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Following in the footsteps of Delaware, New Jersey is planning a 350 megawatt offshore wind farm a couple of miles off the coast. It's an exciting project for two reasons. First, because the billion dollar project is going far enough offshore that wind speeds will be fairly constant and not visible to beach-goers. And second because, despite being built in 100m deep water, the project is still economically viable.
This is a big deal for offshore wind. Once you can build in water more than a mile and a half offshore, a lot of new options get put on the table.
In the North East U.S. there has been a huge amount of opposition to wind farms that are easy to see. So simply moving the turbines so far offshore that they can't be seen makes the farms much easier to permit. But it's also simply because there's a lot more sea bottom out there, with much more constant wind flow out there than there is closer to shore.
So while this wind project, slated to be completed in 2013, is a big deal...it's a bigger deal that it will likely usher in hundreds more wind projects just like it. And as soon as floating turbines (which can be anchored in water almost a half-mile deep) will put that number in the thousands.
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written by Francis, October 07, 2008
It reminded me of how everyone seems to have decided wind farms will never work because they are supposedly "not pretty". Yet it's perfectly alright to have a coal factory next to a neighborhood..we have several in central Virginia alone, one next to a natural park..one with a really beautiful lake, that unfortunatly seems to be full of waste from the lake.
Personally I think wind farms are much more "aesthetic pleasing" than coal factories, don't you agree?
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written by neil, October 07, 2008
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written by Marcos Carot Collins, October 08, 2008
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written by Julia, October 08, 2008
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written by jake3988, October 08, 2008
I wonder if instead they could take a wind-turbine concept and move it underwater. That'd be interesting.
Since Ocean currents (especially when it's very windy) are INCREDIBLY powerful... you could harness some serious energy out of it.
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I was in California a few months ago and I was most impressed with the number of wind farms there. Controversially, I didn't find them an eyesore! In fact, I thought they had a kind of charm to them - vast swathes of towers sweeping over hilltops, blades gently turning in the wind. Yes, I was really impressed. That said, the countryside wasn't especially pretty where they were sited. I wouldn't really have liked to see a farm in the middle of Yosemite!
While the Queen of England has just bought the biggest wind turbine in the world, I wouldn't really want to look at it every day from my lounge window if I'd bought a house with a seaview. So, out at sea, beyond human vision is an excellent solution to the problem.
Of course it won't be a solution everywhere - architecture of the ocean floor or depth won't allow that. But then we don't need it everywhere if we adopt solar, hydro and geothermal as well.
This is a great project which I hope spawns many others.
Steve N. Lee
author of eco-blog http://www.lionsledbysheep.com
and suspense thriller 'What if...?'