For this green economy to take off, Europe will need to focus its energies. A good start would be to cut red tape, and countries bordering the North Sea will need to work together
Save time by listening to our audio articles as you multitaskOne unlikely bright spot is the part of Europe with the grimmest weather. As we report this week, a newis taking shape in and around the North Sea. Rather as hydropower fuelled Lancashire’s cotton mills and cheap coal the Ruhr valley’s steel furnaces in the early days of industrialisation, the promise of cheap, abundant wind power is attracting industry and infrastructure to Europe’s northern coasts.
The North Sea’s strong winds and relative shallowness together make it a huge basin of potential energy. Thanks to taller and more powerful wind turbines, more efficient undersea cables and other technological advances, it is now increasingly being tapped. A group of nine countries near this body of water has plans to install 260of offshore wind power by 2050—nearly five times that produced worldwide today, and enough to power all of the European Union’s nearly 200m households.
All this is breathing life into a new coastal economy. Esbjerg, a town in south-west Denmark that some consider the capital of the North Sea economy, now boasts companies that make equipment to build and maintain wind turbines. Many once supplied the offshore-oil-and-gas industry, but have shifted their attention to greener customers.
Nordic countries are beginning to attract energy-hungry battery plants and data centres. On Germany’s North Sea coast, a plan is afoot to build facilities to turn easier-to-transport ammonia into hydrogen, to fuel factories in nearby industrial parks. Even parts of steelmaking could eventually move north, as hydrogen replaces coal or gas in the manufacturing process.
For this economy to take off, though, Europe will need to focus its energies. A good start would be to cut red tape: getting a permit to build a new wind farm can take ten years, or even longer. Countries bordering the North Sea will need to work together to ensure that the seabed does not become overcrowded with cables and pipes and that infrastructure is looked after. The rise of the new coastal economy could be fiercely resisted in the old industrial heartlands.
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