Catching up: Cape Wind plans to install 130 of Siemens’ 3.6-megawatt turbines, shown here at the Burbo wind farm in England, which has powered roughly 80,000 U.K. households since 2007.
Siemens.
Approval of Cape Wind could signal a boon in offshore wind projects.
An environmental permit granted last week for the Cape Wind power project is not the last hurdle facing the most advanced offshore wind farm proposed for the United States. However, wind power technology developers and analysts express confidence that the nine-year-old offshore wind project will get built, and that more like it will dot U.S. coastal waters by 2020.
The drive toward offshore wind, however, may be driven more by politics than economic and energy policy. Offshore wind farms cost up to twice as much as land-based wind installations, but they offer political leaders in densely populated U.S. coastal states a source of local energy other than offshore oil and gas. "They want their energy to be local. They want to harvest it inside their own state. And for the first time they can conceive of that possibility," says Walt Musial, who leads offshore wind energy research activities for the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, CO.
Musial's analyses show that the 28 U.S. coastal states consume 78 percent of the nation's electricity, but only six could meet even one-fifth of their power demand with land-based wind energy--the fastest growing source of energy. Add in offshore wind potential in shallow waters, however, and that number jumps to 26 states; for many it could serve 100 percent of power demand. But achieving favorable economics will be hard.
Cape Wind's top challenge now is to get a deal with an electric utility. Proving that it has a firm buyer and price for its energy is a prerequisite to then clearing the next hurdle, which is raising the close to $2 billion in financing that's likely necessary to build the 130-turbine, 468-megawatt project. Cape Wind and local utility National Grid say they are negotiating an agreement.
The difficulty is that offshore wind is pricey compared to onshore wind power, the leading alternative by which utilities are meeting renewable portfolio standards. Onshore wind costs about five cents per kilowatt-hour today, whereas Musial says offshore costs start at nine cents per kilowatt-hour for the best European projects and can rise as high as 25 cents per kilowatt-hour, depending on such factors as water depth, distance to shore, and wind conditions.
Matthew Kaplan, a senior analyst tracking North American wind energy markets for Cambridge, MA-based consultancy Emerging Energy Research, says recent examples show that offshore wind projects require additional intervention by states to get launched. The Long Island Power Authority, for example, killed a deal for power from a proposed 144-megawatt project in 2007 after an independent assessment pegged the cost at 29 cents per kilowatt-hour. And just last month, a 28.8-megawatt demonstration in Rhode Island hit the rocks when the state's Public Utilities Commission recently rejected the agreement signed by National Grid, which would have paid project developer Deepwater Wind 24 cents per kilowatt-hour.
A new type of wind-turbine platform can be placed much farther from shore.
A study says 35 percent of electricity could come from solar and wind--without expensive new backup power plants.
After nine years of reviews, the Cape Wind project gets the go-ahead.
Offshore Wind: Expensive but Politically Popular
As the Gulf Oil Tragedy worsens, two things occur to me. First is the ineptitude of humans to control outcomes of their mechanical invasions upon Mother Earth. Second is the vulnerability of waters to this destructive folly. In a genuine lack of wisdom, the US has once again decided to go beyond where it should go - this time by Salazar approving Cape Wind. He just slated Nantucket Sound's fragile ecosystem for an electrical service platform with a helicopter pad, fuel, transformer oil, greases, and industrial lubricants - tens of thousands of gallons of them about 4 miles offshore in those waters. With an increase in predicted severe weather events already taking place, prospects of nor'easters on steroids just doesn't bode well for offshore wind farms in their path. Has Mr. Salazar and Minerals Management just made a budgetary decision on how to kill the waters? Why use premium crude oil when tens of thousands of gallons of alternative industrial fluids will work just as well? People, offshore wind farms are not benign pinwheels. They are industrial power plants that can pollute just as much as any man-made beast. Our life-giving waters should not be squandered like this.
