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?

[cayenne8]

Not only that...I'd hope we'd NOT try to put all our country's energy eggs in this one basket.

talk about single point of failure. If another country (or terrorist) wanted to seriously hurt the US, they'd just have to target a broad swath of these offshore windmills. A pretty easy target I'd think?

Much like computer systems...I'd like to see a heterogeneous solution....windmills, nukes...and perhaps some legacy fossil fuel plants and a backup.

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

[INeededALogin]

If another country (or terrorist) wanted to seriously hurt the US, they'd just have to target a broad swath of these offshore windmills. A pretty easy target I'd think?

This is a pretty weak argument when you consider that we have the Coast Guard, the largest Navy in the world, and the most advanced monitoring of our coasts. Not to mention the sheer size of the United States and the fact that these windmills could be deployed on two different oceans. We are not talking 100 Windmills here. Also, I am sure the military will find a way to make these Windmills useful to our national defense. I doubt missiles, but those poor whales are probably gonna have more sonar pollution.

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

[anagama]

Terrorist FUD. Google up maps of oil, gasoline, and NG pipelines. Small bombs, big boom, no energy, no economy, no transportation, no food once the supermarkets run dry.

With Windmills, terrorism would be harder to perform and easier to fix. Either you have to attack thousands of windmills over hundreds of square miles, or the trunk lines transporting power. I suspect it is much easier to put out the fires associated with blowing up an electrical line than it is for pipelines, and much easier to lay cable than pipe. Plus, with electricity, the "pipe" fills immediately -- with liquids and gasses, even once repaired, flow is much slower. Oh, and undersea cables are much harder to get to than pipes running on or close to the surface of the ground, i.e., no fancy submersible required -- a 4wd Subaru Wagon would be about all you need to get bomb materials to pipelines. And some shovels perhaps.

Anyway, the last 8 years of terrorism talk seem to have you unduly paranoid. A terrorist could totally cripple the US right now by targeting pipelines.

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

[Cube Steak]

You mean like how we've seen all those terrorist attacks on our outshore oil drilling platforms? Oh wait...

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

[mabhatter654]

Exactly, these windmills will be far apart and designed to withstand hurricanes and swells in the deep ocean. It would take a lot of work and sizable force to disable a significant number without being noticed.

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

[davester666]

Of course, these offshore windmills mustn't be within eyesight of any rich people's homes...

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/longisland/ny-liwind1221,0,5450016.story

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*

About birds.

[Facegarden]

Just to cut off this dead birds argument before it starts... I know a guy that runs some wind farms in Cali here (the livermore ones) and as a test they decided to shut off one half of their farm for a month and see the difference in birds killed.

They found like 4 dead birds in the field where they were off and around 8 dead birds where they were on. So each half of the farm might kill an extra 4 birds a month versus having standing towers. That's 96 birds a year for a very large windfarm.

You know what kills WAY more birds than that per year? Housecats. Example quote from some government study in the UK:

"In 1990, researchers estimated that "outdoor" house cats and feral cats were responsible for killing nearly 78 million small mammals and birds annually in the United Kingdom."

full link: http://library.fws.gov/Bird_Publications/songbrd.html

My mom's house also has a large window that kills a few birds a year, I'm sure for every house and building that adds up.

Point being, winds farms have effectively NO impact on birds! Thanks

-Taylor

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

Re:Maybe we should test it first?

[lupine]

We don't need to send power from the coast to Kansas. Coastal areas are heavily populated and so the power will not need to travel very far to be used effectively. Kansas is a windy place, they will have their own land-based turbines.

These wind farms would not be in international waters. They would be on the continental shelf which are by definition national waters. We already patrol and scan these areas for evil dooers.

Electrical cables for wind farms would be more distributed and harder to disrupt than the current system of power plants.

Re:Makes me wonder about cabling

[Korin43]

Considering how uncommon it is for anything serious to go wrong in a nuclear power plant, I don't see how this is a hard choice.

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.

Re:Makes me wonder about cabling

[OwnedByTwoCats]

Water is not conductive.

Salt water is.

Re:Makes me wonder about cabling

[hrvatska]

Despite the objection of Kennedy the Cape Cod wind farm is moving forward.