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Comment by epistasis | Hacker News Reader

There's huge energy potential for tethered floating wind turbines off the California coast.

The costs seem to plummet far faster than even the rosiest expectations, too. A more recent auction than the Hywind project discussed by the BBC here, at Dogger Bank, has anchored turbines but is super cheap, about $50/MWh, which for the UK means cheaper than natural gas:

https://cleantechnica.com/2019/09/23/uk-offshore-wind-prices...

They recently ordered 13 MW turbines, which are absolutely massive compared to the tethered 5 MW turbines at Hywind.

Europe has been very quick at changing their offshore oil expertise into renewable energy know-how. The US is far behind, and though there are a few plans on the US Atlantic coast, it seems that our energy giants are determined to go down in the flames of fossil fuels rather than transition to the future of cheaper, cleaner energy that everybody else is building. They deserve their low market caps these days.

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We also have a fractured policy landscape in the US. We have weakened federal regulations due to the denier in chief and his former-coal-lobbyist EPA director. We also have a lot of states with great renewable potential, either solar or wind, that because of their fossil industry and corruption in politics, leads to denialism and slowing of renewable progress.

Contrast that to the EU, where most member states are energy importers and don't have their own fossil fuels to use. If they do, then like Germany or Poland, they still use a LOT of coal. It's easier for UK to be done with coal: they mined up all of theirs and used it already. Add these factors onto a much more literate and well-educated populace who reads about and cares about climate, and we have an EU that is leading but still not perfect.

So, in general, the US has great potential, but there is definitely the most progress happening in Europe.

> fractured policy landscape in the US

are you saying that the EU is more uniform politically than the US?

When it comes to realizing an offshore wind farm, Europe doesn’t have the Byzantine multilevel and multiagency permitting process that the US does. Permitting delays and complexity are largely what’s holding back offshore wind in the US.

IMHO, US politics are extremely polarized. Politics elsewhere tend to be a much more nuanced spectrum, with large moderate bases.

There's a lot of money to be had by making sure Americans are divided and not united against corporate interests. In addition to limiting corporate lobbying (including fixing the lobbyist/regulator revolving door), campaign donations, etc, I would really like to see more research into how media and social media influence polarization, and perhaps some regulation around social media curation.

It's less about the polarization and more about the dominance of the hydrocarbon lobby. In Europe it just isn't as powerful.

It's the same story with a few lobbies - especially gun manufacturing and HMO.

The most successful lobbies may favor one side but they are pretty bipartisan.

I think perhaps this holds for specifically climate science and the politics around it.

Even the Conservatives in the UK are backing wind, with a goal of 40 GW recently announced.

Meanwhile in the US, even though conservative voters show majority support for clean energy in polls, conservative politicians sabotage clean energy policy, and work to convince voters against their clean energy views, because their campaign funds come from fossil fuel interests.

This leads to much less certainty for investors that policy will stay consistent long enough for projects to come to fruition. When a bought and paid for election destroys policy, like was recently exposed in Ohio, it keeps investors' money away.

https://www.energyandpolicy.org/utility-corruption/

The US has the more well-educated populace. A larger percentage of Americans have college degrees than in every EU country except Luxembourg.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tertiary_...

Completion of tertiary education =/= "well educated" necessarily. Consider the math and reading scores of our children, which lag behind many other countries. Consider the poor state of public schooling in urban and rural areas. There's also a cultural difference, many European areas may have a more pro-knowledge or pro-truth mindset, whereas "American values" are often incongruous with the actual facts established by science.

There's still coal in the UK and it is high quality compared to say Germany - but it was initially a political decision by Thatchers government to switch to Gas, to hobble the NUM.

You right that the federal nature of the USA is holding it back - might have been ok for 18th century rich farmers a twenty-first century supper power not so much.

> denier in chief

First time I'm hearing this reference. It's cute.

