The European Union set a goal for member states of collectively investing $314 billion in the green energy transition by 2030, with two-thirds of that to be spent in just the next 5 years, by 2027. This commitment is on top of the plans the 27 member states already had.

The new goal is to get 45% of Europe’s electricity from renewables by 2030, up from a previous goal of 40%.

In addition, the Energy ministers of Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and Denmark issued a manifesto of energy independence from Russian methane gas on Wednesday, pledging themselves to create massive new wind farms in the North Sea off their coasts that will have a capacity of 65 gigawatts (GW) by 2030 and 130 GW by 2050. The European Union only has about 16 gigawatts of offshore wind installed at the moment, so they are planning to increase that by almost ten times by 2050.

The Biden adminstration’s goal for offshore wind by 2030 is only 30 gigawatts, so these four countries are aiming higher than the entire US.

Denmark and Germany already had big plans for expanding offshore wind but they are now increasing their goals. The four states are also innovating in making plans for multiple connections so that the wind farms will supply a common four-country grid. In fact, they say they want to work toward a pan-Europe grid.

They also want to innovate: “We will monitor the development of technology for solar photovoltaic within offshore wind farms.” Wind turbine/ PV solar hybrid installations produce energy more efficiently and more inexpensively.

Denmark has an artificial wind energy island on the drawing board, but now Belgium will also construct one. Indeed, all four countries will “begin planning for multiple energy hubs and islands.”

The four countries also pledged to speed up permitting, a major bottleneck for wind farms in Europe. The ministers insist, “renewable energy should be considered as being in the overriding public interest and serving public safety.”

Nikolaus J. Kurmayer at Euractiv.com quotes European commission President Ursula von der Leyen as saying, “Nowadays we have permitting times between six and nine years.” She said that these would be reduce to one year in certain “go-to” areas, i.e. high-priority green zones, including the country of Denmark.

If these plans are implemented, they will likely have unforeseen side effects, such as impelling technological innovation by European scientists and companies in the green energy space, and increasing the efficiency and lowering the cost of wind and solar.

The immediate goal is to generate 3 gigawatts, which would power half of Denmark’s buildings (its population is 6 million). The project could be scaled up to 10 gigawatts, which would provide electricity to all of Denmark and would allow 4 gigs to be exported to neighbors such as Germany. The project will begin in 2026 and will be finished between 2030 and 2033.

Euronews Living: “Denmark’s first artificial energy island will power 3 million homes”

The project will cost $34 billion and the Danish government will own 51% of it. The rest will be owned by private companies in a public/private partnership.

Studies have demonstrated that Denmark’s success in building out wind power has been driven by government policy, not tech. Individuals cannot put wind turbines on their houses, and this technology requires government support for large scale new infrastructure.

The island will be home to at least 200 wind turbines, each 850 feet high, and will possibly have 600 turbines.

Ironically, Denmark is in part using income from its petroleum sales to fund the green energy project. Denmark has recently committed to cease deep sea oil exploration and extraction by mid-century. Don’t worry, it will stop substantially before then, since electric cars will soon take over and they don’t run on petroleum.

Denmark’s legislators have set a goal of reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 70% by 2030.

Denmark already gets 40% of its electricity from wind. by the end of 2019 some 50% of its electricity came from renewables of some sort.

The country already has an energy hub on the island of Bornholm in the Baltic Sea, and it has another hub in the North Sea. Wind typically blows harder and for more hours a day offshore.

Offshore wind projects do not meet the same opposition as onshore ones, and the Biden administration is gearing up to promote offshore wind, which the US signally so far lacks. New York, Maryland and Virginia are all pursuing big offshore wind projects. For deeper waters, floating turbines can be used, and five are operating off Scotland.

Fox News tried coming after Denmark’s social safety net. This Danish politician’s clap back was legendary.

Now This: ” Fox News Tried Going After Denmark. Big Mistake. | NowThis

Denmark is a relatively small country, with a population of 5.7 million. But it is relatively wealthy, being the 35th largest economy in the world, producing more goods and services than Malaysia, Israel or the Philippines. Its military is more important than the country’s small size would suggest, since it is well supplied with fighter jets.

The country is clearly in al-Qaeda’s sights, and not only because of the Jyllands Posten publication in 2005 2007 of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad. A Danish secret agent Morten Storm, went public with claims that he was key to tracking down Anwar al-Awlaki, the American-born propagandist for al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), based in Yemen. On the basis of Storm’s information, he says, the US were able to launch drone strikes against al-Awlaki and to kill him in September, 2011. AQAP therefore has a vendetta against Denmark. The country also supported the Bush invasion and occupation of Iraq, so that Daesh / ISIL sympathizers have an animus against it. The Danish air force is bombing the radicals in Iraq nowadays.

AQAP is the most energetic of the al-Qaeda affiliates in attempting to inflict terrorism on the West, and was behind the 2009 ‘underwear bomber’ plot to blow up an airliner over Detroit, along with other plots targeting Western countries. The Kouachi brothers who spearheaded the attack on Charlie Hebdo in Paris were connected to AQAP and one of them had visited Yemen and been hosted by al-Awlaki in Maarib shortly before the latter’s death. AQAP claimed to have been behind the Paris attacks.

It is too soon to know (if we ever can) who exactly was behind the Copenhagen attacks on Saturday. But they followed very closely the Paris playbook, with an attack on a seminar discussing freedom of speech, attended by one of the caricaturists who lampooned the Prophet Muhammad. Then there was a side attack on a synagogue. These two targets were similar to those in Paris.

At the very least, it would be no surprise to discover that AQAP ordered them. Because this is a possibility, it seems to me that Danish authorities were lax in providing security to a meeting that involved Lars Vilks, the Swedish cartoonist. AQAP or something like it has sleeper cells in Europe and has put the word out (whether formally or informally) to deploy violence. A Moroccan-Danish al-Qaeda enthusiast was just sentenced for trying to support and recruit for al-Qaeda on social media. Seasoned observers warned that the Paris attacks were unlikely to be the last by the radicals.

This kind of violence is extremely useful to al-Qaeda offshoots and affiliates, since it produces a Western backlash against ordinary everyday European Muslims, which can then drive the latter into the arms of the radicals. Denmark has a couple hundred thousand Muslims, and about 2700 Danish converts to Islam. Morten Storm was a Danish biker and misfit who became a radical Muslim and then switched to informing for the CIA. Because Danish Muslims are relatively wealthy and from a relatively wealthy country, and because they are Europeans, al-Qaeda would like to recruit them. But they would for the most part only embrace it out of desperation. It is therefore necessary to produce desperation by putting them in trouble with the government and with white supremacists.

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Ruptly TV: “Denmark: BREAKING Police shoot man in Copenhagen train station”