I think this is incredibly cool. 75% of this planet is difficult/impossible to live on; why not use it for a clean form of energy?
I'll admit that I didn't think windmills would ever catch on, but I'm very happy to be wrong here.
I'll admit that I didn't think windmills would ever catch on, but I'm very happy to be wrong here.
I also caught the start of an interview yesterday about how the state of the national grid is a major limitation in our ability to consume these forms of energy (http://www.npr.org/2016/08/22/490932307/aging-and-unstable-t...). Hopefully our elected official will start working on that problem soon rather than bickering about bathrooms and building walls...
Because of that 75 74.999999 of it is too deep to be practical. The cause of so much conflict is the need for these turbines to stand in the relatively shallow water, often within sight of expensive ocean-viewing residential properties. If we could place them just anywhere, they'd be just over the horizon from everywhere.
The real issue isn't lack of viable location but the legions of old people for whom a windmill in their view is an ugly reminder that times change. In europe they are part of the landscape. Where I am (BC Canada) they are fought against tooth and nail by retired landowners who blame them for everything from night terrors to cancer. Vancouver has _one_ visible turbine and even that rarely actually turns. It's more disney ride than power generator.
I would so love it for the US to adopt them more, but we have reality-star presidential candidates that are telling us their an eyesore with huge applause.
Incidentally, this is not far from the site of another offshore wind farm which a certain Donald Trump waged a lengthy legal battle to try to prevent, because he thought it would spoil the view from his golf course[1].
Bear in mind that you can already see large numbers of offshore oil rigs off the coast of parts of north east Scotland.
[0] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/may/16/worlds-l...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_International_Golf_Club_...
Also, land windmills is already taking off slowly as mentioned in the article:
> If that sounds ambitious, consider that the country has installed some 50,000 wind turbines on land over the past two decades. They now supply roughly 5 percent of the nation’s electric power, a figure that reaches double digits in particularly windy states like Kansas and Iowa.
> The technology has been proved in Europe, where offshore wind farms as large as 300 turbines are being developed, with each turbine costing up to $30 million to build, install and connect to the power grid.