Offshore wind grid is the answer, study says
- Thread starter Dusty Ayres
- Start date
Is this for powering the US or the whole world?
Dusty Ayres
Commodore
Warning beacons wou'd be placed around the towers, or on them.
It seems like it's intended for the U.S. Aren't you guys lucky?
I just might change my pro-nuke stance.
Dunno but I saw a tv article no so long ago where some-one was looking to build a windfarm of the coast of Florida iirc. They were going to use old oil rigs or something.
But if the ships can avoid oil rigs they should be able to avoid the wind turbine platforms.
I haven't seen any information about how densely wind turbines off the coast would be distributed, but the photos I've seen of land based wind farms have a much higher density than off shore oil platforms. To generate a useful amount of power some significant sections of ocean might have to be made off limits to military and civilian ships. Since the wind farms would probably be just out of sight of the beach (to reduce loses through cable resistance) US Navy exercises might be forced further from the coast, increasing time to reach the exercise areas and fuel consumption for ships and carrier based aircraft.
Any sections of ocean reserved for wind turbines will have to be seperated by wide corridors for access to the numerous east and gulf coast ports. There will also need to be allowances for shipping parralel to the coast that is too large to use the intercoastal waterway (a series of natural and artificial waterways that provides a protected route for small pleasure craft and commercial barge/tug traffic)
Any sections of ocean reserved for wind turbines will have to be seperated by wide corridors for access to the numerous east and gulf coast ports. There will also need to be allowances for shipping parralel to the coast that is too large to use the intercoastal waterway (a series of natural and artificial waterways that provides a protected route for small pleasure craft and commercial barge/tug traffic)
I have one tiny problem with wind power (and also wave power): it's presented as being free energy once you've built the plants to harvest it (and I hope it is).
But those power plants are taking energy out of the eco-system. It might be a tiny amount in theory, but the whole chaos theory idea (among other climate change problems) suggests that small changes to the system can have big effects.
But those power plants are taking energy out of the eco-system. It might be a tiny amount in theory, but the whole chaos theory idea (among other climate change problems) suggests that small changes to the system can have big effects.
Strategically, wouldn't this type of system be very vulnerable to water-borne attack? Terrorists and/or a hostile nation's navy?
Given the volume of the atmosphere, I think "tiny" amount is probably overstating it. I'd be more worried about cars slowing down the rotation of the earth with their wheels
.It'll be a distributed system, lots of stations presumably. So it wouldn't make a great target; the loss of one station wouldn't do much more than alert the Coast Guard there was a problem.
The land based power grid is probably even more vulnerable. Take out few high voltage transmission lines by say blowing up a couple of pylons and you could probably get power outages over quite a large area for some time.
However I don't think a power outage is quite terrifying enough for terrorists.
However I don't think a power outage is quite terrifying enough for terrorists.
The dirty little secret they don't tell you about wind power: Maintenance.
Wind machines are maintenance pigs.
How you gonna do maintenance on thousands of turbines scattered across the ocean???
Wind machines are maintenance pigs.
How you gonna do maintenance on thousands of turbines scattered across the ocean???
they wouldn't be scattered across the ocean - you build them just offshore where they get the most benefit from the wind.
just ask the Europeans - there are serveral off-shore windfarms operating there.
What a bunch of commie liberal hippie nonsense.
NIMBY types in the US won't allow it (ie The Kennedys and others who have houses in Martha's Vineyard fought a similar proposal)
You don't have to be rich and famous to get a wind farm nixed - one planned for Southern Ontario has been shitcanned because local residents go up in arms.
Can't remember if was the one out near my in-laws which has also been opposed - despite being on government land and on top of a large hill.
stupid morons.
We have these really neat little things called boats.