> [EU/UK has] a much more literate and well-educated populace

I'd like to agree that it's all well and good on this front in the EU, but recent developments like Brexit and the rise of identity politics stand as strong counter-arguments.

Isn't hackernews meant to be politics free? Would be great if there was at least one place we didn't need to read these tiresome comments from people who can't comprehend that others have different value systems.

If HN were politics free, we couldn't discuss our differences or maybe even know about them. To defend what I said, I think it's easy to argue that Brexit was rash and short-sighted (the campaigns were more or less based on lies) and identity politics are short-sighted more or less by definition (since cooperation is proportional to inclusiveness of identity). If you'd like to have a discussion, those are my arguments.

> Isn't hackernews meant to be politics free?

No, though there was a brief experiment in that direction in, IIRC, late 2016 that was aborted before it had run its planned one-week course.

Your name is dissident science, I'm guessing you're skeptical about the mainstream of science? So, tell us, what are your "different value systems" that support Trump's denial of climate science?

I don't think it's a stretch to call the current Commander in Chief a "Denier in Chief". When asked about climate during the two debates, he obfuscates and talks about forest floor litter or OPEC-negotiation for low gas prices. When asked about global warming, he claimed "It'll get colder". He can't come out and say fossil fuel combustion leads to atmospheric change that warms the planet. To say that would be to go against his party, which is pro-fossil fuel and takes big money from big energy companies (but the GOP is also pro-renewable, might I add, look at Iowa, TX, and many red states doing well on renewables).

Hackernews is supposed to be about technology, which is governed at its core by the objective reality of 0/1 binary transistors and the complex scientific/logical systems we've built to interact with that science. It's not a stretch to support science on this forum. If you're going against the grain of science, I'd say SUPPORT your position, don't just state your position and ask for moderator take-down of an opposing view.

One of the problems with offshore wind in the US is the depth of the ocean off the coasts of areas that actually have high wind. It's like God gave the middle finger to the US in this regard but it's something technology could potentially solve for. Much of the eastern US coastline has huge drop offs not far off the coast of windy areas. You need a max depth of ~50 meters for a good sized turbine to be installed. Florida is one of the most viable places but alas, not very windy.

Compare this to Northwestern Europe in this map: https://www.britannica.com/place/Atlantic-Ocean It makes England/Nordics/Benelux the Saudi Arabia of wind power!

I don't know much about the potential for California though. Has it not been invested in due to seismic risks? Or is it mainly a factor of coastal homeowners lobbying against it?

The US has a huge "wind belt" from the Texas panhandle north to Canada.[1] Big, flat open spaces where there are roads. Higher winds are available in the mountains, but installation and maintenance gets expensive. HVDC lines to Texas, the West Coast, and the Midwest will be needed to exploit that power.

California has four good on-land wind areas, and there are big wind farms on all of them. Time to look elsewhere.

[1] https://electrek.co/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2016/08/us_wi...

There's an HVDC line that intends to colocate along railroad right of way to route from Iowa to Illinois [1] to get clean wind power to load centers. Lots of railroad right of way [2] to get renewable generation to load centers. Throw some fiber down while you’re at it, we can always use more fiber everywhere.

[1] https://www.soogreenrr.com/

[2] http://www.mapattacks.com/2015/01/who-owns-americas-rail-inf...

California has a much steeper drop off than the continental shelf in the Atlantic.

The floating Hywind turbines are tethered to a sea floor depth of 130m, but this technology is fairly recent for wind turbines.

Here’s a recent study on the potential off the California coast:

https://calpolynews.calpoly.edu/news_releases/2020/september...

There is a ton of offshore oil in Southern California, so one would think that it would be straightforward to add wind. However the laws are such that existing practice is privileged and allowed, and changes are easily challenged by only a tiny number of people. So we will see if CA is able to deploy anything new off the coast.

> There is a ton of offshore oil in Southern California

There was a lot of offshore drilling before 1969, before blow-out protectors were required, until one big spill at the cusp of the environmental movement turned most of the California coast against oil drilling, and anything like it offshore, even, ironically, off-shore wind farms - for now.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1969_Santa_Barbara_oil_spill#M...

