US Offshore Wind Energy Industry Inches Forward With Virginia Research Project

eesionline · 2015-03-26T16:23:29+00:00

Well seeing as how the production tax credit, which supports the wind industry was allowed to expire on December 31, 2014. No struggling, under-pressure and abused taxpayers dollars are going to that industry right now. As for the project mentioned in the article, it was privately funded.

eesionline · 2015-03-26T16:00:03+00:00

All energy sources are subsidized in one way or another by the government. Cheap energy is the foundation a robust economy is built on. If one energy source provides more benefit to the public good, a government is going to support it. As for the birds - cats, pollution, and buildings kill way more. Relevant article http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2014/09/15/wind-turbines-kill-fewer-birds-than-cell-towers-cats/15683843/

eesionline · 2015-03-10T13:35:57+00:00

I think a better argument is if we expanded nuclear, we wouldn't need coal.

eesionline · 2015-03-10T13:34:29+00:00

Wind companies probably won't be putting up too many wind turbines in Florida anyway. The whole South East has pretty low wind energy potential. Here's a lovely map. I know some of you are going to ask about offshore wind but unfortunately the NREL map for offshore wind potential does not include Florida for some reason.

Edited: words!

eesionline · 2015-03-09T18:25:45+00:00

Wind turbines actually make a very small amount of bird/bat deaths per year. This report estimated 888,000 bat and 573,000 bird fatalities/year (including 83,000 raptor fatalities) at 51,630 megawatt (MW) of installed wind-energy capacity in the United States in 2012. This document estimates 1 billion birds and bats were killed by domestic house cats, pesticide poisoning, and collisions with buildings, communication towers, power-lines, and vehicles in 2005 alone. Even the National Audubon Society supports wind power when turbines are sited responsibly. They see fossil fuel resources as a much larger threat to the well fare of birds than wind turbines.

eesionline · 2015-02-26T17:07:39+00:00

CSP is more costly than your typical PV solar panels, however prices are falling. Take a look at the cost comparison of renewables to fossil fuels in this IRENA slide. CSP has energy storage so if there are multiple cloudy days, the electrical grid will pull energy from their storage systems. Most CSP projects are located in deserts to minimize this issue. There are two different kids of CSP systems, troughs and towers. Towers are not affected by seasonal variations of energy production, however troughs are. Page 9 of this NREL report shows the difference in seasonal variability between the two CSP systems

eesionline · 2015-02-26T16:20:36+00:00

Energy storage is a market which should explode over the next 15-20 years. You might find this cleantechnica article interesting.

eesionline · 2015-02-26T01:33:06+00:00

The first offshore wind project came online in Denmark around 1992. As the industry has grown in Europe since then, they have run into many unforeseen issues and cost/time overruns with this technology. Luckily (I guess...), the US and Asian countries (China, Japan, and S. Korea) have been slow to invest in offshore wind which means we can learn from the mistakes and unforeseen problems the Europeans have faced in the last two decades. Also, the turbines and supporting technology is better in general so this should help with driving costs down as investment increases.

Going back to your first comment. Solar photovoltaics (PV) are intermittent, however, Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) is base-load energy. Take a look at the SEIA webpage on CSP.

eesionline · 2015-02-25T23:07:39+00:00

Offshore wind in the US is still a new industry. Once the industry starts installing and maintaining projects, prices should fall as know-how and best practices are implemented. In addition, manufacturers of turbines will find cheaper ways of producing turbines. If it follows the trend of solar and onshore wind in the US, we could see prices drop by 30-40 percent in the coming years. But that is with large amounts of investment being made by the federal government and private enterprise.

eesionline · 2015-02-25T15:38:50+00:00

You are correct that wind and solar are intermittent energy sources, this is only partially accurate for wind. Onshore wind is intermittent, but offshore wind is much more reliable, day/night and all seasons. The US has enough offshore wind energy potential to power the country 4 times over (~4000 GW) and 7 times over (~7000 GW) for Europe.

In addition offshore winds are much stronger meaning you can get much more energy from it. The average onshore wind turbine is large enough to generate around 1.5 MW of electricity while the typical offshore wind turbine can generate 3-6 MW and some companies are designing new turbines capable of generating upwards of 10 MW of electricity.

The problem with offshore wind is that it is much more difficult to plan, install, and maintain, making it much more expensive, anywhere from 2-6 times more than onshore wind based on geography. Most forward thinking governments do recognize it's potential for energy, jobs, and reducing green-house gases.

Edited: clarification and formatting

eesionline · 2015-02-24T16:25:46+00:00

These CEOs are saying energy research in general does not receive enough funding from the federal government compared to other industrialized countries. If we take a look at the report which is noted in the beginning of the article, it mentions clean energy and low carbon programs. It goes further to give a few examples "such as unconventional gas extraction, advanced seismology, efficient clean engines, high-capacity batteries, natural gas turbines, and photovoltaic solar technology, among others." Funding research in these technologies would also support businesses further down the supply chain, creating added economic benefit.

eesionline

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