Global warming has many consequences on our lives, but one of them is probably not yet fully taken into account.
With rising energy prices, warming can be seen as “good news” (with big quotes) because winters will be less cold and there will be less need to heat homes. “On the other hand, we will need a lot more energy in summer for air conditioning”counterbalances Xavier Fettweis, climatologist at the University of Liège.
“We take this very little into account, but global warming will impact the source of renewable energies. There will be a lot less wind in Belgium, but we will have a lot more sun for the solar panels”still advances Xavier Fettweis.
A declaration which goes once morest the ambitions of the Minister of Energy, Tinne Van der Straeten, who affirms “believe in my investments in wind power”.
However, according to the climatologist, the wind power situation will go from bad to worse. “The engine of the wind is the temperature difference between the Poles and the Equator. As the Poles warm up four times faster than the Equator, the wind will decrease, especially in winter. It’s going to be problematic. To give an example, in France, the amount of energy produced by wind turbines is decreasing while the wind farm is increasing. This is a phenomenon that we are already observing now and which will have to be taken into account in the future..”
An idea: get out of the country
“One of the solutions would be to install wind turbines in Greenland where the wind will not decrease because there is a local wind which will remain very strong”, says the climatologist. “There is a potential that is very important. We will just have to try to connect the energy that would be produced in Greenland to Belgium“.
“Given the price of gas, it’s really profitable to invest billions of euros in wind turbines in Greenland, I hope it will be done in 5-10 years“, he believes.