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Massachusetts Gains Foothold in Offshore Wind Power, Long Ignored in US (nytimes.com)
New Bedford hopes to soon be the operations center for the first major offshore wind farm in the United States, bringing billions of dollars of investment and thousands of jobs to the town and other ports on the East Coast. The New York Times: On Wednesday, that effort took a major step forward as the State of Massachusetts, after holding an auction, selected a group made up of a Danish investment firm and a Spanish utility to erect giant turbines on the ocean bottom, beginning about 15 miles off Martha's Vineyard. This initial project will generate 800 megawatts of electricity, roughly enough to power a half a million homes. At the same time, Rhode Island announced it would award a 400-megawatt offshore wind project to another bidder in the auction.
The groups must now work out the details of their contracts with the states' utilities. "We see this not just as a project but as the beginning of an industry," Lars Thaaning Pedersen, the chief executive of Vineyard Wind, which was awarded the Massachusetts contract, said in an interview. Offshore wind farms have increasingly become mainstream sources of power in Northern Europe, and are fast becoming among the cheapest sources of electricity in countries like Britain and Germany. Those power sources in those two countries already account for more than 12 gigawatts of electricity generation capacity.
The groups must now work out the details of their contracts with the states' utilities. "We see this not just as a project but as the beginning of an industry," Lars Thaaning Pedersen, the chief executive of Vineyard Wind, which was awarded the Massachusetts contract, said in an interview. Offshore wind farms have increasingly become mainstream sources of power in Northern Europe, and are fast becoming among the cheapest sources of electricity in countries like Britain and Germany. Those power sources in those two countries already account for more than 12 gigawatts of electricity generation capacity.
The actual electric will cost way more from it.
It will break down faster than they expect.
A couple people will get rich I bet though.
Champagne Socialists (*cough*Ted Kennedy*cough*) have been fighting this for YEARS, afraid that it will spoil the precious views out of their sea-side mansions...
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
They won't be able to build windfarms that close to Marthas Vineyard. If you have ever been there, you know why.
More American jobs lost. We should be building these with American know-how and labor. Why in the world would the people of Massachusetts allow there state to send all these jobs across the pond?
...the State of Massachusetts, after holding an auction, selected a group made up of a Danish investment firm and a Spanish utility ....
And our current administration's policy is to promote 19th century while the rest of the World forges ahead in the 21st century.
Solar cells from China and wind turbines from Europe and other renewable energy.
Cost Rica has wind power - you know, a Third World sh...
Some of us need to get over this nostalgia for an America that never existed and get up to speed because we ARE behind in many areas.
Life changes - it's a fact - and trying to keep the status quo always fails.
No bold text. Too legible. Proper paragraphs. Not real APK confirmed.
What little information I found on the subject when I looked into it pointed to lobbying by special interest groups interested in protecting birds.
Which is one of the more bullshit arguments one can make against wind power since wind turbines kill rather few birds. Cell phone towers actually kill far more birds than wind turbines do but I don't see people complaining about those. And cats kill orders of magnitude more birds than wind turbines.
From the link
"Wind turbines kill between 214,000 and 368,000 birds annually — a small fraction compared with the estimated 6.8 million fatalities from collisions with cell and radio towers and the 1.4 billion to 3.7 billion deaths from cats, according to the peer-reviewed study by two federal scientists and the environmental consulting firm West Inc."
Ted Kennedy is dead!
Anyway, people aren't a mass of the same with one groupthink. Not even Slashdot! Surely some rich people are in favor, some aren't. Anyway, not wanting ugly infrastructure in a beautiful location seems like a legit concern, even if sometimes you go ahead and build it.
You can only see roughly 7 nautical miles of ocean at sea level due to the curvature of the Earth. Hence why it is 15 miles out. Makes any resistance all the more infantile.
Then you should react like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5cYgRnfFDA
Possibly, but you never know
Kids change you
The next generation of Kennedys is _even_stupider_. Comes with old money.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Correct. Ted Kennedy kept us from having them years ago, but to be fair the previous proposal was much closer to the coast. Building them 15 miles offshore is different.
I doubt it will happen once they see what a crap hole the place is.
Many fond memories of roblimo from the way early days of slashdot while I was in college. Wonderful open minded being, please watch over us
Yhcrana
The voices in my head don't like you
Can see it from LAND. They don't want to view ruined when they helicopter over to their yachts.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
these things seem like an easy target for terrorists or in time of war.
captcha: hardly - seems a little optimistic...
