World's First Floating Wind Farm Emerges Off Coast of Scotland (bbc.co.uk)

AmiMoJo writes: The world's first full-scale floating wind farm has started to take shape off the north-east coast of Scotland. The revolutionary technology will allow wind power to be harvested in waters too deep for the current conventional bottom-standing turbines. The manufacturer hopes to cash in on a boom in the technology, especially in Japan and the west coast of the U.S., where waters are deep. The tower, including the blades, stretches to 175m and weighs 11,500 tons. The price of energy from bottom-standing offshore wind farms has plummeted 32% since 2012, and is now four years ahead of the government's expected target. Another big price drop is expected, taking offshore wind to a much lower price than new nuclear power.

Comments

Strange bedfellows

[Ol Olsoc]

Some environmentalists will oppose this because of presumed bird mortality, and many slash dotters who are definitely not environmentalists will oppose this because it is an energy source they hate.

Re:Strange bedfellows

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

Some environmentalists will oppose this because of presumed bird mortality,

Not if they're rational.

and many slash dotters who are definitely not environmentalists will oppose this because it is an energy source they hate.

Hating an energy source isn't rational.

Reality Check. Environmentalist & non-environmentalist don't hate wind turbines in significant numbers.The anti-turbine mob are all nimbys worried about spoiling their views, and old-energy shills and their useful idiots.

Re:Strange bedfellows

[arth1]

I oppose them because plans for and the cost of decommissioning them is not part of the budget planning.

Also, there are environmental concerns not well researched and understood yet, like underseas power cables and their impact on oceanic marine life with electrical sensory organs. Sharks have displayed problems from low voltage underseas cables, even when quite thickly insulated. It may well be ok, but I still want a bit more research before jumping on something because ooh windcraft!

Re:Strange bedfellows

[blindseer]

I oppose wind power because it's often not all that "green".

http://www.carlineconomics.com...

Building those windmill towers takes a lot of steel and concrete that could be put to better energy use, like nuclear power. I don't know how off shore wind power plays into this environmental disaster that on shore wind, but it can't be all that great if it costs twice as much to build out than onshore wind.

As far as "green" energy goes wind isn't nearly as bad as solar. I believe that wind could actually be profitable without government subsidy. Onshore wind produces energy that is about the same as natural gas or hydro, which is a fraction of the cost of solar energy. The carbon footprint of wind is on par with hydro, nuclear, which is a fraction of the carbon footprint of solar.

The problem with wind is the mess it can leave behind. Wind is not regulated like coal or nuclear. If you shut down a coal plant it must be cleared to a "brownfield" standard, meaning nothing left but bare dirt. Nuclear has to be torn down to "greenfield" standard, meaning what's left must be a grassland or forest. Wind is allowed to be abandoned, with rusted towers left in place. Sometimes they are required to tear down to a "grey-field" standard, where the towers and above ground structures must be removed but the buried concrete anchors can remain.

For a grey field to become useful again the concrete must be found useful as structural elements for industrial use, or removed with lots of diesel powered machinery. Only after it is removed can the ground be used for agriculture or wildlife. I assume if left to rot the concrete would slowly weather into rubble, but that would take centuries.

If the goal is cheap energy then wind can play along with coal, natural gas, and nuclear. When it comes to being "green" it seems only nuclear and wind apply. Solar isn't all it's cracked up to be, with the toxic materials involved and difficulty in recycling. Hydro might work but I wonder about such things as the Rio Grande not reaching the Gulf any more. Geothermal seems cheap and carbon free but it only works in places like Iceland and Hawaii.

The energy future looks like nuclear for base load, wind power when and where it is cheap, hydro for storage and load following where it is available. When we run out og hydro then we'll have to go to natural gas for peak load matching, at least in the near term. Synthetic fuels derived from excess nuclear capacity at low demand times can be tanked to burn later in converted natural gas turbines. Batteries might play a role if the price is right, which is unlikely. We'll probably have air cooled brayton cycle nuclear before the batteries get too far. Air cooled nuclear with turbines can load follow just as well as any natural gas turbine, since they work on the same physics.

If we get air cooled nuclear power then I have my doubts that even wind can compete on being as cheap or "green". Hydro will be around for a long time yet if only because we invested so much into it that it would be a shame not to let it run until it is no longer profitable. If wind survives this then it will be pumping water for hydro, or desalination, or to bring fresh water across long distance. Not for electricity.

I'm sorry for rambling on for a bit, but my medicine started to kick in as I typed. I think I'mn done heire for know. goooddnight.

