Energy Department Proposes Funding For Ohio's First Offshore Wind Project

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: An energy development group has been working for years to put together Ohio's first offshore wind project. That might sound odd for a state so far from the sea, but the benefits of offshore wind (strong, consistent gusts and relative proximity to major population centers) translate to wind turbines that are placed in freshwater, too. Consequently, an area eight miles off Ohio's Lake Erie coastline is slated to see six new 3.45 megawatt (MW) turbines as part of a 20.7MW pilot installation. On Thursday, the Department of Energy (DOE) issued an Environmental Assessment stating that proceeding with the plan would not cause any "impact to the human environment." In an additional finding published by the DOE this week, the department added that it did not believe that the offshore wind project would cause significant damage to migratory birds, either. Finally, the DOE proposed an unspecified amount of funding for the project, which will be the first freshwater offshore wind project in the US and one of the first offshore wind projects overall. The Lake Erie Energy Department Corporation (LEEDCo) and Norwegian investor Fred Olsen Renewables (FOR) will be developing the "Icebreaker" project, as the turbine installation has been called. "Interestingly, the turbines will be secured to the lake using a 'Mono Bucket' foundation, with a suction-based design that's similar to what's been used on offshore oil-drilling platforms in the North Sea," reports Ars. "The design, LEEDCo says, uses 'the best and lowest-cost technology for sites 25 meters and less.'"

Comments

About time

[WindBourne]

Overall, lots of wind on the lakes, and other than superior, relatively shallow ( i.e. cheap to set-up ). At the same time, it would be good to add new nuclear reactors there. Together, they can shut down Murray coal.

Re:About time

[WindBourne]

Bull Shit.
Chernobyl and Fukohama were old systems and not designed to be PASSIVELY safe. IOW, they required ppl along with electricity, to be actively safe.
Chernobyl: A combination of inherent reactor design flaws and the reactor operators arranging the core in a manner contrary to the checklist for the test, eventually resulted in uncontrolled reaction conditions.
Fukishima: However, the tsunami disabled the emergency generators that would have provided power to control and operate the pumps necessary to cool the reactors. The insufficient cooling led to three nuclear meltdowns, hydrogen-air explosions, and the release of radioactive material in Units 1, 2 and 3 from 12 to 15 March.

With the new designs on reactors, they are PASSIVELY safe. IOW, they can not really fail.
NuScale is so safe that it does not require external electricity.

Re:About time

[Anonymous Coward]

Where Chernobyl and Fukohama not enough for you? There is no such thing as a safe nuclear reactor. LNG is the way to go.

That's some messed up logic.

There's no such thing as a safe car, therefore we should not drive.

There's no such thing as a safe airplane, therefore we should not fly.

There's no such thing as safe food, therefore we should not eat.

There's no such thing as safe surgery, therefore we should no longer perform surgery.

Natural gas is far more dangerous than nuclear power. Here's some proof:
https://cmo-ripu.blogspot.com/2018/08/why-i-favor-nuclear-power.html

If safety of your energy sources concern you then nuclear power needs to be at the top of your list.

Re:About time

[Anonymous Coward]

There are well over a dozen nuclear power plants on the Great Lakes shorelines already. How many more do you want?

About 100. The USA has about 100 nuclear power plants now providing 20% of our electricity, which leaves plenty of room for growth. Given our ability to use nuclear power to synthesize hydrocarbons it's now possible for nuclear power to displace not just other electricity sources but to also displace the drilling for fossil fuels.

I'm not suggesting we rely on nuclear power to the exclusion of all other energy, only that we might be best served if we followed the French energy policy and got 70% or more of our electricity from nuclear power. The rest can be wind, hydro, and maybe some solar.

Re:About time

[angel'o'sphere]

Fukushima was designed at least to prevent a core melt down, and failed at that.
Or more precisely, if a melt down happens: prevent escape of the fuel into the environment, and it failed at that.

Re:About time

[ShanghaiBill]

There's no such thing as a safe car, therefore we should not drive ... There's no such thing as safe food, therefore we should not eat.

Those are silly analogies. What are the alternatives to driving cars or eating food?

But nukes have good alternatives: solar+wind+storage.

The biggest issue is not even safety, but economics. Solar and wind are cheaper and declining in price. Nukes are expensive and getting more so. The "standardized" AP1000 design was supposed to cut costs. Guess what? It didn't.

