The world's most famous environmental group will descend on Kings Lynn today (Tuesday) as Greenpeace urges locals to back a new plan to build thousands of wind turbines off the coast of East Anglia.
The Greenpeace Wind Tour is visiting sixteen towns in the region over three weeks, recruiting support for the plan to make East Anglia the renewable energy capital of the world. A mobile cinema will show the film 'The Wind' - made for the group by acclaimed director Julian Temple, while experts will be on hand to talk about the plan.
The government is planning a new generation of nuclear power stations for the area, but Greenpeace will tell people in Kings Lynn about new research that demonstrates how wind energy generation off East Anglia alone could replace nuclear power in the UK.
A new study by a team of renowned energy experts has found that a quarter of Britain's electricity needs could be met by building off-shore wind farms between the Humber and the Thames. The vision is being backed by a group of companies - including Ipswich-based power giant TXU - which have joined forces with environmentalists to call for the plan to be realised.
Now Greenpeace is offering local residents the chance to find out more about the anticipated development when the tour stops in Market Square, from 10 a.m. today.
Copies of the new study - Sea Wind East - will be available to people who want to know more. The authors, energy experts AEA Technology, calculate that a large scale East Anglian wind industry could create 60,000 jobs and attract investment of twenty billion pounds. They found that low tidal ranges, shallow water depths, high wind speeds and seabed conditions make the region ideally suited for wind energy development on an industrial scale. AEA calculates that the amount of electricity generated by these power stations at sea would meet a quarter of Britain's needs. Forty wind farms comprising fifteen thousand turbines covering 4000 square kilometres would create a capacity of 30,000MW - the equivalent of 30 conventional power stations.
Laura Yates of Greenpeace said: "We've come to Kings Lynn to tell people about our vision to make this region a world famous centre for renewable energy. Development here would massively reduce pollution and bring thousands of jobs pouring into East Anglia, but it will only happen if people tell government and industry it's what they want."
The authors of the new study predict the construction of forty power stations at sea could be completed by 2020. The government has so far pledged to generate only 10% of UK electricity from renewable energy by 2010 but is currently considering whether to set a new, higher target.
Laura Yates added: "We know many people in the region have great concerns about the nuclear power station at Sizewell. Installations like this are ticking time-bombs, but instead of closing them down Tony Blair wants to see more of them built. But if government embraces the plan to build forty wind farms off East Anglia, he could end the dangerous era of nuclear power generation and make the UK a world leader in clean renewable energy."
Notes:
1. The Greenpeace East Anglia wind tour visits 16 towns in 3 weeks: July 26th Chelmsford, July 27th Peterborough, July 28th Hunstanton, July 30th Kings Lynn, 1st Norwich, August 2nd Lowestoft, August 3rd Great Yarmouth, August 4th Cromer, August 7th Aldeburgh then Leiston, August 8th Colchester, August 9th Clacton, August 10th Southend, August 11th Felixstowe, August 12th Ipswich.