Ecological Impact of Offshore Wind Power
Is anyone aware of the environmental assessment process(es) that offshore windpower projects have to go through for regulatory approval? And what the approval criteria are? It would also be interesting to see some science-based studies on the expected environmental impacts of offshore windpower.
Re: Ecological Impact of Offshore Wind Power
Ecological Impact is mitigated by greasing somebody's palm.
If the wind farm kills birds -build cages and breed more birds.
If the wind farm is an eye sore - paint it a nice color to camoflage it.
If it costs too much to build - promise jobs
If it makes no sense at all - bury it in the Earmarks Appropriations under some nice title and build it anyways.
So why are land-based turbines politically unpopular??
I'm not sure I understand... Why are offshore turbines more politically popular? This article only mentions one reason, being that land-based wind farms can't produce enough power to meet demand in coastal states. But here in Massachusetts I've only ever seen one wind turbine on land. Wouldn't you first want to exhaust land-turbines and then go for offshore? Or maybe this is a case of Nimbyism. Though honestly I'd be pretty excited to have a wind turbine in my backyard! Plus I'd get royalties :)
then you wouldn't get royalties,
and you'd have the constant hum, noise, maybe flying rotor parts by your home or your prime vacation home
add a big structure that might be obstructing the view.
add likely chopping of your TV, radio, cell phone signals if over the air
and a rain of dead birds depending on if they ever did a study and put them in a flyway.
So Cape Wind finally got approved. With a measly one project on the drawing board, I fail to see how this makes offshore wind popular in any sense of the word. Further, it was politically risky since so many locals seem to be NIMBY-opposed to the project.
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If this seems 'popular' that would seem to speak to the fact that we are not building out our land based wind potential anywhere near what we could.
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It makes sense to produce power close to where it is needed. To bring wind from land based areas of N. America (mostly the central states of the plains) to the population centers where it's consumed (largely the coasts) would take long, expensive, and environmentally contentious upgrades to the grid. Offshore power can be hooked into the grid by short and unobtrusive underwater cables. Nowhere does this article seem to account for such grid connection costs.
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If local power makes sense politically, it's likely because it makes sense financially and economically. Can't really blame the people of people of Mass. (for instance) if they might rather put local money into local industry, local jobs, for power that would be purchased and consumed locally.
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As for environmental risks of wind power, the prospect of some damaged turbine in an ocean storm, a platform loosing it's mooring, or the possible but unlikely leak of a few thousand gallons of turbine lubricant utterly pales in comparison to the gargantuan oil spill disaster enveloping the Gulf today. Offshore wind, like all energy, has it's environmental impact, but in comparison to oil and fossil fuels it's still miles ahead. As a Californian I would gladly trade our oil derricks off the coast of Santa Barbara for an array of turbines, any day of the week.
Cape Wind's top challenge now is to get a deal with an electric utility???
I always understood that the US electric grid pulls and directs electrcity from wherever to whomever needs it. Why has Cape Wind having a problem selling the electricity it makes or finding a buyer?
The US power grid isn't all interconnected. The east and west sides of the country can't transfer power to one another mainly because the power produced is out of phase. To bring all the power generating stations in the US into a synchronous phase wave form would require snyching every prime mover to a unifying timing signal. That is, every rotating electric generator turning at 3600 RPM's would have to produce the positive peak and negative peak of AC current at the exact same time. It's not impossible, but I have no idea why this hasn't been done yet.
One thought though, here in the Phoenix area, at the peak power demand of the day during summer, some power generating stations experience a LOT of induced drag on their generators so they aren't turning at exactly 60Hz like they should. At night, the stations turn their generators slightly faster 64-70Hz to counteract the slower day generation. This way, over a 24 hour period, the average is exactly 60 Hz.
Off shore wind is potentially more attractive since at the right location there are virtually no "dead" periods, i.e. the wind farm can be more productive than many land locations. That may justify the higher cost.