Re:About time

[WindBourne]

Fukushima was designed to prevent melt down in an ACTIVE fashion.
If they had had electricity, it would have been fine.
And no, it was NEVER designed to prevent escape into environment if a melt down occurs.

Re:About time

[WindBourne]

uh no.
Solar+Wind is fine for SOME of the energy, but, not for major, let alone ALL OF the electricity.
We need to have Baseload power available at all time. And storage only lasts a short time.

Add in geo-thermal for baseload is a good way to go, but like hydro, wind, solar, etc it is limited to areas.
Again, WHEN yellowstone blows, or some of the major earthquakes in western USA/Europe, or in Japan, then wind/solar will plummet, and storage will last a couple of hours AT BEST.

Re:About time

[angel'o'sphere]

And no, it was NEVER designed to prevent escape into environment if a melt down occurs.

Yes it was, all old school reactors are designed for that: but failed in Fukushima. E.g. TMI (it did not fail though, but was designed for preventing it, or more precisely: coping with it.)

Re:About time

[WindBourne]

First off, there are only 7 nukes on the great lakes.
Secondly, those 7 are getting OLD. They really need to start being replaced. Coal is NOT an option. And we should stop doing Nat Gas as well. CO2 is a real issue, not imaginary.
Third, there WERE more nuke power plants that operated around the lakes that are now gone, but the land is still undeveloped. You have cooling, towers, etc. Those are IDEAL to put NuScale and later, reactors that can burn the 'waste'. For example, Zion power plant was shut down, but the land still exists. There are a number of other sites where nuke power plants have been shut down and is still available for this.

Re:About time

[WindBourne]

Actually, it would be better to say that we MUST get 2/3 of our energy from base-load and it can not be new fossil fuel. Then allow the utilities to figure out how to get that 2/3. Geo-thermal is VERY attractive for about 1/2 of the nation. Wind/Solar are NOT base-load, but getting say 1/3 of our energy from them would not kill us.
As to Nukes, we should allow only 4th gen with PASSIVE safety systems. Anything that requires active is a disaster in the making.

Re:About time

[WindBourne]

Thats ok. You obviously do not have an engineering background, esp in power mechanics.
And no, solar can NOT do base-load.

Re:About time

[blindseer]

The "standardized" AP1000 hasn't even been operating long enough that anyone can make any kind of claims on the economics yet. Only one has gone online in the world and the four in the USA have not been completed yet. If you want to claim the AP1000 a failure before even a half dozen come online then why not make the same claims on wind and solar? We've seen all kinds of failures, cost overruns, poor performance, safety problems, and on and on, from wind and solar projects.

By your metric only the rarest of designs could be considered a success. It's uncommon for a design to survive the first few rounds of implementations, there will be design updates as things are learned from the first few builds. Also, even if the AP1000 proves to be a failure there's dozens of other designs we could try before we declare the entirety of the nuclear power industry a failure.

I'd like to see how you believe wind, solar, and storage can compete with nuclear. We've got 60 years of nuclear power experience showing that it can be profitable. What's lost is the old economies of scale from building dozens of reactors every year. We start doing that again and prices will come down. It's plain bullshit of building reactors by the ones and twos and then calling that an example of a full scale deployment costs. It's no different than the wind and solar power people showing falling prices as deployment increases. You want to see nuclear power get cheaper? That means you have to build them at a rate that economies of scale apply. How many is that? My guess is dozens being built in the USA every year. Given the age of current nuclear power reactors and their expected life span we will have to build nuclear power reactors at dozens per year real soon or see rolling blackouts.

That's assuming we don't simply revert to burning coal. It's coal, nuclear, or the lights go out. Grid scale storage is still an unproven technology, not running long enough or in sufficient quantity to show it will work. Nuclear power works, we know that because we've been doing it for decades.

Re:About time

[WindBourne]

BTW, I am an old fuck. So old, that back in 1977, I DEVELOPED this same wind generator while I was studying at Northern Illinois It has the SAME design in that the generator is NOT turned directly, but is placed on the outside. Now, we have a 10KW solar and Tesla MS, while I work on other ideas. The point is, that I probably know a fucking great deal more than you do.

