Posted on 02/26/2017 8:43:57 AM PST by artichokegrower
Offshore wind companies have spent years struggling to convince skeptics that the future of U.S. energy should include giant windmills at sea. Their job just got a lot harder with the election of Donald J. Trump.
The Republican president — who champions fossil fuels and called climate change a hoax — has mocked wind farms as ugly, overpriced and deadly to birds. His most virulent criticism targeted an 11-turbine offshore project planned near his Scottish golf resort that he derided as “ monstrous.”
(Excerpt) Read more at gcaptain.com ...
As if that would provide enough power to do anything. Inefficient and costly
The wind farms in the Bay Area, a good distance from the Bay and Ocean salt waters are constantly down for some type of repair.
One can only imagine the nightmare repairs and costs to maintain off shore windpower in a salty ocean.
Also, how do they safely transmit that electricity through or over the ocean with wind and tides?
Do they know that the colder the temp, the less power is produced? That’s not a tropical part of the country. If companies want to put up these gigantic turbines, fine, but NO federal subsidies should go to any alternative power generation when we are sitting on a thousand year supply of oil and natural gas.
The key to making utility scale wind cost-effective has been to scale-up the size. Unfortunately on land there is a limit to hub height (thus blade size) by how large a tower section can be hauled down the highway. But that is not a factor for offshore wind, which offers other advantages, and a few very large turbines would generate the same about of power a up to 10 conventional ones. The issue always is, someone doesn’t want it in their back (or front, I cant’ remember which way the Kennedy and Kerry estates face) yard. So they go to court. A good argument can be made for utility-scale wind ONLY on offshore locations, because this puts generation close to locations where power consumption is great (cities) vs. in places where the wind resource is plentiful but the power has to be carried hundreds of miles to cities (i.e. in the middle of Iowa).
This is not BS, the technology is as proven as the technology in a gas turbine that is powered by steam, coal, or nuclear heat. It is purely a political issue, and what is needed is for the government to stay the hell out of it so the free market can determine it’s fate - without subsidies, which the wind industry knows is already possible. And without NIMBY interference.
I think their dream is to have tax payers subsidize a bogus business model with hundreds of millions of dollars so they can get rich on other peoples money.
Driving to CA you pass acres of wind farms. They are incredibly ugly and ruin the beautiful land they are planted on.
CJ Box writes a series about a Wyoming Game Warden —Joe Pickett
Each book usually has a environment type issue as a background
The one he wrote with Wind Turbines as a backdrop —COLD WIND—
explains how they are completely worthless
Ok, so if what you say is correct, how do they get the very long marine grade blades to the barges to float them to the erection site?
Offshore means the dead birds sink to the bottom of the ocean so people can fool themselves into thinking that no birds are killed.
I say let them be built with the owners money. No subsidies of any kind.
That way they’ll never happen.
And the power supplied in almost nothing and kills birds. Plus half of the time most are not generating and night time when wind usually stops, nothing. These things are pure shi!.
Works for me
And the Sierra Club is all for wind turbines and blows off what it does to birds.
No, it isn't. Wind power and solar power both have serious environmental impact. The Butterfly Effect.....small changes at the onset lead to often great and unforeseen consequences. Beside killing birds, how will the drafts created by these monstrosities affect weather? With large solar farms, how does that affect the nearby environment?
How come nobody is talking much about conservation anymore? Couldn't houses be built that don't require much heating or cooling? How about an efficient passenger rail system? How about people grow up and not almost always have either the heat or air conditioning going to maintain their perfect indoor temperature? How about more locally sourced food and manufactured goods, so there's less global transportation of goods? etc
So true. I thought environmentalists cared about our feathered friends too.
The majority (50.1%) of DONG Energy is owned by the Danish Government.
I also wonder if the turbines are a hazard to navigation? Have any been struck by ships?
Dead birds float like corks if the local beaches are any indication.
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