[alnitak]

London Array Home Page

I'm not really convinced by offshore wind, the economics don't seem to be there compared to onshore wind. However, it will be impressive from an engineering perspective!

The downloads section of their website has a PDF map showing the location.

[alnitak]

Having these 2 things built should see us moving up the world capacity rankings a bit...

[BuffaloJack]

Wow, another feel-good white elephant for the nutbars to admire.

[Dudoight]

It sounds good. Dependency on oil can be reduced...but then how vulnerable would these windmills be to terrorism? I know nothing about this process, but assume there is some sort of energy storage accessory with this.

[agere_contra]

1.5 Billion sacificed to the Global Warming myth. But at least it will make a superb location for a Bond chase scene.

[tkathy]

Offshore sounds like the right answer.

[Uncledave]

Renewable Energy Ping

Please Freep Mail me if you'd like on/off

[montag813]

Wind power is so incredibly cost-stupid per kilowatt.

[sitetest]

Dear alnitak,

An advantage of the off-shore farms is that they don't crowd out other land uses, since they're not on land. ;-)

This is taking up 90 sq miles to generate a gigawatt of electricity. Putting a farm like this off-shore might be less disruptive in many coastal areas (especially if placed far enough off-shore), and would avoid the issue of competition with other uses for land envisioned for these projects.

From other threads, it seems also that the wind off-shore is often stronger and more constant, which can help make up for the difficulty and cost of operating off-shore, and the need to transmit the electricity back to the shore.


sitetest

[greasepaint]

how do you put a value,
on electricity, you can't count on?

at full value of European 'base load'
50 or so Euros per megawatt-hour,

capacity factor, 0.3
1000 megawatts
8760hours/yr
--->
131 million Euros per year, which is reasonable

[CaptRon]

The world's largest wind farm, capable of powering a third of London's three million households, is to be built off the coast of south east England.

Oh yeah?

[timer]

One wonders : have these wind engineers looked at the ocean currents flowing beneath these wind turbines? Water is 770 times as dense as air and an open, underwater hydroelectric dam would be out of sight. Also, at 1800' below sealevel you get the necessary 900 psi driving pressure for a Reverse Osmosis unit. With lots of film area and submersible pump at that depth, and fresh water pipeline coming to shore, by combining the dam(open cones on vertical cables in a triangular grid)with DSRO, you would have GREEN electricity and fresh water from the sea. Fish are not kennedy-type nimbys.

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

I guess these wind farms were allowed because Fat Red Ted and John Effin Kerry don't have guest mansions on or near those coasts...