New York's $6 Billion Plan For Offshore Wind Shows That Oil Drilling Really Is On the Way Out (businessinsider.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Business Insider: Governor Andrew Cuomo unveiled a plan earlier this month to develop $6 billion of offshore wind projects off the southern coast of Long Island by 2028 and predicted that the industry would bring 5,000 jobs to the state. The plan calls for developing 2.4 gigawatts -- enough to power 1.2 million homes -- by 2030. It's all part of New York's Clean Energy Standard, which requires 50% of the state's electricity come from renewable sources like solar and wind. The move comes as President Donald Trump earlier this month announced a five-year plan to open up areas of the East Coast to offshore drilling.

"While the federal government continues to turn its back on protecting natural resources and plots to open up our coastline to drilling, New York is doubling down on our commitment to renewable energy and the industries of tomorrow," Cuomo said in a statement. Cuomo has asked Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke for an exemption from the drilling plan, saying in an open letter that the plan "undermines New York's efforts to combat climate change by shifting from greenhouse gas emitting fossil energy sources to renewable sources, such as offshore wind." The report identifies a 1 million acre site approximately 20 miles south of Long Island that would best support the wind turbines, and "ensure that, for the vast majority of the time, turbines would have no discernible or visible impact from the casual viewer on the shore." The report also notes that New Jersey announced a similar plan last Wednesday to develop 3.5 gigawatts of offshore wind capacity off its coast.

Comments

Eletrical grid Energy doesn't come from oil

[JDAustin]

Oil is not used in the generating of energy for the electrical grid so how does a subsidized wind project show that oil is on the way out. Oil is used in heating via heating oil, but the alternative is natural gas which is far more efficient then electric heating. Natural gas is whats used (along with coal, nuclear, etc) in generating electricity...but natural gas != oil.

Finally...what happens when the wind is not blowing? The electrical grid requires a base level going through it and when its a calm night, you have no solar or wind power going into the grid.

Re:Eletrical grid Energy doesn't come from oil

[MrL0G1C]

I don't think you get how this science stuff works, confirmation bias is for people who read conspiracy sites, partisanship if for politicians, science is not about these things, science is about having good method, good sources and being peer reviewed. This isn't the first study to show that we can achieve 100% renewables with storage and it won't be the last because it has been shown to be possible.

The bias, preconceptions partisanship are yours, the anti-intellectualism is coming from you, go look in a mirror.

Let's move into the modern era...

[Frosty Piss]

Wind is great, wind is awesome. But wind alone will never be able to meet all of societies demands for power. There is only one real solution: Nuclear. Not your grandfather's nuclear, TODAY'S nuclear.

Re:Let's move into the modern era...

[Anonymous Coward]

No matter what alternative you chose to appease an environmentalist, another environmentalist will protest it. It's never ending.

Re:Let's move into the modern era...

[blindseer]

All that next gen BS is always 5 years away for the last 20 years

And it will remain that way unless we start building nuclear reactors.

It's quite amazing this hypocrisy on nuclear power vs. solar and wind. We'll see the government dump all kinds of money into wind and solar. They'll issue permits to build solar collectors. Set aside land for windmills. And they do this because, so they say, that if we don't build these things then it will never get cheap enough to compete with coal.

How do they treat nuclear power? Well we can't waste money on this expensive energy. We need to "know" it's cheaper than coal first. But no one can "know" this until we try. We'll likely fail the first few tries, just like we've been failing to get cheaper than coal with wind and solar for so long. Maybe it will never be cheaper than coal. But we can't know that until we try.

Better off dumping 1 billion into more fusion research for 10 years instead of 1 more nuclear plant.

Right, let's just ignore that there are currently over 400 nuclear power reactors working on the planet right now. Let's just dump more money into that pit so... we can "feel good"? Facts don't care about your feelings. As much emotion you express on this we have in fact proven nuclear power as viable and safe.

Let's just dump more money into research until the lights go out and we all freeze and starve. That's how we can all feel good about saving the planet or something.

Re:Let's move into the modern era...

[geekmux]

Start a nuclear plant today and it won't come online for 20 years if ever.

If you can't get a nuclear plant online in less than 20 years, you have a corruption problem, not a design problem.

Same goes for wind, solar, hydro, or anything else that Trumps the energy mafia. And yeah, that fucking shit gets old. Once again, Greed stands in the way of progress, to the detriment of all.

Re:Let's move into the modern era...

[TheRaven64]

Nuclear power plants need to be big, which means that you're never going to get the same kinds of economies of scale as wind turbines, where a wind 'farm' is a load of identical turbines that can be the same as the identical turbines in the next one.