Re:About time

[WindBourne]

Uh, no.
Only a fool thinks that they can contain a true meltdown and nuke engineers are NOT fools. There has NEVER been a single reactor design that can contain a full blown meltdown and yes, NRC never approved something that claims that they were meltdown proof. That is why the original systems were designed to PREVENT meltdowns with active avoidance systems. Now, the new designs are to prevent them with passive systems. NuScale is a great example.

Re: About time

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, you're pretty hardcore at demanding reactors being built without regulatory oversight or proper consideration of flaws, so you are responsible for it.

Of course, since none of them will do it anyway without tens of billions ib tax dollars, we're fortunately spared the problem. They never get past pouring concrete.

Re:About time

[WindBourne]

hold on there.
I think that you will have a difficult time showing that Nukes are as cheap as Wind/Solar. Some of the new SMRs will LIKELY be, but still will take time to prove.
The real issue is that wind/solar can not provide base-load power. Even with battery storage, you still have LIMITED time energy. And have 10-50% of the sunlight cut (i.e. volcano), well, you have NO solar/wind based electricity.

As such, we NEED real base-load power, such as geo-thermal and nukes. And these should not compete against wind/solar in economics, since they are in different classes. However, it makes good sense for these 2 to compete against each other. Around the great lakes, in fact, the coastal area, is ideal for nuclear power. OTOH, throughout western America, is ideal for geo-thermal.

Re:About time

[blindseer]

hold on there.
I think that you will have a difficult time showing that Nukes are as cheap as Wind/Solar.

It's easy to show nuclear is cheaper than solar.
https://www.lazard.com/perspec...

Solar is only cheaper than nuclear when there is no storage and done on utility scale, which means not on rooftops. Wind is cheaper than nuclear, and perhaps even with storage. I have nothing against wind except when people claim it, with solar and storage, can replace all else.

As such, we NEED real base-load power, such as geo-thermal and nukes. And these should not compete against wind/solar in economics, since they are in different classes.

We must evaluate wind and solar on cost along with nuclear if only because the advocates for wind and solar assert that wind and solar can displace nuclear. It can be shown that wind is only cheaper than nuclear if we ignore the storage requirements. Solar is simply too expensive all around to bother, with maybe regional exceptions because of the climate and access to cheap pumped hydro storage.

A agree that we must account for the varying demands through the day and year, and the need to have technologies capable of matching these variations. This ability to match load to demand is inherent to any storage technology. If we assume that there is storage, in the form of pumped hydro or batteries, then concerns on base load vs peak generation is gone. Not only is the concern gone but also quite likely the distinction. The idea of "base load" becomes meaningless if there are viable storage technologies available, after that there is no need to be concerned on the ability of any energy source to follow load.

What boggles my mind is the assertion that batteries will make solar power viable but do nothing to address the costs of operating nuclear power. A couple problems of nuclear power is it's need for backup power in the case of a scram and it's inability to follow load (at least do so economically), both of which would be resolved with a sufficiently advanced energy storage technology. I saw the Tennessee Valley Authority uses pumped hydro along with its nuclear power to provide the load matching and such for safe, cheap, and reliable energy. As far as I'm concerned any technology advancement in storage makes nuclear power look better compared to solar, not worse. I expect this to become quite apparent in time.

Re:About time

[ShanghaiBill]

It's easy to show nuclear is cheaper than solar.
https://www.lazard.com/perspec...

Your citation says the OPPOSITE of what you claim:
Cost of grid-scale PV solar: 4.6 cents/kwh
Cost of nuclear: 11.2 cents/kwh

Even that is not a fair comparison, because it is looking at the cost of existing nukes, while the cost of NEW nukes is considerably higher.

Re: About time

[ShanghaiBill]

The USA will never complete another nuclear reactor for landbased power.

Very likely true. The last attempt was in South Carolina, which halted construction last year after spending $9 billion.

Nuclear is dead in America until there are some radically new designs. Maybe thorium, maybe fusion. But no more pressurized uranium reactors will be built.

But nuclear is still moving forward in China and India. China has 13 nuclear power plants under construction.

Re:About time

[blindseer]

Your citation says the OPPOSITE of what you claim:
Cost of grid-scale PV solar: 4.6 cents/kwh
Cost of nuclear: 11.2 cents/kwh

It's only the OPPOSITE of what I claimed if you take one sentence out of context of the entire paragraph. This is schoolyard bully kind of logic that you are using to counter my argument. Grow up.

