Offshore Windpower To Potentially Exceed US Demand

SpuriousLogic writes to mention that a new Interior Department report suggests that wind turbines off US coastlines could supply enough electricity to meet, or exceed, the nation's current demand. While a good portion of this is easily accessible through shallow water sites, the majority of strong wind resources appear to be in deep water which represents a significant technological hurdle. "Salazar told attendees at the 25x'25 Summit in Virginia, a gathering of agriculture and energy representatives exploring ways to cut carbon dioxide emissions, that "we are only beginning to tap the potential" of offshore renewable energy. The report is a step in the Obama administration's mission to chart a course for offshore energy development, an issue that gained urgency last year amid high oil prices and chants of 'Drill, baby, drill' at the Republican National Convention."

Comments

There's wind in them thar.... oceans?

[Hoyty1]

So when can I purchase my chunk of the ocean to erect my power plant?

Re:There's wind in them thar.... oceans?

[nschubach]

I'm sure there are laws about international waters, but does the closest state own the rights to waters offshore? Could they issue "property taxes" to windmills offshore? And how to they determine who has first dibs to build things at sea?

Re:There's wind in them thar.... oceans?

[tripdizzle]

Hopefully our politicians are as forward thinking as you. One of the reasons we need to do this is so that we can save our fossil fuels for when they are absolutely necessary. I don't think we will ever be able to run a tank or a fighter jet off of electricity alone.

Re:There's wind in them thar.... oceans?

[buswolley]

I want to hear a little about whether mass tapping of wind power would alter climate by sapping winds of their energy?

No flames or trolls please, just a straight forward question.

Re:There's wind in them thar.... oceans?

[Gibbs-Duhem]

Yes, but the effect is not readily noticeable. Around very large wind farms they seem temperature increases of ~1C due to the air not circulating as well as in the surrounding area. This is equivalent to the effect of a city on the local climate.

As far as removing energy from the overall climate, the scales are not even close to what would seem to cause a problem (although who knows, right?). Plus, global warming is injecting lots of energy into the weather system right now... so at least the change is in a good direction.

Re:There's wind in them thar.... oceans?

[PeeAitchPee]

Indeed . . . especially those of dying liberal icons.

Re:There's wind in them thar.... oceans?

[snowraver1]

global warming is injecting lots of energy into the weather system right now...

What about the actual act of generating electricity/energy. All of the waste goes to heat. The Earth's electrical generation capacity is currently a little more than 3.5 TW. Imagine 3 billion space heaters. That's a lot of heat. Include waste heat in the generation process (which according to National Geograhic last month appx 2 units of electricity are lost for every unit delivered) and you have ~10TW of heat FROM ELECTRICITY ALONE. Include planes, trains and automobiles, and you might get an idea on how much heat humans contribute to the earth.

I wonder if that has a noticeable impact on the Earth's climate. I really don't know, but noone ever talks about this in the climate change models. Just like water vapor gets overlooked so often.

Makes me wonder about cabling

[ajs]

Undersea cables are a notoriously problematic thing, and a wind farm is going to be running lots of live power back to shore. Would cut cables endanger sea life? If so, to what extent? It may not sound like a big deal on a one-off basis, but if you have thousands of these things surrounding the continental shelf, this could seriously impact the viability of our coastal wildlife populations, no?

Re:Makes me wonder about cabling

[WCguru42]

Nuclear power stations, which cause cancer when they go wrong.

The biggest problem with the 3-mile Island incident is that it was only a partial meltdown and not a complete meltdown. Because if it had completely melted down then there would be an example of just how good our containment is (suffice to say, it would not have ended up like Chernobyl). Oh well, I guess we'll just have to keep living in a world where people fear what isn't going to happen.

Floating Cities

[Anenome]

I would love to see a future where rich libertarians build floating cities free of the governmental restraints and constraints of the pandering politicians. Live free on the water! No taxes. Everything accomplished by contract. It's like a paradise *sigh*

The maps are interesting

[jbeaupre]

For just the US: http://www.bergey.com/Maps/USA.Wind.Lg.htm For the world: http://www.bergey.com/Maps/World.Wind.Lg.htm

off-shore power

[secPM_MS]

While the near-shore environment is reasonably suited to cables, the cost of long distance power transmission in the deep ocean environment may be problematic. This suggests that the power be stored into some transmissible fuel that can be picked up intermittently. One possibility would be Ammonia, NH3, which could be made by electrolysis of water to get the Hydrogen and nitrogen from the atmosphere. The heat of formation of NH3 is ~ 10% of the available energy in the Hydrogen (liquefying Hydrogen requires ~ 30%). Anhydrous ammonia is easily handled at moderate pressures in steel vessels, has a higher volumetric density than liquid Hydrogen, could be easily handled by tankers, and the Hydrogen can be easily released at moderate temperatures by catalytic reforming. Spills of NH3 are limited by its high solubility in water and lack of persistence - plants metabolize it rapidly.

Re:Yeah yeah, heard it all before

[EaglemanBSA]

The congressional budget office studied exactly this (distributed generation) in 2003 after the blackout, and determined that there would be significant economic and infrastructural benefits from such a system - it would, however, require a significant overhaul of our existing grid to control all the variable power being added. In the end, it's been largely ignored, Heaven knows why. There are a lot of merits to a system like this, among them energy independence, as well as infrastructure security. If each city block or even city for that matter is generating its own power, how can you attack that infrastructure on a national scale?

Re:Maybe we should test it first?

[afidel]

I bet ~80% of the US population lives within 100 miles of a coastline with significant wind power potential, the east, west, gulf, and north coasts account for almost every urban area.

Forget Oregon, Check out Wyoming!

[H0p313ss]

Something like a 1/4 of the state is ideal for wind farming... It could even co-exist with the ranches! http://www.windpowermaps.org/windmaps/images/WYwindpower50_highres.jpg