FRENCH HAVE WIND

From PlanetArk:

Wind Could be Third of French Energy Mix

FRANCE
July 11, 2006
PARIS - France's wind power share in electricity consumption could jump to 30 percent by 2030 provided the government removes bureaucratic hurdles, France's wind power association said on Monday.

Wind power makes up 0.25 percent of French electricity consumption with a production capacity of 1,000 MW. A 2001 European Union directive requires EU members to bring their green electricity share to 21 percent of their power mix by 2010.

"The potential we have in France and the government-set tariffs allow us to believe that wind power could make up 30 percent of French electricity consumption by 2030," Jean-Yves Grandidier, head of the FEE union, told Reuters.

He said that the newly-set government's aim to reach 13,500 MW of wind power by 2013 was realistic provided Paris acts to remove administrative obstacles blocking the sector's progress.

Ask someone who has been in the US alternative energy fight for a long time and he's likely to be very skeptical of the entrepeneurial boom going on in the US now and he's likely to be very admiring of the progress being made in Europe. Why? Because he believes if the price of oil drops, those US entrepeneurs are gong to be dreamers with tax dedutible losses. In Europe, the economic and tax systems support the changes that must come.