Marine Winds Energy on the Forefront of Development

Not so many decades ago any proposal to capture the energy of marine winds would have been met with condescending smiles and the conviction that if even such electricity source would be put to use it would be on at best a pilot scale. Really thoughts of large installations were just one of those far-fetched engineers’ dreams best relegated to the pages of scientific periodicals. Yet, of all the marine sources of energy harnessed to produce electricity, wind power is among the leaders. This paper will consider the wind farms established off and on shore; the largest projects have been implanted in the Scandinavian countries though their southern neighbors, particularly Germany and The Netherlands are displaying a solid determination to use marine winds for electricity generation. The technology exists, the environmental nuisance is benign if sites are carefully selected. But detractors still exist and they object to aesthetic damage that, they claim, is brought about. Implementation is occasionally stymied for judiciary and/or political reasons; the case of Belgium is used as an example.