Biden Administration Approves Nation's First Major Offshore Wind Farm (reuters.com) 270
The Biden administration gave approval Tuesday to the nation's first commercial-scale offshore wind farm, which is scheduled to begin construction this summer. The New York Times reports: The Vineyard Wind project calls for up to 84 turbines to be installed in the Atlantic Ocean about 12 nautical miles off the coast of Martha's Vineyard, Mass. Together, they could generate about 800 megawatts of electricity, enough to power about 400,000 homes. The administration estimates that the work will create about 3,600 jobs. The project would dwarf the scale of the country's two existing wind farms, off the coasts of Virginia and Rhode Island. Together, they produce just 42 megawatts of electricity. In addition to Vineyard Wind, a dozen other offshore wind projects along the East Coast are now under federal review. The Interior Department has estimated that by the end of the decade, some 2,000 turbines could be churning in the wind along the coast from Massachusetts to North Carolina.
Electricity generated by the Vineyard Wind turbines will travel via cables buried six feet below the ocean floor to Cape Cod, where they would connect to a substation and feed into the New England grid. The company said that it expects to begin delivering wind-powered electricity in 2023. The Biden administration said that it intended to fast-track permits for other projects off the Atlantic Coast and that it would offer $3 billion in federal loan guarantees for offshore wind projects and invest in upgrades to ports across the United States to support wind turbine construction. [...] The administration has pledged to build 30,000 megawatts of offshore wind in the United States by 2030. It's a target the White House has said would spark $12 billion in capital investments annually, supporting 77,000 direct and indirect jobs by the end of the decade. If Mr. Biden's offshore wind targets are met, it could avoid 78 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions, while creating new jobs and even new industries along the way, the administration said.
Electricity generated by the Vineyard Wind turbines will travel via cables buried six feet below the ocean floor to Cape Cod, where they would connect to a substation and feed into the New England grid. The company said that it expects to begin delivering wind-powered electricity in 2023. The Biden administration said that it intended to fast-track permits for other projects off the Atlantic Coast and that it would offer $3 billion in federal loan guarantees for offshore wind projects and invest in upgrades to ports across the United States to support wind turbine construction. [...] The administration has pledged to build 30,000 megawatts of offshore wind in the United States by 2030. It's a target the White House has said would spark $12 billion in capital investments annually, supporting 77,000 direct and indirect jobs by the end of the decade. If Mr. Biden's offshore wind targets are met, it could avoid 78 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions, while creating new jobs and even new industries along the way, the administration said.
Why not of thecoast of Mar a largo (Score:3, Funny)
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Somebody is late to the game (Score:2)
Again. This seems to be a recurring theme...
Cape Wind redux (Score:5, Informative)
Anyone remember Cape Wind? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
It never happened, because the residents dragged it through the courts until it died. I doubt those residents have changed their minds and now embrace a huge offshore wind farm. The press I read just says "It is less likely Vineyard Wind will suffer the same death by a thousand lawsuits that killed Cape Wind".
Re:Cape Wind redux (Score:5, Informative)
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New England progressives are a special bunch; even as they cry foul about climate change, they would rather flood indigenous Pacific Islanders out of their homes than ruin their view of the ocean. Every time I try to convince a conservative that climate change is serious, they can win the argument by claiming that if it was true, the die hard environmentalists on the East Coast would be demanding, rather than blocking, more wind farms.
I'm not trying to troll here; we need real answers rather than virtue
Prime location (Score:2)
Nuclear vs Wind plus storage (Score:3)
Second nuclear costs are greatly inflated. Environmentalists who oppose nuclear do not care if it is safe and don't support regulations that might make it safer, they support things to sabotage nuclear, to make it harder to get approvals, or more expensive. 1960s nuclear was safe. 3 mile Island was the worst screw up in the USA and no one died and nothing escaped. Fukushima is 1dead from the reactor, 1500 from the (messed up) evacuation and 20,000 from the tsunami. I would also argue that if it weren't for the environmentalists making nuclear so difficult the back up generators would have been protected.
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How much impact is this going to have on sea birds?
And what does that do to the surrounding biome?