Offshore marine energy farms that capture wind power, wave power and, where appropriate, ocean current and tidal power could deliver much more energy per dollar invested. In some coastal areas they could be based on abandoned oil rigs, reducing costs still more. Marine energy farms would have multiple advantages over single source land based wind turbines.
excuse the bad pun but nuclear energy is one of the most expensive forms.
and the tens of billions for one plant are tied up till the plant is producing electricity which needs to be when construction is completed. wind and some types of solar can produce electricity once sections of the plant are completed.
add in need for 2500 highly trained workers per plant
need for govt subsidy of liability as one meltdown or radiation release can contaminate hundreds of square miles of possibly very expensive real estate, running into hundreds of billions.
the govt gives an eternal subsidy for waste storage,
transportation with hit squads of commandos guarding them,
and many more subsidies.
They have low reliability in the US where plants are often down for long periods for expensive maintanence and either all or partly offline, producing little or no electricity.
UPDATE:
While large reactors are an abomination, the alternative - small modular reactors might be a solution to many of our energy needs:
hyperion and toshiba both make modular reactors that can power a small town for 10 cents kw, and are more efficient (due to lead eutectic liquid metal heat transfer) and leakproof (no water is in contact with radioactive substances and power generation is external to reactor)
http://www.hyperionpowergeneration.com/learn-ler-smr.html
http://www.hyperionpowergeneration.com/learn-opp.html
Tho they seem 'not quite ready' yet:
http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/small-nukes-go-big-with-terrapower-toshiba-deal-whos-next/
Sure, gives us Wind Power but how do you think the public will react when their Electricity, nay, their "Power" bills quadruple?
Currently Wind Power is at least 4 times the cost of other forms of electricity to the consumer on a per Kilowatt basis.
So, explain to the public why their $150 a month bill has gone to $600. Then wait for their reaction when they discover the yearly cost goes from $1,800 to $7,200. Maybe they should just cut their electric usage by 75%.
Do you think they will fall for the same logic as the price of Gasoline? "No wait, we must conserve, drop your gas guzzlers buy more efficient cars with better Gasoline Milage and the price of gasoline will go down"
Its not how the world currently works. When will the logic of just raise the price or raise taxes to increase the cost and they, the consumers, will use less of that item thought process be buried?
Sure, wind is a good idea, but tell people the truth and let them decide for themselves.
Oh, and a good place to put noisy wind machines? How about at all the Airports and military bases with open land where the noise is already a problem?
My first comment on Tech Review, and I'm not liking this interface. Where's the article and other comments, man? How can I effectively respond and reply if I'm orphaned on this empty page.
MIT delivers poor usability? For shame.
About this wind thing, random replies to peoples I can't see their names.
Now that Europe is putting up a substantial number of offshore turbines, there's enough examples to start tracking the environmental impacts. Regarding federal guidance on siting, I'm not sure they're any farther ahead than anybody else in the US.
The Special Management Area Plan (SAMP) that we ran / are running here in Rhode Island is currently looked to as a potential model. We had the oceanographic folks at URI work with the Coastal Resources Management Council and many other interested parties.
Eventually, even the commercial fishing interests lowered their resistance and joined in. Guess what - they brought in key input on siting. "If you're gonna build, build in shallow, sandy spots. Here, let us point them out..."
Now, as to cost, nobody counts the cost of, say, an overseas war when calculating the cost of FF-driven electricity. So there's that.
Also, cost isn't the only issue, especially here in the northeast. Many folks would be willing to pay the premium in exchange for energy security.
Long story short: sure, wind power is 3 - 4x current electricity, but for how long? Wind has the fabulous quality of being free and, offshore, abundant. Incremental costs approach zero. Oil, coal, nat gas, make believe oil from as yet undiscovered reserves...? Not so.
Let's see, what else can I remember from a once-through. You two commenters cancel each other out, the one who says build 'em higher and the one who says they're gonna get knocked down by storms. Like throwing out the high and low scores in figure skating. lolz.
Hokay, that's enough for a "how-do-you-do".
Adios.
Oh, now I remember. Cape Wind...
