europe and make a major contribution to our twin aims of securing energy supplies and tackling climate change."
The wind farm near Glasgow will generate 322 megawatts of electricity and save 250,000 tonnes of the climate-warming greenhouse gas carbon dioxide.
But at the same time as extolling its own green credentials, the government came under renewed attack for failing to take any action to curb booming air transport -- a major but unrestricted contributor to climatic pollution.
A group of environmental pressure groups -- including Greenpeace, airportwatch and enoughenoughcalling -- going under the name of SPURT took out full-page newspaper advertisements pouring scorn on the government's green track record.
They invited people to cut out a coupon urging Transport Secretary Douglas Alexander to stop listening to scientists, build more airports and ignore the environment in favour of money.
Both the start of work on the wind farm and the campaign came on the same day as a leading think-tank said the world had slipped into the ecological red -- meaning that for the rest of the year mankind will be living beyond its environmental means.
Ecological Debt Day or Overshoot Day, measures the point at which the consumption of resources exceeds the ability of the planet to replace them -- and it gets earlier every year.
"The fact that this year, ecological debt day falls on Oct. 9, only three quarters of the way through the year, means that we are living well beyond our environmental means," said the New Economics Foundation (NEF) think-tank.