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Comment by gok | Hacker News Reader

One reason is that on-shore wind in the US is really good. The Great Plains are so windy and big that it's not really clear the added expense of marine turbines gets us much. Texas already has wind capacity factors of 40%, similar to many offshore projects.

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The Plains isn’t close to every population center though, so unless some serious new transmission capacity to the coasts opens up, offshore is still a decent component.

Wait a few years until superconducting transmission lines based on LK-99 will be everywhere!

Only half-joking. I suspect that transmission may be a large part of the total cost, and it could be more efficient to build turbines in less windy places but closer to a major transmission station and / or major consumers. Coastal cities have a lot of electric infrastructure in place, and are hungry for more electricity.

energy demanding businesses can be moving closer to energy sources with population and infra following. It can be continues evolution.

The Great Plains has high transport costs due to a lack of navigable waterways, and is also prone to drought. Energy is not usually the dominating factor for population centers, and most power intensive industries also need a lot of water.

Boeing was founded in the Pacific Northwest because aluminum smelting was made cheap through abundant hydro, so this will happen naturally if it makes sense.

Isn't the HVDC loss from the center of the country to either coast going to be under 10%? Balancing that against the maintenance and construction challenges of offshore wind, is it really better to construct offshore projects just to save a few percent?

What is the cost and time of land acquisition and environmental review?

There are NIMBYs for offshore, but land transmission lines go through people’s literal backyards and over longer distances.

Theoretically, yes, but practically there is a whole lot of nothing in the majority of the Western US.

Right, which why the transmission lines have to go from the empty place to population centers. Eventually they go through populated areas.

The main impediment is wealthy people with coastal retirement properties who don't want to gaze out upon a vast expanse of blinking red lights at night.

I doubt that is true, it's likely more the oil industry's concern with environmental impact of wind turbines

It already happened with Cape Cod.

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