That NIMBY meme is at best half right. It's really NCWIMBY. Offshore wind is fine, but the CW team really biffed it on the community relations front. Cheezed everybody off, now nobody wants to see them make a penny. Other offshore projects are lapping CW in the approval process.
Re: I'm supposed to use this...?
I've been a power systems engineer for almost 18 years. I've worked with Solar, Wind, hydro, coal, nuclear and natural gas. I always get a chuckle when people discuss wind power. Do the numbers, wind power is not economical almost anywhere you put it. This is because there are almost always cheaper sources of energy available (coal, gas, nuclear, hydro).
Why is wind so expensive? Two reason: 1) capacity factor (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacity_factor) and 2) reliability. The best wind farms in the world rarely hit 30% CF. Why? Because the wind only blows at the required speed (generally 25mph+) only 30% of the time. So a 1MW turbine only produces 1MW 30% of the time. The rest of the time it is much, much less(power is related to the wind speed to the power of 3). A quick formula is Watts=(R^2)(V^3). While just a rule of thumb this allows you to quickly calculate a rough output for a given rotor length (meters) and wind speed (m/s). The numbers you will get will be on the high side but at least you can get a feel for how quickly power can change with wind speed.
To make up for the missing power you need to have a backup source (coal, natural gas, nuclear). This is why it is so expensive and why it will forever be expensive. The only place I've seen wind make sense is in remote locations or island locations (I was in Hawaii and with pumped hydro for storage it should work). Here the cost of electricity from conventional sources (mostly oil) makes wind power economical.
There are many other technical issues related with wind power (reactive power, frequency sync, turbine vibration, etc). All these issue can most likely be solved but you can't get away from the fact the power output is unreliable. Most power grids can only take about a 20% disturbance. Imagine the power issues if 20% of a regions power came from wind and suddenly the wind stops (talk to anyone who has sailed if the wind ever stops).
Current wind farms can be integrated into the existing grid because the extra cost of using them is factored in and there are other power systems (coal, gas, etc) immediately available when (not if) the wind farm stops producing usable power. But for every MW of windpower you need a backup MW of conventional power. So basically you still need to build a conventional power plant. Hence the reason wind power is 2X to 4X the cost. The only reason Demark can have so many turbines is that they still have some coal plants and Frances nukes to back up their grid. If you cut all power lines To/From Denmark their grid would almost immediately crash.
I'm not making this up, do the research and the math. I wish I was wrong, it would be nice to get something for nothing but the universe just doesn't work that way.
Also, wind does not make us energy 'independent' from foreign oil. Only 2% of US electricity comes from oil. The rest of conventional production is 100% american coal and gas. Building wind turbines does not make a dent in our oil imports.
Myself, I'm betting the next generation of nukes to save the day. A nuke has a CF of over 90% with most of the down time scheduled. The high build cost can be brought down with standardization and waste can be solved by reprocessing. Bill Gates is investing in "Traveling Wave" reactor research that looks promising
Great post, great science/math
to kckmit:
Thanks for your balanced post that is based upon math and science instead of emotion. Great details.
What the heck! Is anybody else mad that regulators can allow these companies can charge up to $0.29/kWh for electricity from offshore wind. That's about five times more expensive than electricity from coal power plants, and three times as much as a coal power plant with carbon dioxide capture and sequestration.
Why is anybody financing this off-shore wind???
Does anybody know how much it would cost to just by a large battery for the power plants in the Northeast? A large battery would help a lot more than adding in new offshore windmills?
Wind Energy is far less expensive than e. g. the oil spill in the Gulf; and it's getting to be cheaper. SIEMENS have designed and produced a new generation of mills without a transmission (gearing) subsequently reducing parts and weight and increasing reliability and power output considerably. Imagine how many mills could have been erected from all those millions that BP will end up paying for incurred damages. Apart from the fact, had they left well enough alone, the environment would not have to suffer for the next decades or maybe centuries.
