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First US Offshore Wind Power Park In Delaware

Posted by kdawson on from the doesn't-get-much-greener dept.

Dekortage writes "Offshore wind power company Bluewater Wind has announced an agreement to build America's first offshore wind turbine park off the coast of Delaware. 'Each turbine [will sit on] a pole about 250 feet above the waterline... the units are to be constructed to withstand hurricane-force winds. From the shore, the park will be visible only on clear winter days, and the turbines will be nearly invisible during summer months when Rehoboth Beach fills with vacationers. Each blade on the three-blade rotor is to be 150 feet long.' The wind farm will power 50,000 homes in Delaware, using about half of its capacity."

8 of 363 comments (clear)

  1. Ocean view by Oxy+the+moron · · Score: 4, Interesting

    My family usually makes a trip every year to Bethany Beach, which is just a bit south of Rehoboth Beach. While I understand that it's better for most tourists if the turbines are not visible, it'd be cool if we could make it into a real-life science "field trip" for the kids sometime in the future.

    Are there any plans for something like a small boat trip to see them up close? Maybe they could build a museum?

    --

    Proudly supporting the Libertarian Party.

    1. Re:Ocean view by stormguard2099 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      If you ever have the chance, go to Tarifa, Spain. It's one of the most beautiful places I have ever been.

      The beaches are nice and wide with fine sand. It makes for a perfect place to ride wind powered boards and of course kite surfing in the ocean.

      All of this wind also makes for the perfect location for windfarms. The area around Tarifa is spotted with the turbines. Honestly that was my favorite view was to stand on the beach and watch all of turbines happily spinning up on the mountains producing nice clean energy.

      If I had faster internet I'd find you some links for pics.

      --
      http://greenobyl.com/ please.... think of the children!!
  2. Cool; Now to expand to the great lakes by WindBourne · · Score: 5, Interesting

    All the states around the great lakes could use these as well. What surprises me, is that if you have the pole there, then why not add in tidal or even wave power as well? I believe that the expensive part about all this, is getting anchored securely to the floor.

    --
    I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
    1. Re:Cool; Now to expand to the great lakes by MortenLJ · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Admitted, I don't know much about alternative energy, but I do know that wave- and tidal-power is still on the experimental state. I think the primary problem with wave energy is the tremendous strain which is placed on the structure over extended periods of time. Meanwhile Vestas, the turbine supplier for this project, has been producing wind turbines which has been used in practice since '79. I.e. wind energy is tried and tested technology which supplies my country (Denmark) with 19% of the total power consumed.

  3. Feasible? by spleen_blender · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I wonder if it would be feasible to use the base upon which the turbines sit to put in place tidal generators as well.

  4. The two big questions.... by ivan256 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    They're not answered anywhere on the company's website or in the article...

    The answers to these questions are important when determining whether this project is worthy of support or not:

    Who is paying to build the windfarm?
    Who gets to keep the profit from the windfarm?

    For the windfarm they wanted to build around here, the answers were "me" (through tax dollars), and "not me" (as in some private corporation got to keep the profit, even though they didn't pay for the initial investment). Luckily a sufficient number of people were able to see that they were getting screwed through the veil of "environmental responsibility" in order to get the project canceled.

    1. Re:The two big questions.... by T3Tech · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Who is paying to build the windfarm?
      Who gets to keep the profit from the windfarm? I'm not sure of the answer to these questions and I live close enough to the region to have heard the smear campaign Delmarva Power (the local power monopoly) was running against Bluewater on the radio. Their radio ad went into how it would cost customer's so much more money, yadda, yadda, FUD, blah, blah, FUD. From my limited knowledge on it, I believe Delmarva had a more lucrative deal in the works with some onshore wind farms and my guess is that Delmarva viewed Bluewater as being a real threat to their profits.

      Apparently Delmarva has come to a contract agreement with Bluewater now. There's a bunch of related news links available here, which I haven't bothered to read.
      --
      Of course I didn't RTFA... why would I do that? You really are new here aren't you? Don't let my UID fool you.
  5. Re:Nuclear power? by biteableniles · · Score: 5, Interesting

    What could the long term affects be, other than those caused by the actual manufacturing of the turbine itself? Someone else on Slashdot, way back, suggested that if we wanted to see the affect of covering an entire continent with wind power generators, look at the affect the massive tree growth in Europe had on wind. The end result will be the same. That is to say, there won't be any problems. Wind power is just a strange form of Solar power. As long as there are temperature differentials between areas (caused by the sun) as well as other affects, there will be wind regardless of what we put in the way.