Also, how much does that solar power cost at midnight? I know what the cost of nuclear power would be but solar power is undefined as one cannot divide by zero.

Even that is not a fair comparison, because it is looking at the cost of existing nukes, while the cost of NEW nukes is considerably higher.

If you read the full report, or even the page with notes for that graph shown on the web page given, you will see that they did consider the costs of new nuclear as best they could. They do note that decommissioning costs are unknown as there have been very few nuclear power plants decommissioned so far, and they further note such costs have been paid up front by the industry.

Tell me something, what's the costs of disposing of all the old solar collectors? Has that been considered in the price? I've read of plenty of concern over such costs and environmental impact on this website called Slashdot, have you heard of it?

Solar power is only cheaper than nuclear if one ignores the costs of storing the energy to meet demands. Once that is done then the costs are similar or higher than nuclear and nuclear has not been given the same chance on development to reduce prices like solar. Give nuclear power the chance to even compete and prices will come down. That means the government needs to be willing to issue permits to build nuclear power reactors. Failing to issue permits is a self fulfilling prophesy on nuclear power being too expensive, as that means the costs approach infinity.

Why do you fear nuclear power so much? Are you afraid it will drive your precious solar power out of the market?

Re:About time

[magusxxx]

There's no such thing as an insightful reply, therefore I shall not type.... ...wait....damn.

Re:About time

[ChrisMaple]

Baseload refers to the power that is provided/used all day long, it's the minimum power in a system over a period of time, usually 24 hours. Baseload is provided by systems that are difficult or impossible to start or stop quickly and can be depended upon to operate without interruption for long periods of time. Baseload plants are the most economically efficient, otherwise there would be no reason to put up with their lack of agility.

Other sources of power are used to take care of requirements above the base, they can be started and stopped relatively quickly but cost more to operate.

Re: About time

[WindBourne]

Yes and no. How you describe baseload used to be the case. These days, nukes, and I believe regular fossil fuel plants, are capable of load following within reason, i.e. 60-100% loads over say a minute or 2. But yeah, pretty much what you said.

Re:About time

[MachineShedFred]

And there is absolutely no drawbacks to releasing and burning yet more carbon.

There is absolutely no such thing as a safe carbon-based energy facility, and those will kill far more people than 10 Chernobyl-scale events could.

Plus, as others have pointed out, Chernobyl was the result of a piss-poor reactor design, complete lack of any kind of attempt at fail-safe containment, and extra-ordinary operations that should have never been done.

A triple-decker shit sandwich that is amazingly easy to not repeat by designing facilities to fix the first two, and then implement controls to make the third impossible.

Re: About time

[DRJlaw]

The last attempt was in South Carolina, which halted construction last year after spending $9 billion.

Nuclear is dead in America until there are some radically new designs.

I didn't realize that Vogtle had moved to South Carolina and been halted.

But no more pressurized uranium reactors will be built.

However unwise it may be, you still cannot say that.

Re: About time

[astrofurter]

I suppose there is probably a fuck ton of highly radioactive spent fuel still on-site at those shut down reactors. Just sitting around in temporary storage, waiting...

Waiting for a real solution to the spent fuel disposal nightmare. Waiting for natural disaster. Waiting for an enterprising terrorist. Waiting for the natural deterioration over time and failure of containment systems. The nuclear waste will long outlive any of us. It has plenty of time to wait...

Re: About time

[ShanghaiBill]

Many people insist that nuclear is expensive, but that applies to virtually all nascent technologies.

Nuclear is different. Over the last seven decades, nuclear has steadily become MORE EXPENSIVE.

No other technology has followed that path.

Re:About time

[dryeo]

So the hydro that supplies my power is not baseload as it can be turned on and off quite quickly?

Re:About time

[thegarbz]

Those are silly analogies.

Only in that specific way. If we used the nuclear approach for cars we would all drive 60s era cars without seat belts, ABS, crumple zones, or any of the other safety advancements we have over the years. Nuclear should be compared to cars more often, then maybe like every other industry there would have been major leaps in safety.

But instead we run ancient reactors because the NIMBYs won't let anyone build new ones.