Of course the windmills and such just magically appear whole out of thin air with no negative environmental consequences or energy cost to get them built, up and running. I wonder how many _million_ windmills it would take to deliver the energy equivalent of the thousands of wells that have been delivering petroleum products out of the Gulf of Mexico over the last 40 years.
How exactly does does a wind turbine direct drive increase "power output considerably"? Remember that the real issue with wind power is typically not the the turbines themselves. The issue is the fact that wind is a very low energy density source. Rotor length and wind speed determine how much power a turbine can produce. Any other features (direct drive, blade design, etc) only add/subtract from the efficiency of the conversion.
Here's some math:
Turbines required: A typical 1300 MW nuclear plant with a capacity factor of 90% will produce 10,249,200,000 KWhrs of electricity per year. A 3MW wind turbine with a capacity factor of 30%(which is well above average) will produce 7,884,000 KWhrs per year. To get the same amount of electricity as the nuclear plant you will need 1300 turbines. For a CF of 20%(typical) you will need 1959 turbines.
Cost: Typical installed cost for a land based turbine is $2K/KW so a 3MW turbine installed cost is about $6M. 1300 turbines will cost $7.8B and 1959 turbines will cost $11.754B. Ocean based turbines are about 2x more. I don't see the cost going down in the future.
Land usage: 3MW turbines require at least 1/2 mile spacing. So 1300 turbines in a straight line equals a line of turbines 650 miles long. 1959 turbines is a line 980 miles long. Even more distance is required when placed behind another to allow the wind to 'recover' from the turbine in front of it.
All the above is just to replace one power plant. To reach 20% of US electrical usage for 2008 would require 98,731 turbines(assuming a 30%CF). Total cost = $592B
If my math is incorrect please correct it and let me know where I'm mistaken.
Future belongs to offshore wind farms
Once calculators and computers were expensive but with mass production the costs have been crashed.
Offshore wind farms are definitely expensive compared to onshore because of higher cable costs and foundation. But in wind energy the crucial factor is Wind Velocity as it has cubic relationship in power equation while area of the rotor,erfficiency,density of air are all linear.
But Wind velocities on sea are much higher (about 30%) as sea roughness being zero.
Moreover capacity of the offshore wind turbines being higher(5 to 10 MW),at a given place more wind energy is available which will facilitate industries in the region.
Put the OFFSHORE WIND to WORK: To get inexhaustible, pollution-free energy which cannot be misused.
Dr.A.Jagadeesh Nellore (AP), India
Wind Energy Expert
E-mail: anumakonda.jagadeesh@gmail.com
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Gaetano Marano
246 Comments
>>> PUT THEM HIGHER is the right solution NOT deploy them horizontally! >>>
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as EVERYBODY knows the high altitude winds are FASTER and more constant, then, WHY they STILL insist to put the wind turbines horizontally???
PUT THEM HIGHER is the right solution, as I've suggested THREE years ago in MY "Wind Energy Skyscrapers Power Plants" idea!
http://www.gaetanomarano.it/articles/028energy.html
WHY wait to adopt this solution that can give MUCH MORE energy?
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Reply
mkogrady
425 Comments
Re: >>> PUT THEM HIGHER is the right solution NOT deploy them horizontally! >>>
Gaetano -
Your skyscrpaer concept has potential, but you need a pilot phase first.
Why not contact some run down metropolitan area city managers and see if you can acquire the rights to a run down factory or facility that has adequet wind capacity. Strip the facade off the building leaving only the steel framing and then add your wind mills. Pick a few different metro targets, one near the ocean, one in the desert, one in the mountains and a couple in flat open areas like the plains. See which ones perform the best, and the ones the local population gripes about the least. The Cape Cod Wind Farm drew a lot of attention from the "Hamptons" Crowd to the point that even Rush Limbaugh had a couple chuckles over it. Picking your audience is important.
You may have to sand blast the girders and paint them for rust protection, but the costs would be a heck of a lot cheaper by doing this investigation or pilot first rather than approaching somebody like Donald Trump and have them build you the frame.
Reply