Power East Coast via wind? Doable with 144,000 offshore turbines, study says

NBC News ^ | 9/15/12 | Miguel Llanos

[Libloather]

Power East Coast via wind? Doable with 144,000 offshore turbines, study says
By Miguel Llanos, NBC News
10 hours ago

Placing wind turbines off the East Coast could meet the entire demand for electricity from Florida to Maine, according to engineering experts at Stanford University.

It would require 144,000 offshore turbines standing 270 feet tall — not one of which exists since proposals have stalled due to controversy and costs. But the analysis shows it's doable and where the best locations are, says study co-author Mark Jacobson, a Stanford professor of civil and environmental engineering.

The team is not advocating for an "all wind" approach, saying it'd be foolish to put all of one's energy eggs in a single basket, but they do think it could reach up to 50 percent. Today the U.S. gets about 4 percent of its electricity from wind, but only via turbines on land.

[Libloather]

And when the wind dies down, pray for a hurricane.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

And it is RACIST to wonder how much climate change would be induced by such a monstrosity.

[knarf]

Or we could just wait for the 144,000

[smokingfrog]

The lifespan of an offshore turbine is not going to be very long. Plus, keeping that many constantly maintained would be a logistics nightmare.

[southernnorthcarolina]

One windmill mounted on an exhaust vent on the Capitol Building dome should provide all the power needed.

[Sacajaweau]

We have plenty of gas here. My heat is gas and it’s friggin expensive. NYS should be able to cut my cost in half with fracking....but thast will never happen. The big “cut” will go into the NYS coffers...another way to rob the workers.

[Argus]

the analysis shows it's doable and where the best locations are

Martha's Vineyard, Hyannisport, Newport, the south shore of Connecticut, the Hamptons, Hilton Head, Palm Beach...

What? Too many big Democrat donors have vacation homes there? Whaddya say? What????

[Big Horn]

144 thousand reasons not to do it.

[cripplecreek]

LOL this from yesterday.

Michigan blowhads are admitting that its pretty much impossible but want it in the constitution anyway.

Proposal 3 would require that the state add as many as 13 times more wind turbines in Michigan than currently operate. Proposal 3 would mandate that 25 percent of Michigan’s energy come from renewable sources. Wind is expected to be the primary supplier of renewable energy if the proposal passes.

Advocates and experts predict 2,300 to 3,790 nearly 500-feet high wind turbines would have to be added to meet the 25-percent mandate. Michigan currently has 292 wind turbines in operation.



Most of Michigan is 'Poor' or 'Marginal' For Wing Energy

Keep in mind, that's only for 25%. 100% will mean something like 12,000 windmills.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

You can be sure they'll build them. Or at least start to build them until the money ran out.

They would never let a chance to loot the treasury like they did with Solyndra slip through their fingers.

[ConservaTexan]

Unfortunately, 138,473 of them would be too close to Kennedy land.

[USFRIENDINVICTORIA]

The bogus photo that purports to show the view of a wind farm from Nantucket Island, does not show the turbines in motion. When these things move, they are incredibly distracting. We are hard-wired to notice motion & these turbines will be mesmerizing. They will destroy views. The Kennedys got this right.

[JRandomFreeper]

but only via turbines on land.

And only when the wind blows.

I'm all for alternative energy. My shack up in the mountain was too far from commercial 'lektrikity to have commercial power. I had wind, solar, and a backup diesel genset. Lots and lots of batteries.... Maintenance... sweeping snow from solar panels...

Sure, it can be done. If one doesn't mind living like a mountain man.

Nothing like washing your hair on the front porch in -18F weather, and feeling better about being in the 38F shack, because there isn't any wind.

/johnny

[Pollster1]

The lifespan of an offshore turbine is not going to be very long. Plus, keeping that many constantly maintained would be a logistics nightmare.

Salt water, waves, and storms; no power when there is no wind; no power when there is too much wind during storms - what could go wrong?

[Stosh]

I have a relative in the energy services business, and he always points out to me how critical it is to balance power supply and power demand on the grid - if demand exceeds supply by too great a margin, the grid goes down, hard.

And the problem with wind is that it doesn’t always blow, so typically when utilities install wind farms, they also build gas fired turbine units as back ups for when the wind dies out. The more you rely on wind, the more back-ups you need (a few years back, the grid in Texas almost went down as the air got still, and the utilities desperately looked for back-up).

So if these bozos are going to try to put up hundreds of thousands of wind turbines (and in whose backyard, I might ask - certainly not any Kennedy’s), they’re going to need a boatload of gas turbine power plants to keep that grid operable.

[FrankR]

To paraphrase a famous movie line; “Just because we CAN do something doesn’t always mean we HAVE to do it.”

[beethovenfan]

What a horrible thought!

[The_Media_never_lie]

Silly.

[manc]

one it kills thousands of birds and wildlife, secondly if anything was ugly on the contry side it has ot be those disgusting looking windmills.

So where are the animal protectoring groups on this?

[The_Media_never_lie]

Silly.