The web's first ocean and offshore wind energy weblog. Continuously renewed, like the ocean itself.
The Crown Estate has recently announced its licensed sites for the second round of offshore wind farm developments. These sites represent fifteen projects, representing between 5.4 and 7.2 GW of new wind power capacity. According to the British Wind Energy Associations website, the farms will generate enough power for 4 million homes, or one in six of UK households. In terms of interest to the recreational boater, this equates to 1800 - 2400 turbines based on a 3MW turbine currently being installed or assuming technology is able to increase turbine capacity to 5 MW turbines, this would mean 1080-1480 turbines being installed. The sites are limited to the three strategic areas around the UK - the Thames Estuary, the Greater Wash and Liverpool Bay.
But additional tests are needed. According to the article, Williams also drawn interest from the Navy and hopes to sign a contract with the Navy to help construct a full-scale prototype, with blades 106 feet in diameter, for testing off the coast. Williams has also applied for the first federal permit (editor's note - Williams apparently applied to the Corps of Engineers though FERC has asserted jurisdiction over ocean energy permitting) for what he envisions as seven "energy fields" stretching from Miami to Vero Beach, Fla., with an array of 500 generators. The review could take a year. And the cost of building a prototype could cost around $2 million which means that it may be awhile before the first wave or current energy project comes on line.
John Chorlog, an assistant director for Miami-Dade's Water and Sewer Department, said Williams would have to supply
Still many are skeptical about the possibility, including high costs, how to transport power to shore and where to use it. But PSC Commissioner Foster Campbell isn' amongst the nay-sayers: "I’m not looking for a lot of pessimism saying it won’t work. I want to know how to make it work,” the article quotes Campbell as saying. “It’s worked in other parts of the country. Why not Louisiana?”
The Louisiana Public Service Commission will study the feasibility of generating electricity from wind turbines installed on dormant oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico. Commissioner Foster Campbell of Bossier City brought the idea to the PSC at its monthly meeting Wednesday in Baton Rouge. Lafayette conservationist and businessman Harold Schoeffler briefed the commission on the concept. He said wind energy is expanding in offshore locations in Europe and the United States and on land in Texas and California. Commissioners asked Schoeffler to educate the PSC and staff on the potential for offshore wind energy. Campbell said jobs in construction and other fields could be generated, and the power could be cheaper for ratepayers. PSC staff and Louisiana utility officials recently attended a conference organized by Schoeffler in Lafayette at which representatives of GE Wind Energy discussed using offshore oil platforms to erect wind turbines.
But is Altamont an accurate baseline for measuring bird deaths in the wind industry. As the article continues:
Altamont was constructed in the early 1980s when little was known about the migration patterns of birds in nearby areas. Mistakes made at Altamont have been used to make improvements in new wind farms. No other wind farm in the United States comes close to the bird mortality rates at Altamont because of improved windmill design for newer farms. The industry says similar updates for Altamont would be too costly.
past attempts to reduce bird kills have included painting the tips of turbine blades to try to make them more visible to birds, installing screens around generators and putting devices to discourage perching on the towers. But those measures have failed to substantially lower the number of bird deaths. Among the measures now being discussed is letting the grass beneath the turbines grow taller and removing nearby rock to provide more cover for prey and discourage birds from flying in the area. "There is no universal agreement what the exact right thing to do is," Stengel said, noting that a few years ago the recommendation was to build rock piles near the turbines. Now the recommendation is the opposite.The number of birds killed at Altamont seem high - but they don't tell everything. I'd be interested in knowing, for example, how bird kills at Altamont compare to the number of birds killed at airports or by skyscrapers. I'd also be interested in seeing the rate at which the numbers have declined over the years. Finally, what would be the substitute for wind power - a natural gas plant? More fossil fuel generation? Surely these sources also have adverse impacts - and not just on birds but on humans also.
[First], the Horns Rev project [the largest offshore windfarm in the world] does not offer a fair comparison to what is being proposed by Cape Wind. "It's two completely different kinds of tourism that you have there," Anderson said yesterday. Among his criticisms, Anderson said it was misguided to compare the North Sea resort area to Cape Cod and the islands. "Cape Cod is a place where you go down, you have a lot of wind surfing and sailing," he said. "The North Sea, where Blavandshuk is located, you can go 20 feet out into the water, then you can't go any further, because of the undercurrents, and there are pitfalls in the water. You don't go swimming. You don't really go sailing, either. There's a lot of wind. It's really, really dangerous." Anderson also said the Danish wind farm was not economical, due to high government subsides and a low rate of return on energy. He said the money would be better spent cleaning up power plants in Eastern Europe.
The audience was "equal opportunity" in ignoring Hunt's efforts to limit the scope of the meeting. Although backers of the wind farm project said the task force meeting was not the appropriate forum for discussing it, they also said that if the Task Force Report mentioned Cape Wind then it should include recommendations and principles promoting such projects. Those who opposed the wind farm believed that it was incumbent upon the task force to recommend "closing the doughnut" and thereby encourage the state to seek control over the project.
As for other criticism of the Task Force report, Steve Tucker, a coastal resources specialist quesitoned how the recommendations would be implemented while Patrick Paquette, president of the Massachusetts Striped Bass Coalition and a member of several other organizations devoted to recreational fishermen, criticized the report as being guided by insiders rather than the public. He also complained that the public comment period fell far short of the 90 days typically provided by state law for review of new rules and practices.
Wave power is a potentially important renewable resource and the researchers estimate that New Zealand's near-shore wave energy exceeds the current electricity consumption by over 40 times. The WEC design will include novel gearless conversion and "smart technology" adaptive control. This technology has the potential to achieve a breakthrough in electricity generation from renewable resources and capture key intellectual property for New Zealand. The National Institute for Atmosphere and Water (NIWA) and Wellington-based company Power Projects Limited will play vital roles in the programme.
I am an attorney in Washington DC with my own law practice, Law Offices of Carolyn Elefant. For more than a decade, I've been helping ocean energy, offshore wind and other marine renewables and hydro developers get projects funded, permitted and built. Of course, I handle all kinds of other matters - general litigation (civil and criminal), appellate, FERC regulatory practice (e.g., generation interconnection, market design and rates, transmission organizations and all that). What unifies my work in all these areas is my commitment to getting results for my clients no matter the impediments. To better serve my energy clients, I have affiliated as of counsel with the Law Offices of Scott Hempling , a prominent national energy practice.
