World's Largest Wind Farm Gets Green Light

cliffski writes "According to the BBC website the UK govt has just given the go ahead to two large offshore wind-farm projects. Between them the schemes would produce enough renewable electricity to power about one million households. The larger London Array project covers 144 sq miles (232 sq km) between Margate in Kent and Clacton, Essex and will be the world's biggest when it is completed. The £1.5bn scheme will have 341 turbines rising from the sea about 12 miles (20km) off the Kent and Essex coasts, as well as five offshore substations and four meteorological masts"

Comments

Mobile Farms

[Doc Ruby]

Why don't they put these wind farms on barges floating around the seas offshore, where the winds blow steady and reliable? Relocated when economical according to satellites tracking the seasonal winds.

Barges covered with solar cells. And reverse-gyroscopes that generate power from waves and currents. They anchor landmines, don't they?

Re:What about our fine feathered friends?

[SNR monkey]

Compare the number of bird deaths from those windfarms to the number of bird deaths (and non-bird deaths) that would result if it was a coal burning power plant instead. Every project has costs (not all costs are $$). Hopefully the people in charge weigh the environmental costs as well as the monetary costs (sometimes the environmental costs end up being monetary costs anyway). Most large scale power generation techniques have an environmental impact.. The question is - do the benefits outweigh the costs?

Tides

[pubjames]

I've never understood why the power of tides is not exploited more. In a short streach of coast around the UK, hundreds of millions of tons of water must be moved every 24 hours. I'm sure there must be a lot more energy in that than in the wind in the same area. Why isn't that exploited? Anyone know?

Re:Tides

[Mad Dog Manley]

Most of the water that is being moved by tides isn't moving very fast, or very far. Tidal power is most efficient where the world's largest tides can be found, such as the Bay of Fundy in Canada.

There is tidal power being generated in the Bay of Fundy, there has been a 20MW generator operating for the last 20 years. However, it is expensive (operating in salt water isn't the most friendly enviromnent), and expanding it would put a large strain on the ecosystem.

This isn't a lot of power though. 20 large windmills could produce the same or more power, for much less cost. Incidentally, Nova Scotia, which borders half of the Bay of Fundy, has some of the world's strongest and most consistent winds.

Re:Such specific numbers, blah.

[SatanicPuppy]

I used to do that when I lived in New York...That was completely effective, you could close all the windows at 7:00am, and the house would stay decently cool until around 2:00 or 3:00, and then you'd open all the windows and sweat until 5:30 or 6, when it would start cooling off.

In Georgia, however, the nights are almost as miserable as the days because the humidity in the air traps the heat...it's literally like a sauna...and leaving your AC off for hours means it has to work harder to cool things back off when you finally cave in and turn it on. It's probably still a net savings, but in July I don't even consider it.

I'm always interested in better insulation...The house has too many damn windows though, and I'm not planning on living there long enough to make my money back on replacing them, which is an issue. I've still done a few, but it's ~200.00 per window, not counting installation, so I'm not in any hurry.