JAPAN, GERMANY & SPAIN INVADE BRITAIN FOR WIND AND WATER

Mitsubishi to build £100m UK wind turbine factory; Government aim of making Britain a centre of green manufacturing win a major boost from plans that will create hundreds of jobs
Terry Macallister, 25 February 2010 (UK Guardian)

"Moves to create a green manufacturing hub in Britain were given a major boost…when one of the world's leading wind turbine manufacturers unveiled plans to spend £100m building a new factory in the north-east…The proposal by Japan's Mitsubishi, which will create hundreds of clean-tech jobs, came as Siemens of Germany bought a stake in Marine Current Turbines, a UK-based tidal energy firm…And a Spanish-owned group, FCC, said it planned to spend another £100m building wind turbines on some of the dozens of waste recycling plants it controlled in Britain through a local subsidiary.

"Lord Mandelson said the Mitsubishi investment, coming on top of a similar recent investment by Clipper Windpower of the US [in a factory to make the largest wind turbine blade in the world], gave the UK a real opportunity to become a world leader in the sector…Mitsubishi's chief executive, Akio Fukui, said the firm was looking at a number of locations in the north-east. A prototype turbine will be built within three years and the first full-scale production could start after four years…"

With all this approved and planned wind to build, the manufacturers will have plenty of work for the UK labor force. (click to enlarge)

"The need for this kind of move was underlined by Sam Laidlaw, chief executive of Centrica, who said that it could spend up to £7.5bn by 2020 on wind operations, but stressed the economic conditions would have to be favourable. The company, which has won rights to build offshore wind farms in the Irish Sea under the recent third round of licensing, made it clear that the costs of equipment would need to fall.

"The British Wind Energy Association [BWEA] said the investments were exciting proof that the rest of the world was taking Britain's renewable energy programme seriously…[It means]…the rebirth of manufacturing in the UK, with an estimated 70,000 green-collar jobs to be created on the back of over £100bn of private sector investment…"

The UK has been and continues to slowly, steadily build what has become the most important wind sector in Europe. (click to enlarge)

"…FCC plans to spend up to £100m installing up to a total of 80 megawatts of wind turbines at some of the 100 landfill sites it owns through its Waste Recycling Group subsidiary across Britain. FCC already has 533MW of wind capacity installed across Spain, Austria and Britain.

"Greenpeace noted that the investment by Mitsubishi was particularly notable because the company was also a pillar of the atomic engineering world…[signaling the UK energy sector is moving to wind]…"