Negligible and easily mitigated, compared with plastic pollution.
yeah OK but what about the cancer risk? [youtube.com]
You are both wrong. A Slashdotter from Texas who lives near a wind farm told me he's riddled in tumours and has to sweep thousands of dead birds off his property.
https://hardware.slashdot.org/... [slashdot.org]
I'm sure he yearns for the good old days when America relied only on gas/diesel powered cars and coal fired power plants to patriotically pump nothing but 100% pure, wholesome oxygen into the Texas skies.
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Eviction moratorium (Score:2)
It is also amazing how this one guy can live rent free in the heads of Slashdot commenters for what has it been, 5 years now? And there is no plan to kick him out?
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Simply because people are technically minded, or even downright brilliant, doesn't mean they're immune to brainwashing.
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Amazing what a bad reality tv star is capable of.
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Better that than another four years of Trump.
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Oh fuck, please fucking pay attention. They were both "a doddering old fart with dementia". This horseshit of condemning one for what they both are is sorry shit. Have you ever read a transcript of a Trump speech? It's the very picture of dementia.
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A country being "run" has a lot of meanings.
The feds are in control of the biggest purse strings, they run a lot of stuff.
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Say it with me.
"Federal Republic".
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You noticed that too. Even during my most pro Trump days I noticed that his speeches had a habit of rambling off subject.
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Give it a rest. 1984 is long gone and Reagan is long dead. Quit living in the past. Or are you just pining for the good old days when the First Lady relied on an astrologer to help guide the President's schedule? Maybe a speech on how forests cause more pollution than cars?
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“Look, having nuclear — my uncle was a great professor and scientist and engineer, Dr. John Trump at MIT; good genes, very good genes, OK, very smart, the Wharton School of Finance, very good, very smart — you know, if you’re a conservative Republican, if I were a liberal, if, like, OK, if I ran as a liberal Democrat, they would say I’m one of the smartest people anywhere in the world — it’s true! — but when you’re a conservative Republican they try
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Negligible and easily mitigated, compared with plastic pollution.
Not to mention CO2 pollution.
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You mean the stuff that gets produced during the acquisition and transport of raw materials?
And the manufacturing process?
And the transport of finished product?
And...
And the sheer amount of landfill created after decommissioning?
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Literally all of that is worse for fossil fuel plants than for wind. And that's before you even count feeding the FF plant dead ancient trees.
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And what does that do to the surrounding biome?
The dead seagulls will fall down and become extra fish food.
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How much impact is this going to have on sea birds?
That depends mostly on the rotational velocity and mass of the blade (the mass and relative velocity of the birds would make negligible difference to the calculation). Without engineering data it’s difficult to quantify, but it’s reasonable to expect the impact would exceed the stress loading of a typical seabird’s airframe.
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Well, obviously the seagulls.
Notice all the droppings...
And thanks for completely ignoring that the biosphere is a system.
And that kicking one part of it out of whack can have nasty, unintentional consequences.
But whatever. Right? Just so long as you get your fix...
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And thanks for completely ignoring that the biosphere is a system.
And that kicking one part of it out of whack can have nasty, unintentional consequences.
With all the seagulls gone we'll be overrun with chips [google.com] in no time.
Re:Commercial Scale? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Commercial Scale? (Score:5, Funny)
you mean in comparison to subsidies for the fossile fuel industries? [taxpolicycenter.org]
Not at all, those are not subsidies, those are patriot bonuses for oil companies that will eventually trickle down to their workers through the magic of supply side economics.
Re:Commercial Scale? (Score:5, Informative)
> Those "subsidies" are nothing more or less than any other business has - just adapted to the business of fossil fuels
Great; I run a pizza shop. How do I get my Intangible Drilling Costs Deduction? Where's my Credit for Clean Coal Investment? Fact is there are very specific deductions crafted specifically for the fossil fuel industry.
> This is the equivalent of depreciation in other industries.
Except it's not; With depreciation you are limited in how much you can deduct based on the capital cost of the thing being depreciated. Percentage Depletion allows mineral/fossil fuel producers to deduct 15% off their gross income from production with no connection to the value of the land or capital investments required to extract the resources. Both land value and capital investments are depreciated separately, meaning they get to write off 15% of their gross income plus depreciate everything else like other companies do. The total benefit from the Percentage Depletion scheme far exceeds what you could normally get from standard depreciation or cost depletion, meaning it's literally a direct subsidy; free money. No other industry has a comparable tax discount scheme.
