4 ms·

I guess geography is a bigger reason than both tech and policy. Denmark probably have more coast per km2 than any other country in Europe.

Etheryte 6y ago
I would say this is somewhat misleading. It's not like other countries ran out of coast to put wind turbines on and that's the reason Denmark is ahead.
- rightbyte 6y ago
  Ye well the turbines doesn't build them self ofcourse. I just mean that Denmark probably has the best locations to put them in the whole of Europe. Flat land and alot of see dunes. The article didn't touch that. Obvoiusly bad policies could have had them stuck at burning oil ...
- the-dude 6y ago
  Denmark has much more very low populated coast though. In NL we have plenty of turbines, curiously hardly on the coast.
capableweb 6y ago
Not sure about that, there are plenty of island-states in Europe that would surely have more coast per km2. Cyprus, Malta, Faroe Islands and more comes to mind.
- rightbyte 6y ago
  Ye sure that is correct. "A lot of coast per km2 compared to other countries", then.
- Someone 6y ago
  Would they? Denmark isn’t a single land mass. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denmark https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denmark: “Denmark proper, which is the southernmost of the Scandinavian countries, consists of a peninsula, Jutland, and an archipelago of 443 named islands” Also, the Faroe Islands are part of the kingdom of Denmark (but if you go that way, you’ll also have to include Greenland, which has a low coastline/land area fraction) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_length_of_coastline https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_length_of... puts Denmark at ≈150 m/km², Cyprus at ≈70, Malta at ≈700 (where does that come from? It’s only 3 islands. I would guess that’s using a different step size to measure coast length)
  - capableweb 6y ago
    Hehe, yeah, true about Faroe Islands, my mistake. Although, I'd still guess that full islands probably have more coast per km2 than half-islands (as Jutland has a tiny bit that is not coast) Worth adding is that we probably never will get a precise answer to this question, as measuring coasts is a famously hard problem where the more detailed the measuring, the longer the coast gets. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coastline_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coastline_paradox
    - BlueTemplar 6y ago
      So, how is it measured in practice ?
      - Someone 6y ago
        One option is to pick a yardstick size and keep that for all measurements. Disadvantage is that the size picked affects not only the coast lengths, but also relative differences and even rankings. It also means scaling an area by a factor of N (typically) won’t scale its boundary length by N. That’s counterintuitive. That brings us to option 2: vary yardstick length with the size of the object being measured. Question then is: how exactly? Alternatively, estimate the fractal dimension (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractal_dimension https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractal_dimension) of the area and use that as the measure of coast length/area.
- enaaem 6y ago
  Other factors then amount of coast plays a role as well. An overcapacity of Danish wind energy can be converted into pumped hydroelectric storage in Norway.
  - Ekaros 6y ago
    Or simply not running the hydro. Which if there is sufficient reservoir capacity is even better.
ClumsyPilot 6y ago
Scotland and Uk in general has vastly more potential wind energy than it could ever need, especially offshore wind in the north. It is being rapidly developed only now, as the cost of wind power in UK has plummeted

Etheryte 6y ago

I would say this is somewhat misleading. It's not like other countries ran out of coast to put wind turbines on and that's the reason Denmark is ahead.

rightbyte 6y ago
Ye well the turbines doesn't build them self ofcourse. I just mean that Denmark probably has the best locations to put them in the whole of Europe. Flat land and alot of see dunes. The article didn't touch that. Obvoiusly bad policies could have had them stuck at burning oil ...
the-dude 6y ago
Denmark has much more very low populated coast though. In NL we have plenty of turbines, curiously hardly on the coast.

capableweb 6y ago

Not sure about that, there are plenty of island-states in Europe that would surely have more coast per km2. Cyprus, Malta, Faroe Islands and more comes to mind.

rightbyte 6y ago
Ye sure that is correct. "A lot of coast per km2 compared to other countries", then.
Someone 6y ago
Would they? Denmark isn’t a single land mass. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denmark https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denmark: “Denmark proper, which is the southernmost of the Scandinavian countries, consists of a peninsula, Jutland, and an archipelago of 443 named islands” Also, the Faroe Islands are part of the kingdom of Denmark (but if you go that way, you’ll also have to include Greenland, which has a low coastline/land area fraction) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_length_of_coastline https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_length_of... puts Denmark at ≈150 m/km², Cyprus at ≈70, Malta at ≈700 (where does that come from? It’s only 3 islands. I would guess that’s using a different step size to measure coast length)
- capableweb 6y ago
  Hehe, yeah, true about Faroe Islands, my mistake. Although, I'd still guess that full islands probably have more coast per km2 than half-islands (as Jutland has a tiny bit that is not coast) Worth adding is that we probably never will get a precise answer to this question, as measuring coasts is a famously hard problem where the more detailed the measuring, the longer the coast gets. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coastline_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coastline_paradox
  - BlueTemplar 6y ago
    So, how is it measured in practice ?
    - Someone 6y ago
      One option is to pick a yardstick size and keep that for all measurements. Disadvantage is that the size picked affects not only the coast lengths, but also relative differences and even rankings. It also means scaling an area by a factor of N (typically) won’t scale its boundary length by N. That’s counterintuitive. That brings us to option 2: vary yardstick length with the size of the object being measured. Question then is: how exactly? Alternatively, estimate the fractal dimension (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractal_dimension https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractal_dimension) of the area and use that as the measure of coast length/area.
enaaem 6y ago
Other factors then amount of coast plays a role as well. An overcapacity of Danish wind energy can be converted into pumped hydroelectric storage in Norway.
- Ekaros 6y ago
  Or simply not running the hydro. Which if there is sufficient reservoir capacity is even better.

ClumsyPilot 6y ago

Scotland and Uk in general has vastly more potential wind energy than it could ever need, especially offshore wind in the north. It is being rapidly developed only now, as the cost of wind power in UK has plummeted