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Floating Wind Turbine Platform
Sterling D. Allan writes "Inventor Tom Lee is nearly ready to strike a deal to install a flotilla of offshore wind turbines, combined with hydrogen-generating capability and battery storage, which he says will enable them to have the consistency needed to be a primary grid energy provider, and not just supplemental to the gird. The floating platform enables them to take the turbines to where the wind blows and birds are few, and people even fewer. His objective in commencing this project 12 years ago was to come up with a power solution for developing nations."
How much will it cost to build though?
About 540 Energy and 60 Metal IIRC. A little more if you're CORE.
According to this study reported by the BBC (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4072756.stm) windfarms pose a low risk to birds. I believe buildings in general are far more of a threat.
And even if windfarms did pose a danger to birds, the benefits of a clean, sustainable energy source so far outweigh the downside of a few dead pigeons here and there, that it's silly to even contemplate the matter.
But shouldn't we be working to eliminate those pesky migratory birds; especially since H5N1 is milling about. Mulching birds should be listed a feature, a feature that is part of the fight to stop the bird flu. It could be a War-on-Avian flu, to be waged at sea, stopping migration before it starts. All good now.
Yes, it's a shame that fringe reactionary groups have such a strong hold on our nation's energy policy. Why, just the other day ConocoPhilips was asking congress to allow them to use some of their tens of billions of recent windfall profits to research and provide clean, renewable energy. Wouldn't you know it, that huge Earth First! lobby managed to block any progress, just as they have for years and years!
I remember back in the 70s when Chevron's big solar arrays in Oklahoma were being continuously sabotaged by Greenpeace activists. The National Guard couldn't even hold off those lunatics long enough for Dick Cheney to finish cleaning the baby seals!
When will the insanity stop? When will the multinational megacorporations ever have a chance to be heard?
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
Floating wind turbines are fine, but only until you can get your tidal generators up, and those become obsolete after underwater nuclear is built. They are quite fragile, however, so be sure to protect them with Scooters or floating Defenders, to ward off trigger-happy Scouts... ;)
LRN 2 SWM
Try to think about the size of a wind turbine in comparison to the SURFACE AREA OF ANY MAJOR OCEAN. Seriously, for a just a moment. Quick google facts:
Surface area of the Pacific:
166 million square kilometres, 64 million square miles
Typical size of a wind turbine:
Blade span (total diameter): 200 - 350 feet
Mast height: 150 - 300+ feet
Arranging 4 of these together on a platform the size of a (american) football field (360*160 = 57600 sq. ft.) would mean that you could cover the Pacific with these if you managed to produce a hair under 31 billion platforms...
Let's say you want to have a total of 1000 platforms, each with 4 turbines. This would require (approx) 0.00000322% of the surfacea area of the Pacific. It is unlikely that such turbines would have a measurable effect on global weather patterns.
I'm not trying to flame you here, just want to underscore that the amount of energy contained in global weather patterns and the size of the oceans (from which much of this energy flows from) completely dwarfs almost anything we can realistically throw at it right now. It has been estimated that it would require thousands to millions of times our current planetwide energy output to reach a level where weather patterns could be altered.
"Nokia is not a country, it's the capital of Finland!" -Moderated "Informative". Yeesh.