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Deep-water wind farm plans inspire hopes, outcries (Maine)

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jpak Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-21-08 01:56 PM
Original message
Deep-water wind farm plans inspire hopes, outcries (Maine)
Edited on Sun Dec-21-08 01:57 PM by jpak
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/biz/6174812.html

ORONO, Maine — Waters off the Northeast coast are called by some the Saudi Arabia of wind for their potential in providing massive amounts of energy to the region.

Yet even talk of placing huge turbines in shallow waters off scenic shores can raise an enormous public outcry.

Behind the scenes in the U.S. and in Europe, the race is on to build the world’s first deep-water wind farms, ones that would operate on floating platforms in waters hundreds of feet deep, like oil rigs found in the North Sea and the Gulf of Mexico.

There are gargantuan technical hurdles, but there is also the potential for a huge payoff, said Habib Dagher, who is working on a deep-water wind turbine at the University of Maine.

<more>
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Muttocracy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-21-08 02:27 PM
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1. Do windmills need to be really large to be efficient?
It seems like a lot of the opposition to them is from the fact that they're so big, the blades move so fast, etc. Are smaller ones just not efficient enough?
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jpak Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-21-08 02:35 PM
Response to Reply #1
2. Yes
Utility-grade turbines have grown from 25-50 kW in the early '90's to 1-3 MW today.

5 - 10 MW turbines are currently in prototype deployment...
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kristopher Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-21-08 02:56 PM
Response to Reply #1
3. A large part of the cost of a turbine is the tower.
The rotors of a 3MW turbine sweep (and gather energy from) an area larger than a football field with only one tower. Also, the higher the tower the better the wind resource. That point is a lot more important than most people realize.

The opposition to them "seems" like a lot because it is extremely well funded and they go to great lengths to create the impression (through the use of public relations outfits etc) that opposition is much greater than it is. The fact is that the vast majority of people like wind energy. A good measure is real estate values where studies have found that homes with a view of wind turbine sell for more than comparable homes without a view of the turbines.

Read Wendy Williams' case study:
Cape Wind - The Book
Money, Celebrity, Class, Politics, and the Battle for Our Energy Future on Nantucket Sound

She also maintains a very interesting blog on the topic: http://capewindbook.typepad.com/


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Muttocracy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-21-08 03:24 PM
Response to Reply #3
4. height makes sense; thanks for the info. nt
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diane in sf Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-21-08 04:02 PM
Response to Reply #1
5. The blades on the new wind turbines don't move so fast--birds can see and avoid them
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Muttocracy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-21-08 06:04 PM
Response to Reply #5
6. that's good - I've seen the big ones off I-81 in PA
and they look like they're moving sort of slowly but from a distance so I expect it's faster close up. It seems like the bird issue should be one that can be overcome.
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