Or perhaps you're missing the wider point - why are businesses that are making trillions of dollars in profit getting any form of benefits? Conservatives are super hardcore about cutting individuals off welfare as soon as they make a dime over some arbitrarily low income, so why don't we cut off benefits for businesses that are clearly more than capable of turning a healthy profit without them?
=Smidge=
Re:Commercial Scale? (Score:5, Interesting)
I am not sure how the system in the US works, but in the UK the different contractors bid for the connection rights based on a cap and floor mechanism. The regulator will underwrite the floor price based on the bids. This means it is an open process that can be bid on by any company. After construction they are required to put the asset up for sale to a utility with the floor price supporting the minimum capital value.
Often there is more profit to be made if you have the land and money to connect without a cap and floor, however if you don't have cash banks will only lend against the security the cap and floor provides.
I am assuming it is a very similar mechanism in the US?
Re:Commercial Scale? (Score:5, Insightful)
were you aware, strictly from a constitutional standpoint, only US Senators are required to be elected via state popular vote? That change did not go into effect until the ratification of the 17th amendment to the constitution in 1912. Think about that. Before 1912, the states legislature could and would pick their senators. There is no such amendment for President, btw. Nor for Congressmen. Those powers are still distributed to the States Legislatures.
Constitutionally, the legislature of each state determines how its electors are chosen; Article II, Section 1, Clause 2 states that each state shall appoint electors "in such Manner as the Legislature Thereof May Direct". Gradually throughout the years, the states began conducting popular elections to choose their slate of electors. In 1800, only five of the 16 states chose electors by a popular vote; by 1824, after the rise of Jacksonian democracy, the proportion of states that chose electors by popular vote had sharply risen to 18 out of 24 states. This gradual movement toward greater democratization coincided with a gradual decrease in property restrictions for the franchise. By 1840, only one of the 26 states (South Carolina) still selected electors by the state legislature.
This is what irritates me about the buffoons in congress. They literally sent a bill to the senate regarding federal elections. There is no such thing as a federal election. This whole Jan 6 bullshit could have been routed out before it began if even a fraction of people elected bothered to actually understand the constitution. The state legislature sends their electors. Any rule about people voting, whether the electors are or are not allowed to cast vote for anyone they want (Faithless Elector), and who chooses the electors is entirely and 100% a function of the state that sent them. The only presidential election that matters is Monday, after the second Wednesday, when the Electors cast their votes (3 U.S.C. 7). Everything else is window dressing and procedural process. If people are mad a the results, its the individual states they should have focused their outrage on, not washington DC. In fact the only rules in the constitution with regards to voting are within our amendments, denying states the ability to restrict voting rights based on race, sex, or property ownership. Jan 6 occurred because of the FUD going around about stopping a procedural vote would have prevented biden from becoming president. It is absurd completely on its face. The constitution already declares a presidents term over regardless if there is someone to replace him/her. One cannot just invalidate an election and remain president simply because they cannot be relieved. There are rules of succession as to who steps in should an absence occur. Its just stupid.
Re:Commercial Scale? (Score:5, Insightful)
Amazing. I was wondering how long it would take for someone to complain about this, and it appears only a couple of minutes.
Please, name me one major industry that has never benefitted from government assistance. Car industry? Nope. Boeing? Nope. Fossil fuel? Nuclear? How about IT manufacturing sites, that never even get built? IT company HQs?
There is not a single large industry/project is that is 'truly commercial'. It doesn't exist. The US government is set up that way. Money is political speech. Companies pay politicians, who in turn give them some form of benefits (tax breaks, exclusive operation contracts, whatever). All perfectly legal.
If you don't agree with the system, then vote to change it. So, tell us, who did you vote for? Is their political party supporting corporate welfare? (Trick question - both major parties support it. They just support slightly different fields.)
Re:Commercial Scale? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Commercial Scale? (Score:4, Informative)
My complaint is that they aren't building it next to mar-a-lago.
Winds drop as you go south in latitude. The "roaring 40s" become the mild 30s, and the 20 are the doldrums.
