[1] https://www.energy.gov/eere/articles/computing-america-s-off...
And the "gigantic ugly bird-killing machines" arguments are falling apart quickly in the face of the reality of climate change.
Wind turbines aren't carbon neutral. Better than coal, sure, but it's interesting that the discussion is always around building these things instead of reducing consumption. But no one gets rich off of reducing consumption.
The offshore turbines tend to dwarf anything installed in the midwest. It's not really a great comparison for proximity.
Logistically the west coast is challenging too because at this point the US offshore wind industry is pretty immature, and it's European companies winning the contracts to build and install the foundations. Jacket foundations could be constructed in the Gulf but the larger monopile foundations are probably going to come from Europe. The east coast seems easier to tackle first.
Alternately, maybe there's something we don't see in the one-line project description from an internet comment.
edit: A quick googling answered that - they're buying the power for a data center in Nebraska, not in California.
Rather than spending $3B to build out wind or other renewable power locally.
First, hydro power is very stable, and Quebec has a surplus, so they could probably get a good price deal for an ongoing relationship. The construction cost is nothing, compared to the ongoing cost. What does that Canadian power cost, vs the cost of wind? They could be looking at tremendous savings over the next few decades.
Second, this appears to be a New York City decision, not a New York state decision. Does NYC have enough viable land to build a gigawatt (or more like 3-4gw, considering load variation) of wind? Probably not.
[0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-voltage_direct_current#...
That said, I agree that 5% sounds close for the transmission losses alone (excluding distribution), and 5% could be easily made up, like you said, by many things, like being next to a wind turbine factory/cheaper land/cheaper labor/tax breaks/many things.
Interesting note: I found here [0] that silver would be a feasible conductor for HVDC lines if prices were lower. On an example line, it would save $19M/yr but cost $18.5B to build, so 1000 year payback time, which is unrealistic. But! If the price of aluminum increased substantially (for example: say we discover smelting releases mega-carcinogens and it's banned) and the price of silver fell (silver is now 4x as expensive as it was in 2003, so I feel like it could fall fairly precipitously) then we could in theory have silver power lines. One thing to remember, though, is that it's only the "skin" of the conductor made of copper/aluminum/silver - the skin carries 90% of the power, but the bulk of the conductor's mass is the cheap steel core that doesn't need to be as conductive because it only carries 10% of the power.
Large distances between source and consumption is common to most resources. It's hardly unique to renewable energy. We need long rail lines for coal generation, gas pipelines for gas generation, same for oil, hugely expensive water projects to get water to where it can be used, etc. In comparison, the combination of transmission line expansion and wind and solar (and soon, storage) is fast becoming the most cost effective way to supply a country with electricity.
Bird deaths from wind turbines are just a tiny fraction of those from things like cars, buildings and windows, guy wires, and house cats. I don't like the danger that turbines pose to raptors, but the "bird-killing machines" thing is pretty worn-out bullshit at this point.
My opposition to wind turbines has more than one basis, and my concern for birds is separate but intersects with this concern. But it doesn't matter to those who don't live near any wind farms.
One other valid complaint is they cast large shadows & shouldn't be built near a house where a giant rotating shadow will be flashing in windows.
Keeping window towers a distance from homes & reducing the noise would help increase the amount significantly.
I rarely hear the bird argument anymore.
To give you a feel for what I mean, in a few short years, the SPP region went from a small amount of wind to having greater than 60% renewable penetration. This means over 60% of generation serving load came from renewables at one point. ERCOT (grid operator for Texas) has also had really high numbers (upper 50).
It's not clear that the entire life-cycle costs (in terms of CO2 emissions) of adding ethanol is better than the gasoline that it displaces, see [1]. This would mean that the mandates and incentives would be be better spent on other ways to reduce emissions.
[1] https://www.factcheck.org/2015/11/ethanol-higher-emissions-o...
The effect is that for now most people have been targeting 500 feet, but a greater percentage of future development is likely to exceed 500 feet. Realistically this won't wait for 10 MW units, but will yield significant benefits (overall) at 4 to 5 MW.