We really need this. Pilgrim power, a nearby nuclear plant that generates a large percentage of MA's power, is set to close in a few years.
No, I will not work for your startup
I don't know much of anything about that section of the country, but what is the magnetic attraction that Matha's Vineyard has for offshore windfarms? I've heard about the NIMBY effect blocking windfarms there for years, but the east coast of the US is an awfully long stretch of "offshore" for there to be such a kerfuffle about this one place. I'd expect strings of windmills to be used as replacements for buoys emmanating from New York harbor to create traffic lanes at this point (the masts would be useful, and with lights mounted on them, they'd keep traffic better organized).
Can anyone explain what is so special about getting an offshore farm going in Martha's Vineyard?
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
As much as I hate the Champagne Socialists, wind farms are a scam to raise electricity rates. Rhode Island fell for this scam and no I guess MA wants to also bilk their taxpayers some more.
Wind power will never be as cost effective as solar.
I didn't see any mention of per capita in that article.
You seem to have missed the point. Domestic cats kill 4 ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE more birds than wind turbines. Two orders of magnitude more birds die from flying into STATIC towers than are killed by rotor blades. There is NO evidence that wind turbines present any meaningfully increased risk to birds especially given that there is zero chance of there ever being as many wind turbines as there are cell towers.
That bit should have been left off the summary, if whomever were really trying to make a case.
The amount of offshore windpower they attribute to the UK and Germany (combined) amounts to 0.0035% of all the electricity produced in those two countries.
In other words, it's a rounding error, not a significant factor....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
You can only see roughly 7 nautical miles of ocean at sea level due to the curvature of the Earth. Hence why it is 15 miles out. Makes any resistance all the more infantile.
Gawd, more utter stupidity.
The taller something is, the farther away you can see it. Something 100 feet high can be seen from 15 miles away - if your eyes are at sea level.
If your eyes are above sea level, you'll see that 100-foot tower from farther away. If you're also 100 feet above sea level, you'll see that tower from about 30 miles away.
"socialist" wasn't one of them. He was yet another "Corporate" Democrat that came out of the Clinton era. He voted right wing on anything economic and, well, didn't vote on much else.
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This retarded Wombwuss faggot can't cry hard enough to keep Trump out of Federal Prison, lol. #MUELLER WILL FIX YOU
"Wind power will never be as cost effective as solar."
You forgot to end the sentence with "in space." Here on Earth, wind power has always been cheaper than solar PV and remains so today, although solar PV is catching up. But that said, wind and solar are complementary power sources in most locales as wind tends to peak at night.
Horsefeathers; If wind power is so bloody cost effective then why do these farms have to be subsidized by the state and why do the poor saps in Rhode Island have to pay a monthly surcharge for the next 20 (yup) years.
Solar is dirt cheap, cheap enough for everyone's roof, but I don't see everyone putting in windmills. Also windmills are unreliable; the break all the time and are insanely expensive to repair. There was a gigantic dead one in Portsmouth RI for years and years, a monument to futility of wind power. It cost millions to repair.... and the offshore one will be even more expensive.
Just watch; the scum that run RI will be adding another surcharge for repairs for some "unexpected" winter storm...offshore wind is a scam
LOL, you think criminal politicians actually prosecute each other.
That's quaint.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Kids change you
Does APK have children? I'd bet against it - while there are all kinds of tastes out there, there must be a limit to how much craziness that women can put up with. Mustn't there?
Solar is dirt cheap, cheap enough for everyone's roof,
For values of "everyone" that excludes those who don't have a south facing roof, those who have trees, mountains or buildings around them, or those who live far enough from the equator that sunlight is weaker due to the atmosphere, and scarce in the winter half of the year.
offshore wind is a scam
Eppur si soffiare.
Denmark currently produces around 42% of all the country's electricity through wind, most of it offshore. By 2020, this is expected to pass 50%.
