Mar 3, 2012 - When was the last time you have made a difference?
Just a blink of eyes, my Geotourism course will almost finish. I have made a lot of new friends. One of them is the Chairman of Association for Geoconservation, Hong Kong. One of my new friends and me heard that he was giving a talk on wind power development in Hong Kong, we volunteered. So this morning, me and my friend went with Dr. Ng and other volunteers to Baptist U in Shek Mun.

I have been following the news on wind power development in Hong Kong. There is currently one turbine on Lamma Island run by HKE as a trial. It never ceases to amaze me how different the same old thing can look from just a different perspective.

Yes, regenerated energy itself is clean, no air pollution and no carbon dioxide emission. However, if we also consider the carbon dioxide emitted through the manufacturing and construction of the turbines, pulling them up offshore (the plan submitted by CLP is to build in the sea off Nine Pins Islands and HKE is off Lamma Island), wind in HK is not reliable, a lot of time it's either too weak or too strong and the extremely low capacity factor of ~20% (i.e. of all the maximum capacity CLP & HKE claim the turbine can have, averagely speaking only ~20% of time the turbines are productive).... As a conclusion, regenerated energy is not the best solution for HK because of various reasons. Wind power although is considered as green power, with the nature resources and limitation of HK, it is not efficient, not economical and not effective at all. As I have always said, the power companies are doing this just for the sake of doing it because they have to show HK people and government that they go green. Nah... we do not need that.

... to be continued :)