Re:About time

[Joey Vegetables]

I'm very pro-modern-nuke, and not terribly concerned about AGW, but, still, I must agree at least that most if not all of these plants need to be shut down. They are old, dangerous, and close and/or downwind to major population centers. The two nearest to me, Perry (already slated to be closed soon) and Davis-Besse, are more than 30 years old, and have had multiple publicly-reported incidents. Some are even older. My hope though is that the huge drop in capacity will be replaced by something that this generally economically depressed and polluted region can afford, without increasing the morbidity and mortality associated with older coal plants. The two possibilities I can see are natural gas and more modern/efficient nuclear. Newer, CO2-sequestering coal plants might be an option in some places, and would greatly lift the fortunes of nearby coal-mining regions which are even more depressed than northeast Ohio, but I can't see us being able to afford those here.

Re: About time

[WindBourne]

there are TONNES, not just a fuck ton, of nuclear fuel sitting around at those sites. That is why we need to put in new 4th gen reactors that can use that fuel and get it down to a minor amount.
As it is, if we really want to get rid of it, simply re-start YUCCA and put it down there. BUT, that would be a true waste of fuel.

Re:About time

[WindBourne]

I grew up just west of Zion plant. Even use to fish both on-shore/off-shore of it (attracked alewives, which attracted coho). I really think that putting NEW 4th gen SMR reactors on-site is the way to go, and then simply replace the old ones with these. Once these 2'nd, 2.5, and 3rd gen are hitting 50+ years old, they have issues. The new 4th gen SMRs SHOULD be economical as well. Unlike the massive 1gw reactors that had to be built ON-SITE and then torn down on-site, these SMRs are easy to install and easy to remove.

Re:About time

[angel'o'sphere]

The old designs I'm aware of, and that are those we have since the 50s and 60s and 70s in Germany have below the containment vessel a "special designed" bath tub that is supposed to capture molten fuel and distribute it over a huge area to cool it down so far that it is solid and can not melt through into the ground water.

No idea about what designs you are talking.

Re:About time

[angel'o'sphere]

Does not matter.
As you don't even know what "base load" is.

From your other post:

And no, solar can NOT do base-load.
Wrong!

Here, read it and comprehend it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:About time

[angel'o'sphere]

Japan doesn't have the same kind of access as other nations to coal, wind, hydro, solar, or whatever to provide their energy needs.

Sorry, blindseer. You honour your name again.

WHY DON'T YOU LOOK ON A MAP TO SEE WHERE JAPAN ACTUALLY IS?

Japan is predestined to be run on Wind and Solar.

many nations will face the same problems as energy demands grow with development and access to oil and coal thins out.
Energy demand in the first world, and that includes Japan: is not growing!!!

Re:Terrible Idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Sincerely,

Exxon-Mobile

Re:Terrible Idea

[Nkwe]

Most of the Lake Erie economy depends on tourism. These will be a complete eyesore and will take away from the natural beauty the Great Lakes give. Lots of fishing, sailing and boating happen on Lake Eerie and its a way for people to get away and be out in nature. These will only detract and hurt the tourism of the region for the little amount of power they will generate.

Cargo ships are an eyesore, we allow them on Lake Erie.

It's a bit of evolution in action.

[mykepredko]

Bird populations figure out how to avoid the blades - I've watched them play around the blades as they spin.

Re:It's a bit of evolution in action.

[Suki I]

Bird lives matter.

Re:It's a bit of evolution in action.

[ShanghaiBill]

Bird lives matter.

Annual bird deaths in America from wind turbines: 60,000
Annual bird deaths in America from domestic cats: 3,700,000,000

Pro-tip: If you grind up cats and put them into an anaerobic digester, you can produce bio-gas.

Re:It's a bit of evolution in action.

[Suki I]

Cats are nature.

Re:It's a bit of evolution in action.

[angel'o'sphere]

The idea that wind turbines kill huge amount of birds is bollocks.
However the idea (yeah, that was discussed on /. often enough) that cats kill close to 4billion birds per year in the US is bollocks, too.
If every american had a cat, his cat would need to go outside and kill 10 birds per year. While you now can shift around numbers about how many cats there are in the US, you can shift up the numbers of bird kill per cat.

I have no clue why people have problems with big numbers. They are just numbers ... like small numbers.

Re:It's a bit of evolution in action.

[blindseer]

Domestic cats don't hunt bald eagles. Bald eagles hunt domestic cats. Bald eagles are killed by windmills, proven by the wind power industry lobbying the Obama administration successfully for kill permits of several protected species of eagles.