Energy subsidies exist for all sources of energy with the largest pork for petroleum, natgas, and nuclear. IMO, all energy subsidies should be scrapped as they distort the market. However, what you're seeking is a clean comparison of costs and one exists: Levelized Cost of Energy (LCoE). An excellent short primer with cost comparisons is here: https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2015/08/f25/LCOE.pdf
As far as reliability, modern wind turbines are both reliable and massively advantageous for the grid from this perspective. When a coal/gas/nuke gennie goes offline, which they do regularly, 500-2000 MW of power immediately drops from the grid. When a wind turbine breaks, only a trivial 1-6 MW drops offline.
And wind, far from public perception, is very predictable in the day-ahead market. Both ERCOT (Texas) and Australia have lovely live graphs that show day ahead predictions and actual output of wind power. These aren't web toys for greenies but for the grid operators, suppliers, and distribution companies that bid into those markets.
Trump is the odd guy out. The DNC and RNC have enough to send each other to prison, at any time. They are just trying to add Trump to the MAD circle.
Nothing will come of it. Because the libs wet dream is: 'As much dirt on Trump as on Clinton.' Even if they get that, they are just back to where politics started.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Once the NIMBYs stick their oars in.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
They SHOULD put windmills on top of the tallest buildings in NYC and Boston.
Get to the higher winds, and customers right there.
No need for miles of cables EMP the sea life.
Exactly; "If we prosecute them, they might turn around and prosecute us!"
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
I guess now that that drunk killer Ted Kennedy is not blocking it any more - it is ok! Progress
sunrises, your people get hulking towers of windmills looming on their once picturesque horizon. Cool. Enjoy it!!
I’m APK and so is my wife.
APK.
just that he's not a socialist. I'm a socialist myself, and I'm tired of people taking some random jerk ass Democrat and pinning the name 'socialist' on him just because they don't like them. As Bernie said, words have meaning. Socialist isn't just a slur. And if you ask folks in the rest of the developed world what they think about socialism you'll find they're pretty damn OK with it.
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Ess Pee Aitch. You're welcome.
Commonwealth of Massachusetts, please. The copy editor at the Times ought to know this. Sheesh, the quality of journalism these days.
(Trivia contest time: how many other commonwealths are there and what are their names?)
OK, get back to ranting about NIMBYs, Kennedys (live or dead), wind farm subsidies, fossil fuel cronys, and how the Illuminati are poisoning the oceans.
Off-shore wind farms are a good thing to do once you've depleted the potential for on-shore ones. Most of the United States isn't built-out with on-shore wind power yet. Lots of on-shore wind generation here in California. I drove across Ohio the other day and saw very few of them, miles of open farm fields with nothing to stop the wind, and not a single turbine, though there seemed to be no absence of wind. More going in California every day. And solar is going to be required on new homes in California (except where it obviously won't work).
Bruce Perens.
Rich cunts get progressively more inbred with each generation. And the Kennedys have been rich for a lot of generations.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
queue rich people lawsuits to stop the project. Just like Cape Cod.
Does APK have children? I'd bet against it - while there are all kinds of tastes out there, there must be a limit to how much craziness that women can put up with.
For every repulsive loser like APK, there is an equally repulsive loser of the opposite sex. In desperation they will settle for each other and produce repulsive loser offspring. It's the circle of repulsive loser life.
Barbara Hudson should be on your list. Also Tom (822).
I wouldn't be too sure. I see some guys who are absolutely nuts and impossible to get along with, and they seem happily married. I suspect part of the cause is that they don't talk about "work". She doesn't understand what a hosts file is or how it's better or worse than adblock, and she's not on slashdot, so she doesn't know about the crazy. I've also seen couples where both are bonkers. Or women who just put up with it because they were raised to always be submissive to their husband and never question anything and who didn't get any viable job skills to allow them to be independent.
So says the mighty keyboard warrior from mom's basement. Feel free to make some kind of ignorant threat at someone you don't know. I have zero respect for morons and bullies.
-Geekpoet
"largest pork for petroleum, natgas, and nuclear. IMO, all energy subsidies should be scrapped as they distort the market."
US government subsidies in the energy markets are not necessarily bad. The subsidies help keep US energy prices lower than any other country competing in the global economy. And both the individual consumers and business consumers benefit.
Solar, Wind, Bio, and Hydro alternative energy sources are just beginning to gain enough traction and the use of fossil fuels will continue to decline.
but don't forget those subsidies are coming out of your pocket. they are definitely useful to get new tech off the ground and running. subsidies for old fossil should have died years ago.
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
Ted is dead, thus not fighting the plan.