Nuclear also has a really awkward risk profile. About the worst thing that can happen with a wind turbine is that the blades break and spin off at very high speed. The worst thing that can happen with a nuclear power plant is that it vents nuclear material and makes a large area uninhabitable for a long time. The failure mode for a wind turbine is far more likely, but that actually makes the insurance easier: a fairly likely risk that will probably happen to someone is much easier to deal with than an insanely expensive risk that has a very low chance of happening to anyone. This means that you end up with the government carrying most of the risk, because private insurers aren't willing and able to issue a policy that will almost certainly be a cash cow but will bankrupt them if there's a claim.

This risk profile also means that everything in a nuclear power plant needs to be very tightly regulated. You don't want a contractor cutting corners in a nuclear power plant. If they do in a wind turbine, the risks are fairly low and they're mostly risks to the owner of the plant (i.e. it stops working, it doesn't cause widespread damage). This pushes up the costs a lot, because everything needs to be redundant and independently checked. It's also not something that we're good at: all of the large nuclear accidents to date have been caused by factors that people identified as a problem before they happened, but which were not addressed.

Nuclear also comes with a load of security concerns. Access to things like uranium and plutonium is strictly controlled, for good reason. This adds security to the costs and also has some knock-on effects. For example, the US still doesn't reprocess fuel rods because of proliferation concerns (which, these days, means that they ship the spent fuel to France, where it is reprocessed and shipped back).

Oil will only go out of style when...

[Paleolibertarian]

the energy density of batteries approaches that of diesel fuel.

Re:Oil will only go out of style when...

[kamapuaa]

Gas currently has 100 times the energy density of a battery but go nowhere near 100 times as far. If a Tesla's batteries stored 100 times as much energy, the car would go like 30,000 miles between charge-ups.

Basically, the point you made is stupid and you should feel bad.

Re:Oil will only go out of style when...

[drinkypoo]

the energy density of batteries approaches that of diesel fuel.

When will ICE efficiency approach that of batteries? (never) When will ICEs permit regeneration? (never)

Sounds to me more like on a technical level, ICEs will never be competitive with EVs, not the other way around

Ugly Eyesores

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing says protecting nature like 100 windmills on your ocean front view.

Re:Ugly Eyesores

[VeryFluffyBunny]

Nothing says protecting nature like 100 windmills on your ocean front view.

Or 100 dead ospreys on your beach.

Tall glass buildings kill waaay more birds than wind turbines. Why don't you start with those ugly eyesores. Also, birds and other animals going extinct because of climate change is far uglier in my opinion.

Obligatory Back To The Future reference...

[BigBlockMopar]

2.4 gigawatts

Yeah, that's only two time-traveling Deloreans.

Nuclear is the way to go. There are risks, for sure, but they can be mitigated until we invent Mr. Fusion.

Re: your full of base load

[Anonymous Coward]

You think electrix cars have advanced in "leaps and bounds" in the last 10 years? Seriously? The basic concept has existed since the late 1800's. The primary hold up has always been the battery (both amount of charge and how long it takes to charge). Despite Elon's public relations display like his Gigafactory (struggling even to get going) and his massive battery in Australia, the battery technology has not advanced significantly in 10 years.

The Tesla Roadster had a range of 200 miles (pretty good really), the Tesla S will supposedly have a range of 210 to 300 miles (That's a pretty wide range so let's say 250). So 50 miles of Range in 10 years. The Nissan Leaf took 3 years to hit 50k in sales World-wide...There were 17.6 MILLION new cars and trucks sold in 2016 in the USA alone!

Dude you don't really get it. It will be another 10 years at a minimum before even new sales of electric vehicles may be a "going concern", another 10 years at least before the used car market MAY exist at a size that anyone other than the insane, rich or eco-freaks (and I use that term affectionately) will be able to afford them.

So 20 years easy before any serious dent in NEW sales of gasoline vehicles will happen.

I'm not really trying to burst your bubble but I really don't you get the size of the car market world-wide not just the US.

Even assuming a major breakthrough in battery technology or other fuel source direct to electricity (e.g.. Fuel Cells). It will still take a good 30 years before people start thinking "petrol car...how quaint".

So the Oil industry isn't going anywhere soon, and offshore wind farms aren't replacing Oil anyway.

O and BTW where's all the electricity coming from to recharge all the potential 10's millions of electric vehivlea. This NYC build out won't help with additional load at best it may replace load for housing or similar. That Cuomo chooses to denigrate oil drilling in comparison to his grand wind farm plan just shows how disingenuous he is...and anyone who buys in to that comparison isn't getting it.

Hello!? This Is NY/NJ We're Talking About!

[BlueStrat]

I expect any projects of this magnitude in NY/NJ to have immense constructions cost overruns, constant delays, labor union disputes, slowdowns, strikes, and lawsuits, along with massive corruption and embezzlement. If I were a betting man, I'd lay odds that at least some of these projects will be virtually forever "under construction" and will be sucking the citizens dry of money for decades beyond the original planned completion date.

Strat