Green Giraffe Sees Funds Available for EU Offshore Wind Plans

Developers of offshore wind power stations in Europe will be able to find the "tens of billions of euros" they need to build the capacity planned even though banks are lending less, said Green Giraffe Energy Bankers.

"Available funds are growing alongside the industry," Jerome Guillet, managing director of the Paris-based company that advises on wind projects, said by e-mail. "They will come from the traditional investors in the sectors such as utilities and from third parties" ranging from infrastructure to pension funds, he said.

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"Funding, whether debt finance, equity or other hybrid forms, is there for good projects and will continue to be as the industry grows," he said. This is despite a "general perception" of financing shortages caused by the European debt crisis, he said. Third-party funding has actually outpaced industry growth in the past two years, he said.

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Guillet's Green Giraffe Energy Bankers is working on offshore wind projects in six countries including France, where it advised Electricite de France SA and Dong Energy A/S on their winning bid in the nation's wind tender. The company also advised Blackstone Group LP (BX) (BX), the world's largest private-equity firm, on a 1.2 billion-euro ($1.6 billion) park in the German North Sea last year.

Aside from one bounce down a hole, the joint seemed ok. I can't say the same for my legs. We cycled 8 miles, about 12km, and I was struggling for the last mile.

And now, a few hours later, I'm pretty ache-y. Pretty pathetic all told

keep to the Fen Causeway

John Perry Barlow, lyricist for the Grateful Dead and co-founder of the well-known advocacy group Electronic Frontiers Foundation (EFF), says the over-arching motivation of such efforts, whatever tactics are used, was to shift the nature of society.

"What unites these groups is the belief that the future is not about vertical, hierarchical government, but horizontal [peer-to-peer] government," he said. "This pits the forces of the information age against those of the industrial age, as we move from scarcity of information to abundance. The last year has established our ability to have revolutions, but not to govern in their wake - but that's coming.

"Different groups are on a spectrum. Organisations like the EFF would be on the conservative end. Along the way is WikiLeaks and the Pirate party, with Anonymous at the more radical end."

Could there be any truth to the urban legend that claims every time Wales win a rugby grand slam a pope dies?

The hypothesis, based on the deaths of Paul VI, John Paul I and John Paul II in years when the Welsh team dominated the Six Nations, was rejected by doctors in 2008.

However, a letter published in the British Medical Journal has claimed the study made the fatal error of ignoring coptic popes.

In a revelation that could see popes locking themselves in armoured mobiles for the remainder of the year following Wales' recent success, Dr Edward Snelson claimed the 2008 study was based on "false assertions".

Hilarious: Reuters applies foreign exchange conversion to rapper 50 Cent, turns him into 1.50 Malaysian ringgit. twitpic.com/9bwydd