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First Floating Wind Turbine Buoyed Off Norway

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the good-for-when-the-icecaps-melt dept.

MonkeyClicker writes to tell us that the world's first large-scale floating turbine has been installed off the coast of Norway. A combined effort between Siemens and StatoiHydro, this marks the first foray into deeper waters due to restrictions in place that require offshore turbines to be attached to the sea bed. "The turbine in Norway will be 7.4 miles offshore where the water is 721 feet deep. It will be utility-size turbine, with a hub height of about 100 feet, capable of generating 2.3 megawatts of electricity. To address the conditions of the deep sea, the turbine will have a specially designed control system that will seek to dampen the motion from waves."

3 of 265 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Why not by Henry+V+.009 · · Score: 5, Informative

    A nuclear power plant generates about 1000 times as much power as this thing and costs only about 10 times as much (although some built in the 1970s cost only about twice as much).

  2. Costs of Solar, Wind, and Nuclear Power by reporter · · Score: 5, Informative
    According to a researcher at the University of California, solar power, wind power, and nuclear power have the following costs in 2006 and 2016. The first cost is for 2006. The second cost is projected for 2016.

    1. solar power: more than 20 cents/kwh, 10 to 14 cents/kwh

    2. wind power: 5 to 7 cents/kwh, 3 to 6 cents/kwh

    3. nuclear power: more than 3 cents/kwh, more than 3 cents/kwh

    Here, "wind power" refers to wind turbines on land. A wind turbine at sea would surely cost more than a land-based one.

    In other worse, nuclear power is still the best solution until we can significantly improve the efficiency of generating solar power and wind power.

    We should also address the major reason for the growing demand for energy. That reason is overpopulation. However, no American politician has the guts to touch that topic. It is too closely tied to illegal immigration. When a faction in the Sierra Club tried to address that issue, the members of that faction were accused of being "racist".

  3. Re:navigation maps by Plunky · · Score: 5, Informative

    I hope they will put it on new navigation maps. But how to update existing maps?

    This problem was solved a long time ago, chart updates are made available regularly and large vessels will be obliged to subscribe to the service. In these modern times of electronic charts (most ships use them though they are still required to carry paper charts) updates are easily applied.

    Also ships have RADAR so they can see obstructions (other vessels are not marked on charts) plus another more modern invention called AIS which allows vessels to broadcast their position, heading, course and speed and have it overlayed onto the radar plot (and the charts). You can be sure that massive floating platforms will have lights, radar reflectors and an AIS transmitter.