The Scottish government ignored the bluff, bluster and threats made by the bilious, billionaire blowhard, Donald Trump, and approved the installation of eleven wind turbines in an experimental offshore wind farm off the coast of Aberdeen. Trump is strongly of the view that the wind turbines will spoil the view from a golf course that he is developing nearby.  The real-estate magnate and reality TV show opined, in a bizarre, yet not untypical tirade, ““All over the world they are being abandoned, but in Scotland they are being built. We will put our future plans in Aberdeen on hold, as will many others, until this ridiculous proposal is defeated. Likewise, we will be bringing a lawsuit within the allocated period of time to stop what will definitely be the destruction of Aberdeen and Scotland itself.”

Scottish government ignores Donald Trump’s threats and approves windfarm

In fact, rather than being abandoned, as claimed by Trump, offshore wind power is growing rapidly. From an installed capacity of over 3GW in 2010, offshore wind power is expected to grow to 75GW by 2020. At the end of 2011, there were 53 European offshore wind farms in waters off Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and the United Kingdom, with an operating capacity of 3,813 MW. Wind farms with an additional 5,603 MW are under construction. There are no offshore wind farms yet in place in the United States.

It should not be surprising that the government chose to ignore Trump’s bloviations as the UK is a leader in offshore energy production. The world’s two largest wind farms are the UK’s Walney and Thanet offshore wind farms.  They will soon be overtaken by the UK’s Greater Gabbard wind farm, coming on line this year, with a maximum capacity of over 500MW.

The wind farm that has raised Trump’s hackles  is expected to be capable of providing energy to meet the electricity needs of 49,000 homes — almost half the number in Aberdeen.