To hit renewables targets, countries are sharing energy across borders
NEMO Link is one of the new interconnectors allowing England and Belgium to join their power grids. (Courtesy Siemens AG/)For decades after they belched their last coal fumes, the cooling towers of the Richborough Power Station loomed over the low landscape of Kent, in the southeast of England, guiding fishing boats into the English Channel. That all ended on the morning of March 11, 2012, when a controlled demolition reduced the 30-story-high towers to rubble, clearing the site for a cleaner future.The building that has risen in their place at the renamed Richborough Energy Park is one very tall story and painted in three layers of green and gray, as if determined to fade into the sky. It buzzes with 1,000 megawatts of electricity—enough to power a million homes—but emits no exhaust and has no need for towers or chimneys. Its energy is not produced here, only passing through, carried...