If domestic cats killing birds bother you then you'd want more windmills. Fewer eagles lost to windmills means more eagles to hunt cats.

Re:It's a bit of evolution in action.

[blindseer]

My proof is in the link I gave earlier that you obviously didn't bother to click on.

There is no dispute that windmills kill birds, the only dispute is over how many. Right now that number is quite small but that's because we now get a very small percentage of our electricity from wind power. If there is going to be a large portion of our electricity from wind then we are going to have to take the number of birds killed seriously.

Re:It's a bit of evolution in action.

[blindseer]

If every american had a cat, his cat would need to go outside and kill 10 birds per year.

I grew up on a dairy farm and as much as Dad hated cats we kept them around to keep the birds and mice out of the cattle feed. We purposefully fed the cats very little as that prompted them to hunt for their food. If we fed them nothing then they might wander off to another farm or simply go feral and become pests, we had to "train" them to behave around people and the cattle. The older and bigger cats could easily eat 10 birds in one day. Many of these birds were not large and so they'd have to eat a lot of them to fill them up.

I have no clue why people have problems with big numbers.

You appear to have your own problems with big numbers if you believe that domestic cats can't kill billions of birds per year. Just 1 cat eating only 3 birds per day is over 1000 birds killed. A quick Google search tells me that there's easily 100 million domestic (not necessarily "domesticated", as in always confined to a house) cats in the USA.

Re:It's a bit of evolution in action.

[mykepredko]

Actually, I have read the article and no where does it actually say that windmills kill bald/golden eagles, just that power companies can operate even if it results in the deaths of up to 4,200 birds over thirty years.

"It’s unclear what toll wind energy companies are having on eagle populations, although Ashe said as many 500 golden eagles a year are killed by collisions with wind towers, power lines, buildings, cars and trucks."

So, I would argue, using your source, that there is no proof as to whether or not wind mills kill eagles but you you could argue that the number is between zero and 500. Doing a quick search on the interwebs, the number of eagles killed per year by wind mills is estimated between 10 and 100 but there is no firm number or list of kills (or any confirmed ones) anywhere.

Re:It's a bit of evolution in action.

[Max_W]

Blades kill big endangered birds which like soaring in the places where wind turbines are installed. Cats do not attack them.

One pair of big birds may kill two thousand mice per summer. This is why in some areas of Europe there is an invasion of mice nowadays.

Re:It's a bit of evolution in action.

[blindseer]

Just because you passed your eyeballs over the words doesn't mean you understood what was written. They stated eagles were killed. You are trying to split hairs that they didn't specify the species of eagles killed. Bald eagles have been killed by windmills. Golden eagles have also been killed. As have other eagle species and other birds of prey. This is not under dispute.

Let's assume it's true that no bald or golden eagles were killed thus far. What we are seeing is an admission from the wind power industry is that there is a potential for hundreds or thousands of such birds to be killed every year. If they were certain that no such birds would be killed, or that the number would at worst be in the hundreds, then they would not have demanded permission to kill thousands without penalty.

there is no firm number or list of kills (or any confirmed ones) anywhere.

That's likely because the wind power industry has not been required to report these kills. How about we make a law to that effect? If no eagles are killed then the counting should be real easy.

Re:It's a bit of evolution in action.

[dryeo]

What about windows? Number of birds killed by buildings, close to a billion annually, perhaps 10% of the total bird population and only second to cats. (US numbers)
https://www.washingtonpost.com...

Re:It's a bit of evolution in action.

[dryeo]

Seems the biggest killer of large birds are power lines, at least in this article from 2003, http://www.sibleyguides.com/co...
The biggest killer around here of large birds may well be bullets and shot. The lakes are full of them and birds eat them, they go into the crop and bird gets lead poisoning.

Re:It's a bit of evolution in action.

[MachineShedFred]

False equivalence. There are spectacularly more species and variety of birds than one.

Cats can kill all the starlings and pigeons they want, but those birds are not the ones being smacked by wind turbines. Wind turbines disproportionately affect large birds, which are also more likely to be endangered species.

Re:It's a bit of evolution in action.

[angel'o'sphere]

A quick Google search tells me that there's easily 100 million domestic (not necessarily "domesticated", as in always confined to a house) cats in the USA.

Yeah, and those who kill birds are the minority.

