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SAMI

Sami district rejects wind power compensation

The Sami district of Östra Kikkejaure in the far north of Sweden has rejected an offer of compensation for wind turbines planned in the area, arguing that they disturb their reindeer.

Sami district rejects wind power compensation

The district was offered 5,000 kronor ($695) per annum per turbine – a total of 5.5 million per annum, on completion of the project, but has demanded a significantly higher sum, local newspaper Piteå-Tidningen reports.

“We say no. The money is not in parity with the problems that this causes and the threat against our reindeer herding,” Anders Ruth at the district told the newspaper.

The government has given its backing to the construction of 1,101 wind turbines in Markbygden, an area that is used by reindeer herders from Östra Kikkejaure for the winter grazing of their 4,000 strong flock.

The wind turbine project will affect about 25 percent of the grazing areas and the government has ruled that the Sami should be compensated.

“The same number of reindeer have to be fed from a reduced area, which will be exploited harder. It won’t work, and it is not possible to find alternative grazing areas,” Ruth told the newspaper.

The Sami argue that without sufficient grazing the reindeer will have to be given extra feed and this comes at a price, reported to be around twice that offered by Svevind, the wind power firm behind the project.

The planned wind power investments in Markbygden are estimated to cost 40-60 billion kronor and will generate as much energy as two nuclear reactors.

An estimated 20,000 Sami live in Sweden, with the population concentrated in the far north of the country.

Sweden contains a total of 51 ‘samebys’, the administrative and financial district collectives which by law have the sole right to conduct reindeer herding in Sweden.

Currently, about 10 percent of Sweden’s Sami population belong to a sameby (literally ‘Sami village’). In addition to the right to control reindeer herding, members of a sameby also have hunting and fishing rights within its designated area.

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ENERGY

Denmark and Baltic countries plan ‘seven times more’ offshore wind energy

Denmark and other nations bordering the Baltic Sea will announce on Tuesday a plan to dramatically boost offshore wind energy by 2030. 

Denmark and Baltic countries plan 'seven times more' offshore wind energy

Today, just under 3 gigawatts are generated in the Baltic Sea, about half of which is Danish energy. An additional 1,100 to 1,700 offshore wind turbines will be needed to bring the total energy capacity to nearly 20 gigawatts in 2030.

A joint agreement to reach these levels in coming years is to be announced by participating countries on Tuesday, according to newspaper Politiken.

The newspaper reports a draft declaration it has seen in relation to the agreement, which will be presented at a summit at the Danish prime minister’s residence, Marienborg, north of Copenhagen on Tuesday.

READ ALSO: Denmark keen to join with Baltic countries on wind energy

Should the amount of additional energy reported by Politiken be produced, as many as 22 to 30 million households could see their energy needs covered by wind power.

Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen talked up the importance of wind power in comments to Politiken.

“The war in Ukraine and climate change are being met with now. We have two crises on the table at the same time. We need to speed up green energy conversion and we need to free ourselves from Russian fossil fuels,” she said.

Frederiksen is participating in the summit on behalf of Denmark. Senior officials and leaders and from Germany, Poland, Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia and the EU Commission will also attend.

The summit was earlier scheduled to take place on Denmark’s Baltic island Bornholm but was moved due to a strike at Bornholm’s airport, which was not resolved until late on Monday.

A total of 2.8 gigawatts of wind power are currently produced in the Baltic Sea according to the Danish energy ministry.

Potentially, that could be increased to 93 gigawatts by 2050, an EU Commission assessment has found.

Earlier this year, Frederiksen hosted a green energy summit in western Danish city Esbjerg, at which the government signed an agreement with Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany for a ten-fold increase of offshore wind power capacity in the North Sea to 150 gigawatts by 2050.

On Monday, the Danish parliament voted through plans to increase production wind energy at a wind turbine park off Bornholm from 2 to 3 gigawatts. The facility will be connected to Germany.

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