By CRISTEN BALDWIN AND TORY COOPER-JONES, age 9
Today, Denmark gets 40% of its power from wind, and the country has a big goal of not using any fossil fuels by the year 2050. The country also has a short-term goal to generate 50% of its power from wind during the next 10 years.
Wind power is a good option for Denmark because it is a peninsula, meaning it gets a lot of wind coming off of the surrounding waters. In fact, in the summer of 2015, Denmark had such windy conditions that it generated 140% of its electricity from wind. Denmark exported the extra electricity to Sweden, Norway, and Germany.
“It shows that a world powered 100% by renewable energy is no fantasy,” said Oliver Joy, a spokesman for the European Wind Energy Association.
Best of all, many regions of the world can take advantage of wind power, because windy conditions exist across a variety of land formations. The most common places to install wind turbines are offshore to catch ocean breezes and windswept plains.
Wind power: A source of energy that uses wind turbines (windmills) to create electricity.
Peninsula: A body of land surrounded by water on three sides.
