Vattenfall wins joint bid to build world's biggest wind farm

This is good news.

This will help secure jobs and also help the enviroment, while reducing oil imports.

A win-win situation for all.

Nemesis...construction in 3 years helps nobody now. Spain will be lucky to count or pray to whomever they don't default this year.

Besides, nuclear and natural gas are much more favorable in the short term than wind in the energy sector.

3 Years is a very short time. Planning does not happen over night. It might not help somebody now, but in 3 years time, it will help somebody. That sounds great.

@weekend warrior

The world has been dependent on oil for over a century. Does anyone expect alternatives to be achieved over night? This is a good thing. Besides, last time I checked, expanding nuclear potential also takes years to achieve.

@ Weekend_warrior

Gas is the last thing we need now. Russia has to prove itself a stable supplier and to make matters worse gas is a greenhouse gas. We need to cut back on greenhouse gas's not increase them.

Most energy projects happen over a long period of time. In Europe long term infrsatructure planning covers decades, where'as in UK, Eire and USA long term means until the next opinion poll.

This project does help people now. It allows companies to gear up production wiht better planning and also lets workers in the assembly lines know that 3 years from now there will be a contract comming onstream. It is called long term planning.

It also gives enough time to integrate electicity networks.

Power supply and distribution does not happen in the short term. It always requires long term planning.

The future is more important than your here and now mentality.

This is the first announcement of many regarding wind farms.

Also there is another part of this win-win situation. Fishing is impossible around teh wind farms. They act as hatcheries for fish, which can only help with restocking and maintaining fisheries.

Sweden now taxes people whom invest in wind farms in Sweden.

great news! this government stated only this week what good news it is for British industry,

now we learn that the contract goes to Sweden and Spain. The only turbine maker in the U.K went out of business a few years ago!! so who will be making the turbines?

@ ericinlincs

The lead contactors are in germany. Swedish, Dutch and Danish companies already have most of the subcontract work, with smaller amound of subcontract work spread around Europe. Total cost is expected to exceed 100 billion Euro of the wond farms in the North Sea, whiich will be a massive boost for European manufacturing industry.

The plan is to cover most of Dogger bank in Massive wind turbines. It is a shallow area of water in the north sea, that was land up to about 8000 years ago.

There is speculation that if UK and Eire can actually get there act together that the same will be done of the entire west coast of Scotland and Ireland, where there is more potential than most of Europe combined for wind power.

The Dogger Bank plan will also turn Dogger bank into a massive fishing nursery, which will help in restocking fish stocks as fishing is banned around wind turbines.

@Nemesis

wound it not be nice if our Government came clean and told us that the majority of work would be done by European companies and that the British as usual are fed the peanuts?

perhaps I should "Google" British Turbine Makers just to see what results I get!

Maybe Napolean was right when he called us a country of shop keepers as we no longer seem to have the ability to produce the vast amounts of goods that were made here so many years ago, I note that even though the British were the best in building steam trains among other things, we have now imported a Bullet Train from Japan!

as a seventy year old it saddens me to see the decline in my country.

@ ericinlincs

The UK does not have the industrial capacity to handle this contract. That is the problem.

Also a question you need to ask is this.

If the contract had been awarded solely in the UK, it would mean having to revive UK manufacturing. Why does the government not want that?

The German government has always ensured scalability in its industries and infrastructure, so will have no problem handling this contract.

Some small companies from Birmingham, Glasgow, Dundee, Aberdeen and Belfast are supposed to be getting some small bits of sub contract work, but nothing worth shouting about.

Only Belfast or Glasgow could even take a crack at this contract and it would take them nearly a decade to build up the capacity. Only Belfast has the capacity to even handle these wind turbines in its docks these days, but not the industrial capacity to build so many. The dry dock in Belfast is going to be utilised for this contract. It just hasn't been anounced yet.

There is almost nothing left of the old manufacturing centres in Birmingham, just some hobbiests. The hobbiests in Brum can still show an engineering company a thing or two. One made a celtic torque for a friend of mine. The intricasy of the work is incredible.

Local kids with a degree from a UK or Irish university are useless in practical terms in engineering. They literally know nothing. How they got a degree with such bad mathmatics is beyond me.

The UK people have consistantly voted since the late 50's to have governments that oppose the UK having indigenous industry, just like Eire has always had governments opposed to local manufacturing, instead favouring golf courses, bankers and priests.

Britain declined because the people voted for it to decline. The British like the Irish can only blame themselves.

The only way the UK and Ireland can prosper is to drop there insane backward looking politics and engage properly with long term planning as the Germans and most other European countries do. Literally politicans wait until opinions polls are published before even speaking.

Short terminism does not work. They need to look towards Europe.

Green energy would be great. I would not only love to see it but I have been waiting for years to see the technologies mature. They haven't. The only winners are the politicians who dole out the lucrative contracts, the green scam business owners who gain short term profits while sucking on the government teet, and specialized workers who gain short term work.

The only possible positive I see on this is the also recently announced EU $40 billion electric grid which can be used to supplement the existing EU grid.

Solar, wind and wave power are not ready for prime time. They are expensive, undependable, high maintenance and exist only in the presence of high government subsidies. Continued efforts should be made to develop green technologies so that one day perhaps they can competitively contribute to the powering of our industries and homes instead of simply being pacifiers for green parties & Eco-nuts.

I am glad to see the wind power development. The logical extension of it will be of the coasts of Hebredies in Scotland and Donegal in Ireland. It will help to create a lot of maintenance jobs based in ports which badly need the investment.

Oh awesome - another Swedish state owned company.

lol at vattenfall, they must like pictures of the queen.

£150bn were printed in 2009.

The UK is like zimbabwe and twenties germany, still if people like bits of paper, then fine. Free wind turbines!

Stop windfarms in Sweden now! They create an unsightly mess and destroy the scenery. Think realistically.