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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.
(B) I guess Germany is paying a lot more for electricity than they realize.
Electricity in Germany is hecka expensive. They are a shining example of what NOT to do: Don't let politicians make technical decisions, and don't do massive roll-outs of immature technology.
Shutting down their nukes was insane. Building new nukes may not make sense, but the main reason is the enormous capital expense in the construction and startup, and the costs of the shutdown and cleanup. But for Germany, those were all sunk costs. They had stable, operating nukes, generating clean reliable power. They threw all of that away to go back to burning filthy brown coal.
Which flavor of socialist? Many hate each other. What makes you the judge? A Maoist would say: 'you aren't'.
All socialists are _not_ Marxists.
Better idea: Ask folks that lived under socialism what they think about socialism. Yeah, yeah, 'no true scotsman'. Sell it somewhere else. Marxism is broken, the police state is inevitable, built right in.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'