Again: to make your numbers fit: every cat would need to contribute a huge deal in bird kills, but they don't.

None of them do

[nospam007]

"did not believe that the offshore wind project would cause significant damage to migratory birds"

None of them do. At least not as much as 0.3 cats.

Re:None of them do

[CaptainDork]

Or an ounce of pesticides.

Or a square mile of deforestation.

Or 1.0 Exxon Valdez.

Re:None of them do

[dryeo]

The real problem with large birds are the power lines, and most forms of power come with power lines. For small birds, it is cats and buildings.
http://www.sibleyguides.com/co...

Re:Terrible Idea

[Anonymous Coward]

No I'm a concerned resident that lives in this region. Why does everything have to be about a big corporate conspiracy. I am concerned about the natural beauty of the region. There is nothing wrong with having that debate.

seems like baby steps but its worth remembering

[nimbius]

This project comes from the same nation that once had a member of senate decry renewable wind energy as dangerous because wind was a "finite resource" and we would run out of wind if we built these farms.

now, im probably going to be modded down for making such a politicized observation, but had this been communist china, this wind farm would be an obvious solution to nonrenewable energy sources and most certainly come without debate. Of course as a member of the politburo you're free to opine the dangers of running out of wind, its just that such an objection would reward you with the next six years of your life to spend in appreciation of the rare majesty of the breeze as you split rocks amidst it in a labor camp.

Re:Terrible Idea

[angel'o'sphere]

Offshore usually implies, they are so far away, you don't see them from shore.
However, your milage may vary :D

Re:Terrible Idea

[angel'o'sphere]

oO!
I smell Butler's Jihad here!!

Re:Offshore Energy

[CaptainDork]

I see where you're going with this and it's an interesting concept.

We could drain the lake somewhat; fill in some of the shore with, say, plastic debris, and use the new shallows as oil flats much like salt-flat technology.

Peasants (refugees and immigrants) could go out each day with plastic bottles and collect the oil floating atop the liquefied shallows and pour those into the hold of an Exxon (Valdez class) tanker that will sail out to sea, follow the coast line to Port Arthur, Texas and deliver to the Saudi Arabian-owned refinery complex there.

It's a win-win.

The plan does not include the use of coal yet, but that could be worked in somehow.

Perhaps we could ship it in to keep the peasants warm in winter and to provide pot-bellied stoves for nourishment.

Not addressed is the hit corporate prisons will take when we divert the slave trade from corporate prisons to oil farms, but we can craft some laws where it's not only illegal to be driving while Black, we could expand that to walking while Black.

I can't think of everything.

I'll leave that to the fossil fuel lobbyists as I finish my bottle of water.

Re:Terrible Idea

[CaptainDork]

Your kind of post pisses me off.

When you use passive weasel words like that, how the fuck are we going to be able to understand your position on the matter?

Are you OK with the goddam global warming cooling fan farm or not?

Re:Terrible Idea

[CaptainDork]

I don't see your name on the "Ban billboards," list of protesters.

Inevitable

[voicofsf]

The project will be located 8 miles offshore, vertically. See the official website: http://www.leedco.org/index.ph... for the map / plan. There's little public or political will for the nuclear energy industry - at least beyond Tennessee's TVA. Per Wiki (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_the_United_States), about 1/2 of the plants are operating at a loss. Shutdown expenses are substantial (https://www.energydigital.com/utilities/what-does-it-cost-decommission-nuclear-power-plant). 2nd, despite the Executive branch backing of the coal industry, it's decline is inevitable. Again, there's little public support beyond the coal producing regions for coal fired plants. Here's an interesting article on that subject: https://energytransition.org/2.... Murray coal is the biggest producer of coal today in the U.S., but like the Saudis, they need to look beyond their current business model. I find it difficult to understand the hostility toward renewables in the U.S., though it seems that hostility is on a decline. Anyone who has a romantic notion of coal and their supported communities must have little familiarity with actually working in the mines, even with contemporary technology. Families have paid a high cost over many generations for coal. And I say this from my own family's history. I've walked those hills, I've visited cousins in coal country towns. I've watched the young move as quickly as their feet can take them. As my dad would say, "it's a done deal'.

Re:Terrible Idea

[CaptainDork]

You obviously don't fish.

We had this discussion back when Moby Dick was a minnow.

All your arguments preceded the proposed construction of offshore rigs in the Gulf of Mexico.

