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Comment by coryrc | Hacker News Reader

UK has about 35% more onshore capacity than offshore: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_the_United_Kin...

AIUI there are essentially no new on-shore wind farms being built. So while there is existing capacity, the focus is now on deploying new farms off-shore.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/oct/05/boris-johns... and https://www.ukri.org/news-and-events/responding-to-climate-c... have some more context.

Yes, onshore wind in the UK is big, but offshore has the potential to be very, very big.

The towers have gotten so high that inland wind has gotten a lot more profitable.

Over here it started onshore but is now happening inland. Offshore is very expensive because of moving ice.

> Offshore is very expensive because of moving ice.

Huh? Ice? There isn’t any sea ice to contend with in the UK.

Of course there isn't, and I didn't say so.

Can you clarify then what you mean by “because of moving ice?”

Where the climate is cold, like "over here", and many other places, building in the sea is expensive, because of the moving ice. Hence offshore wind is not really even a thing here - but wind is still being massively built - inland - because of new technology like higher towers and larger unit sizes make it profitable.

Land locked countries or countries with not a lot of sea also can benefit from this newer wind technology that can be built inland profitably. They then don't need to build onshore but can build inland. Some US states for example have great inland wind resources.

And there timber towers could be very relevant - it doesn't need to be saltwater proof.

The context of this subthread was wind power in the UK…it was super confusing to me that you apparently are referring to some mysterious other place with ice.

I interpreted the context differently. Somebody was extrapolating from the UK to the whole world, assuming that everybody has switched to almost fully offshore wind.

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