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Optimize Offshore Wind Farms Using Weather Modeling
An anonymous reader sends this excerpt from a Stanford news release:
"Politics aside, most energy experts agree that cheap, clean, renewable wind energy holds great potential to help the world satisfy energy needs while reducing harmful greenhouse gases. Wind farms placed offshore could play a large role in meeting such challenges, and yet no offshore wind farms exist today in the United States. In a study just published in Geophysical Research Letters, a team of engineers at Stanford has harnessed a sophisticated weather model to recommend optimal placement of four interconnected wind farms off the coast of the Eastern United States, a region that accounts for 34 percent of the nation’s electrical demand and 35 percent of carbon dioxide emissions. ... Among its findings, the Stanford model recommended a farm in Nantucket Sound, precisely where the controversial Cape Wind farm has been proposed. The Cape Wind site is contentious because, opponents say, the tall turbines would diminish Nantucket’s considerable visual appeal. By that same token, the meteorological model puts two sites on Georges Bank, a shallows located a hundred miles offshore, far from view in an area once better known for its prodigious quantities of cod. The fourth site is off central Long Island."
You can't have pristine landscapes, a non-petrol economy AND several kilowatts of electric power at your fingertips, to be switched on whenever you come home. We here in Europe are making choices. We know we have to. So will you, so will you.
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
"As I understand it, the problem with offshore wind is not the weather, but the insanely high costs of maintenance."
Will it need thousands of armed people spending a trillion in foreign lands?
As always, nobody wants this stuff where they will have to look at it. Then there's the political brilliance in the linked article: "...the advantage of sharing costs across several states, potentially increasing political support for the plan." Yeah, a bunch of New England states are gonna jump at the chance to pay for something that benefits other states.
You never really know how close to the edge you can go until you fall off.
I wonder whether they have considered using the WINDCSAN dataset. It's what I worked on for a couple of years developing much greater accuracies for offshore windspeeds than modelled data - and more accurate than the raw NASA data. We managed to achieve 95% accuracy when compared to in situ metmasts, far better than the 80% accuracy with the raw data. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WindScan
You're being sarcastic, I know. But the parent has a point. Maintenance via engineering and technicians is far cheaper than boots on the ground halfway around the world. The hazards are far worse too.
The reality is that the day of cheap energy in the form of BTUs are over. We can bitch moan and complain all we want. The party was fun while it lasted. Sobering up to reality is the part that sucks.
My advice. Start getting used to leaving your windows open. Soon you'll find that running your AC gets expensive. Driving too. I'd like to plant a victory garden myself, but these days that will land you in jail. Fun times ahead.
Life is not for the lazy.
I'm from southeast Massachusetts, and I agree with the authors: the east coast is the best location. Here's why: 10 miles offshore from Cape Cod, the water is 25 feet deep. 10 miles offshore of Los Angeles, the water is 2000 feet deep.
Actually, running your AC is about a perfect application for solar PV. You need it most when the Sun is shining the hardest.
The interstate highway system wouldn't have been built without govt money, but I think people find it useful now. Once there are enough turbines generating power people will probably forget who built the farms, like they seem to forget who built the roads, and the sewers, and GPS, and etc., etc.
Just because it's costing taxpayer money now doesn't make it bad. Not to mention that apparently the oil industry is still getting handouts from the govt which they don't need.
First, many people can afford a 100% electric vehicle right now and never pay another dime for gas to commute to work. The Zero XU has a removable battery that I can use to charge at work and at home. The range is sufficient for me to get to work on a single charge. It only costs $0.16 per charge and that's 16 cents that I won't even be paying since I'm going to charge it under my desk at work. The total cost for the bike is less than $8K and it is available for purchase right now.
Second, the ARPA-e independently validated Lithium Ion breakthrough is going to be commercialized in a few years and then Electric cars are going to really be into play for all classes of vehicles including trucks.
Wind is already viable. I'm on the east coast and using 100% wind energy and marginal cost is a few bucks per month. It's a small price to pay for clean air. You can find a clean energy provider in your area from this useful page by the Department of Energy.