Sure, we've had explosions, oil leaks, and all that but those rigs are prime real estate for people who fish and dive.

Like birds playing games with turbine blades, fish flock (see what I did there) to the flora and fauna attracted to the rigs.

Divers take photos of those rigs juxtaposed against backgrounds of beautiful sunsets/rises.

The turbines don't exist yet and you're having a major cow.

Take the easy way out and grab a boat and head out to the EXISTING "eyesores" in the Gulf and protest, OK?

Bring bait and beer.

Re:Terrible Idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Who's going to say "I was totally going to go fishing in Lake Erie, but I had to cancel because I didn't want to see those damn windmills"? Probably as many as say "I was going to visit the countryside in Holland, but I didn't want to see those damn windmills!"

Seriously, there are far uglier things in Lake Erie, like 5-mile Crib and freighters. And quite frankly, I find wind turbines to have an elegant beauty about them. At less than half the height of the Terminal Tower and eight miles off shore, they'll be barely noticeable on the horizon.

dom

Re:Terrible Idea

[CaptainDork]

I am having an honest anonymous debate.

Emphasis mine.

Re:Terrible Idea

[ShanghaiBill]

I am concerned about the natural beauty of the region.

They are eight miles out. They are barely visible from the shoreline, even on a clear day.

There is nothing wrong with having that debate.

You really think you are going to win a debate based on the "natural beauty" of Cleveland, Ohio?

Re:Glow in the dark lakes could be tourist attract

[WindBourne]

And yet, we have had nukes along the great lakes for over 70 years and still no issues.

I thought subsidies were bad, "corporate cronyism"

[blindseer]

Stop the subsidies, it's just corporate welfare. Claiming that wind power has some kind of exemption because it's "green" is only admitting that "green" energy cannot survive competition.

End all energy subsidies. That means coal and nuclear. What nuclear power needs is permission to proceed, not subsidies. At least end the subsidies on the federal level, that's beyond the powers of the Constitution.

We're only now seeing some real research into fourth generation nuclear power. The molten salt reactor was a technology proven viable decades ago but shelved for political reasons since the 1970s. The Trump Administration is now allowing the building of prototypes which I assume will merely prove what was known in the 1950s. People have been begging for permission to perform such experiments for decades. Maybe now we can get on the path of building something other than another nuclear teapot for energy.

I find this concession for building a prototype a bullshit compromise because it means people will use this as an example of the government subsidizing nuclear power research. Well, give us laws which allow for such research on private property then. So long as the government lives with the myth that nuclear power is some kind of state secret, even though this technology has been in the public domain for decades, we will see such research have to happen with government employees on government land.

Re: Waste of tax dollars

[MiniMike]

They told Trump they were giant coal powered fans that would blow illegal immigrants back across the lake.

WTF IS WITH MEGAN GUESS

[Crashmarik]

Energy Department proposes funding for Ohio’s first offshore wind project

There is absolutely nothing in the story about funding anything.

What this says is that and environmental impact assessment was done and there would be no impact to the human environment.

Whoop de doo. Give the project momentum and the people that oppose it will find their equivalent of the snail darter before you can say boo. What's more, there still is no mention of dollar one.

You get this continuously with her just yesterday she had the zero information EU CO2 capture story.

It's like she holds treats out for dogs and some people feel obligated to get excited about nothing.

Yes, they are.

[gerald.edward.butler]

Thank you for the complement. I'm glad you approve of the debate style I use against complete nonsense.

Re:Glow in the dark lakes could be tourist attract

[MachineShedFred]

Don't go bringing "facts" into his knee-jerk FUD baseless arguments!

Don't you know that every waterway that serves as coolant for nuclear reactors ends up glowing in the dark?

Re:Terrible Idea

[Joey Vegetables]

You might be surprised. There is abundant natural beauty in this region, though more than its fair share of challenges as well, mostly of a man-made nature. The downtown Cleveland skyline, though not Chicago or Manhattan, is also pretty spectacular at night, particularly for a city of less than 400 thousand.

Re:Terrible Idea

[MachineShedFred]

Is there a lot of hot water flowing out of wind turbines?

No? Then what the fuck are you even talking about.

Re:Power for 4am?

[WindBourne]

geo-thermal, hydro, tidal are some decent ones.
However, we still need an energy matrix, not a single source.