Re:Commercial Scale? (Score:5, Funny)
Don't care. Still worth every penny.
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Didn't Donald J already sue Scotland for spoiling views from his golf course?
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Oh wait, unless you're counting on the new voter suppression measures to put your side over the top, I don't think you should count on that, but I can understand how you would.
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Not a "lot fewer legal options". They are well within the 200NM economic exclusion zone which protects property rights, which includes rights to resources, so attackers would be held as legally responsible as if the attacks were within 12NM or even on land.
Might be harder to enforce just based upon the ease of access, but legally there are not fewer options.
And given the size of this wind farm fairly inexpensive commercial radar could be used to track objects as small as a row boat, and all tracks can be e
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Oh come on dumbass. That was funny.
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Trick question - both subsidiaries of the Party support it. They just support slightly different fields.
FTFY
Re:Commercial Scale? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Commercial Scale? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Which GOP base? The patriotic hard line conservatives being kicked out of the party for not kissing Trump's ass? Or the carpet baggers winning outside of their home district by praising Trump who spend their time in office spouting insane nonsense? The GOP is dying. It's being replaced by the Trumpists with no clearly defined set of ideals other than that the will of the people must be overturned and Trump declared ruler over all. The clown circus in Arizona is going to spread to other states. Conserv
Re: Commercial Scale? (Score:4, Insightful)
Thank you for leaving no doubt that you indeed are an idiot.
The "hate speech" being referred to was the one where someone that replied to you called you a slur for someone that is developmentally challenged. But you decided to take it as something being said to you (even though it was actually in defense of people that cannot defend themselves against such attack from someone replying TO you), and then started slinging ad hominem attack right back with all this communist / stalinist / maoist trash when there was not even a mote of leftist anything being said.
So let me go ahead and respond to you directly, so there's no confusion: take your reactionary conspiracy right-wing nuttery and get the fuck out of here.
Your boy lost the election, a free and fair election, by over 7 million votes.
Your boy lost the electoral college by the exact same margin he won it in 2016, which he called a "landslide victory" at the time.
Your boy lost the House, putting the gavel back into Nancy Pelosi's hand.
Your boy lost the Senate, giving the leadership powers to Chuck Schumer.
Your boy is a cunt hair away from criminal indictment in at least two [ajc.com] states [reuters.com]. That doesn't even include the numerous civil proceedings he can no longer block by being President.
Your boy's lawyer has had his office and home ransacked by the FBI looking for evidence in ongoing corruption investigations - an action that no judge would sign off on without a mountain of probable cause. Current speculation is that it's only a matter of time until that lawyer flips to save his own ass. Hard to find quality help these days, eh?
Your boy's Attorney General has been called out by a federal judge [usatoday.com] in a recorded judicial ruling as a liar and orchestrating obstruction of justice, shielding your boy from prosecution for the same.
Your boy incited violence in the attempt to overturn a free and fair election punting his fat ass out of office. Over 400 people and counting charged, many of them claiming they were doing what their President told them to do earlier that day.
Your boy is tearing apart the Republican party, handing Democrats easy wins, in order to settle petty personal scores. And for some reason, there are a whole lot of Republican congress critters going along with it, even though he is massively underwater [realclearpolitics.com] in recent polling, showing that supporting him will do more damage than good.
Your boy is so toxic that even Facebook and Twitter don't want him on their platforms.
As was said god-knows-how-many-times by your tribe in 2001-2004: you lost, get over it, move on.
Re:Commercial Scale? (Score:5, Interesting)
Vote for? election was rigged.
No it wasn't. The conservative majority supreme court turned down all complaints because of general lack of proof and huge bullshit to signal ration.
Be happy that finally there are grown-ups again in the White House.
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Wow, you say some pretty ridiculous things from time to time, but this is the most absurd that I've seen from you in a while. Apparently you're not aware that there are offshore wind farms in Europe that have been in production for over two decades, this is not some bleeding edge new technology that no one has done before. They know how to do this really well now.
Re: Commercial Scale? (Score:2)
Re:This is going to kill so much wildlife (Score:5, Insightful)
This is going to kill so much wildlife ... Zippity Zap, won't come back.