Ironic considering they still pull oil out of the ground in the middle of residential neighborhoods in LA

>The US is far behind, and though there are a few plans on the US Atlantic coast

the UK is smaller than the state of Michigan, so it naturally follows they would seek to expand their wind turbines to the sea. Its doubtful that a nation the size of the US would ever commit turbines to sea when theyre already generating 105 gigawatts across the nations expansive stretch. conversely, the UK's most ambitious goal is a paltry 40 gigawatts.

neither country is "ahead" or "behind" the other. The opportunities, requirements, costs, and other variables are simply different.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_the_United_State...

We are behind on the industrial development for offshore wind farms. We will likely buy the tech from Europe, as well the rest of the world.

I don’t understand how the size of the nations means that UK would expand to sea but we wouldn’t. Can you step through your reasoning for me? For example, the wind corridor in the center of the US doesn’t provide anything for North Carolina. How does the size of the US and UK relate to this?

On shore wind is cheaper and more durable. So use it first. North Carolina is part of PJM and would benefit from wind throughout the region. Now the transmission costs might be high enough that off shore could make sense in NC if on shore is not an option. So then you need to look at increasing transmission or building something local.

We've had problems installing offshore wind in the US as the wealthy people who live on the coasts generally don't like to look at the turbines in their ocean views. Hopefully something like this has a better chance of succeeding if they are further off the coast.

If a wind turbine is 50m high, and a coastal house is no more than 50m above sea level, then as long as it's 30 miles off short there's no problem.

Of course there's a question about ownership of "ocean views". Who owns the sea? If you have a view over a field you don't own, can the field owner put up a water tower? Or barn? Or wind turbine? If your view in enhanced by the horses, can he choose to grow maize instead?

The US might have started behind, but wind power is now the fastest growing generation source.

https://www.powermag.com/wind-energy-leads-u-s-power-generat...

It’s quite misleading to emphasize the cheapness of renewable generators themselves and not take into account the price of the storage they require and where it would go if there was demand for enough to keep the whole world running when the wind has lulls (and when electricity use peaks as the sun goes down).

I’m glad Europe has scouted ahead, I hope we can learn from France’s 75% nuclear grid and nuclear “waste” recycling and comparing them to Germany’s much more expensive renewable path.

I think “misleading” is the wrong word to use here, but if it’s misleading to look at the drop in costs for offshore wind without talking about some of the challenges of deploying it, shouldn’t it also be “misleading” to talk about France’s nuclear fleet from the past as if they would be able to do it again? The future of France’s electrical grid is unlikely to be nuclear because their attempts to build replacements have been failures. I just came across this audit today:

https://www.montelnews.com/en/story/more-pressure-for-french...

Of the five attempted new reactors, only two have completed and have not been impressive financially. The auditing team found gross project mismanagement, but also found that there has been difficulty completing welding properly, and the large nuclear reactors inherently require massive amounts of high precision, high quality welding as a basis for the entire endeavor.

Finally, it is quite misleading to generalize Germany’s renewables path to other countries, because they consciously financed the creation of an industry that now has exponentially falling costs. The entire world owes Germany a debt for kickstarting this virtuous cycle of product innovation and falling costs, as we will all benefit from their early work.

Sorry to be unclear, and thanks for alerting me to it. I was talking about ongoing energy prices, not just initial infrastructure investment. According to the US Department of Energy, our reactors are expected to last for 80+ years.¹ But solar panels and wind turbines can wear out in 20. So I expect France’s energy to stay cheaper in the future, even if it takes a while to convert the last 25% to nuclear, and for Germany’s costs to continue rising, like California’s. Not to mention France’s 7 times lower CO₂ emissions per capita, or nuclear’s 400 times lower land use.

¹https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/whats-lifespan-nuclear-re...

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