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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.
then sinks
Well, we'll see how it works, right? We absolutely need these sorts of large-scale tests to definitively prove or disprove the viability of alternative energy projects such as these. Although some people still try, it's hard to argue with raw data gathered over five or ten years. Based on a relatively short history, we'll be able to see how much economic sense it makes to move ahead with larger projects. Note that you do have to account for economy of scale and a maturation of technology, of course.
I was initially somewhat doubtful about the economic viability of some of these projects. I'd like nothing more than to be proven absolutely wrong on this.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
It is not floating as it is tied to the bottom.
So do ships stop floating when they drop anchor?
... and 3.7B birds are killed annually by domestic and feral cats in America. That is at least 10,000 times more.
Yeah, but the amount of eagles, albatrosses and lapwings and auks that Felix lays low is rather low. It's not about numbers, but impact on individual species and populations.