Below article from today's The Standard!
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Greenpeace blasts HK as being all wind
Paris Lord
Greenpeace has again blasted the government's commitment to making renewable energy available in the territory, calling current plans ``window dressing'' when the territory could be a world leader.
Back from an international conference in Germany, Greenpeace campaign director Lo Sze-ping said Hong Kong should follow China, whose officials told the conference that by 2010, about 10 per cent of the country's installed power generation capacity would come from renewable sources.
Greenpeace's call follows a new study published by King's College in Britain showing London's air pollution, especially tiny dust particles from vehicle exhausts and ozone, could reduce its residents' life expectancy by up to 10 years.
Hong Kong spends at least HK$3.8 billion annually on treating air pollution-related health problems, the Environmental Protection Department has said, using 1998 figures.
Lo said government officials responsible for renewable energy policies had ``no clue'' about the level of development of the industry in Europe - the world leader in wind-power generation.
Officials were also ignorant about the level of international political commitment to developing cleaner electricity, such as through last week's International Conference for Renewable Energies in Bonn.
A Hong Kong official - part of China's delegation - asked whether the central government had selected a site for a tidal wave experiment, which Lo said would produce far less electricity than wind farms.
It was a ``totally irrelevant'' question that showed the government's representatives ``are not plugged into the debate at all'', Lo said.
He praised Hongkong Electric's plan for a wind turbine on Lamma, and urged the territory's largest energy company, CLP Power, to try to catch up.
A spokeswoman for Hongkong Electric yesterday said the company had agreed with the government to build a 600kW wind turbine.
It would be the first commercial scale wind turbine in the territory, and should start initial operation in early 2006.
An environmental impact assessment study and planning for a site on Lamma was under way, followed by designing, buying the equipment, installation and connection to the company's network.
``We will consider the operations of this experimental project in mapping out our policy on wind power in the future,'' she said.
A spokeswoman for CLP Power, which has hired Hong Kong University of Science and Technology to help it find a site for a pilot project, said the company would reply to Greenpeace today.
An Environment, Transport and Works Bureau spokeswoman last month said while the government was keen to promote renewable energy, it was aware of the territory's geographical limitations and constraints imposed by high population density.
The government needed to evaluate both sides of the argument because producing a ``sizeable amount'' of electricity from wind farms would mean putting them in country parks and around the coast line, the spokeswoman said.
But no surveys had been done to bolster the government's claims, while putting wind farms several kilometres off-shore would mean visual pollution was greatly reduced, Lo said.
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