Re:Strange bedfellows

[Teun]

Wind is allowed to be abandoned, with rusted towers left in place. Sometimes they are required to tear down to a "grey-field" standard, where the towers and above ground structures must be removed but the buried concrete anchors can remain.

You must live in a weird and unusually slack judiciary.

In other words, this part of your worries/opposition to wind power has nothing to do with a shortcoming in the industry but everything with a shortcoming in your legal system.
Additionally, land must be extremely cheap when the owners just let it lay fallow.

Where I live the ~25 y/o turbines, in the day the largest on shore wind farm in Europe, were removed after new rows of nearly 200 meter giants were put alongside them.
http://www.windparknoordoostpo...

Re:Strange bedfellows

[angel'o'sphere]

We have power cables on the sea floor since decades.

Re:Strange bedfellows

[Ol Olsoc]

The anti-turbine mob are all nimbys worried about spoiling their views

What's so bad about not wanting your views spoiled?

Nothing at all. It doesn't mean your want will trump everyone's need however. If you really need pristine natural views that look like they have not been touched by humans, you need to go to places that are pretty close to pristine, with very few humans.

Re:Strange bedfellows

[blindseer]

I've looked over their website and it's just full of lies and scaremongering.

One lie is that U-233 is weapons grade material. First, the U-233 that comes from a thorium reactor is so tainted with other uranium isotopes that it cannot be handled safely without very expensive processing. Second, a U-233 weapon is theoretical, no one has yet built one successfully. Sure, there were devices that contained U-233 that went *BOOM* but they were considered duds. Anyone that has the technology to turn U-233 into weapons grade material won't need the reactor, they can use common dirt and process that to get U-235 instead.

Also, what are we supposed to so with all the weapons we have now? Break them apart and pretend this valuable plutonium doesn't exist? That plutonium can be turned into energy in a nuclear reactor. If this organization wants to be rid of nuclear weapons then they should be advocating for nuclear energy. The only way to destroy nuclear weapons material is in a nuclear reactor. You can try to contaminate it with other materials, bury it in a deep enough hole, but it will still be there for someone to dig back up and turn into weapons again.

Getting back to the cost of nuclear energy I keep hearing on how nuclear energy is so expensive. That's because it is a self fulfilling prophesy. The people that license nuclear energy don't want it to be successful so they make it expensive. These projects are always over budget because the powers that be just cannot leave them alone and let them finish. Because if they did actually let them finish then the lie of expensive nuclear energy would be exposed as the lie it is.

Nuclear energy can be safe, reliable, plentiful, and cheap. We know this because we've been getting safe, reliable, plentiful, and cheap energy from nuclear power for decades. Chernobyl was 30 years ago and none of the reactors like it exist anymore. Same for Three Mile Island which was 40 years ago. Fukushima was an accident at an aging nuclear power plant and no new ones would be built like it either. If people fear nuclear power accidents then we need new nuclear to replace the old nuclear or energy is going to get expensive, unreliable, harder to find, and not nearly as safe.

Re:Put all the costs on the table

[DarthVain]

Ugh, I hate the continued comparison of nuclear and "green" energy. It is *not* an apples to apples comparison.

I agree, I think most people have long dispelled the myth of "too cheap to meter" nuclear energy. Regulation, Construction costs, decommissioning, refurbishment, etc... Including the longer term inflation of all these things all escalate the TCO, even if the "fuel" costs might be "too cheap to meter". That said, the only things it should be compared to are other types of base load generation, which includes : Coal, Gas, Oil (though not really cost effective), Hydro (limited geographically). That is about it off the top of my head. Of those if you are looking to bring *new* sources online you are pretty much limited to Coal and Gas. Both of which have some pretty big footprints environmentally. Coal being the worse or dirtiest option, and Gas with Fracking not all that much better. Both are currently very cheap right now, but at least with Gas at current consumption how long will that be, particularly as the issues with fracking become more well known and opposition to new extraction potentially growing. That leaves nuclear as really still the best option for base load generation. Which is what frustrates me in regards to so many "environmentalists" condemning them and stagnating development.

At some point in the far flung future perhaps we will have truly massively distributed generation through renewable green technologies, and perhaps at that point we've solved the storage capacity issue so that we can maintain grid electrification for more than a few hours, but until then I certainly do not see any real (better) alternatives. That is of course assuming even more far flung ideas such as fission and free energy don't get developed, but that isn't going to happen anytime soon, if ever.