Yeah, especially because the alternative policy of encouraging oil drilling in national pars is so good for wildlife.
No it won't (Score:5, Insightful)
You get very few birds that far out to sea compared to on land and it hardly bothers sea life other than the disturbance made to build it in the first place. Compared to the damage done by burning fossil fuels its insignificant.
Re:No it won't (Score:5, Informative)
You get very few birds that far out to sea compared to on land and it hardly bothers sea life other than the disturbance made to build it in the first place. Compared to the damage done by burning fossil fuels its insignificant.
The birdstrike problem exists but is overhyped. The overall Darwinian effect is that wind turbines make birds smarter.
In fact, the piers attaching each turbine to the bottom will attract more sea life and function as reefs for fish.
Re:No it won't (Score:4, Informative)
It will also provide floating platforms for corals, barnacles and the like and could provide habitat ala Sunken ships.
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That's just not a rational comment.
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That's just not a rational comment.
Welcome to Earth. :-)
Re: This is going to kill so much wildlife (Score:2)
Drop in the pond.
Public hearings will be a laugh though.
Re: This is going to kill so much wildlife (Score:2)
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Fishing will probably be banned there so it will become a wildlife haven.
(doesn't mean fishermen won't try to fish there though)
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Why would fishing be banned there? One of the best things about wind power is that the ground (or ocean, in this case) underneath and between the turbines can continue to be used. This is in contrast with solar, where the land use is more exclusive. This is common in the U.S. plains, where wind turbines tower over farm and grazing land. As long as fishermen avoid running into things, there's no particular reason they could not co
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Depends on the depth of the water and the type of fishing, but there will be a lot of underwater power cables. This will mean any sort of fishing likely to reach the bottom will be banned. Sport fishing on the surface may not, and that might turn out to be a fisherman's paradise.
But any sort of dragline/drag net/bottom scraping fishing, I.E., the commercial kind, will likely be banned.
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You may have missed this from TFS: "Electricity generated by the Vineyard Wind turbines will travel via cables buried six feet below the ocean floor to Cape Cod, where they would connect to a substation and feed into the New England grid."
Even if that weren't the case drag net fishing should be banned anyway, it's incredibly destructive and most of what is brought up is by-catch and discarded. The foundations of the towers will become artificial reefs and should support a huge variety of sea life as well.
underwater power cables already there (Score:5, Insightful)
Depends on the depth of the water and the type of fishing, but there will be a lot of underwater power cables. This will mean any sort of fishing likely to reach the bottom will be banned.
Martha's Vinyard is an island. It gets electrical power from underwater power cables from the mainland now.
Good article here: https://www.capeandislands.org... [capeandislands.org]
Re: This is going to kill so much wildlife (Score:2)
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Has it been banned in other places where there is extensive offshore wind? If so, please provide examples.
Re:This is going to kill so much wildlife (Score:5, Informative)
There are questions about **marine** animal impacts. Personally, I don't think the real economics are too good until you reach 20 MW wind turbines, or larger.
From the point of view of marine animals (i.e. sea creatures, birds are a different topic) the sockets wind turbines stand on are indistinguishable from reefs unless you go out of your way to paint them with something really toxic. Furthermore, because trawlers and the like cannot get into these wind farms to fish out the waters they occupy, wind farms act as marine sanctuaries full of excellent new habitat. This is even true in areas that have been trawled out with bottom dragging nets for over a century causing the levelling of the ocean bottom which in turn has destroyed any natural marine life habitat. Wind farms also serve to re-stock depleted nearby waters so in the end fishermen benefit from the presence of wind farms. Ironically the ones who benefit most are the smaller boats who are too small to damage the wind turbines and can safely fish in among the turbines unlike the big factory trawlers. You can argue about how much these wind farms will help compared to the carnage being wrought on the world's oceans as a whole but there is no denying that off shore wind farms are a net benefit in terms of marine life. Birds on the other hand seem to display fairly extreme avoidance behaviour (according to a study from Nysted in Denmark) so that needs to be taken into account when siting offshore wind farms i.e. don't put them in migration paths, popular feeding grounds and places where sea birds nest since they tend to nest in large colonies. New designs of wind turbines that don't impact birds as much would also help.
https://www.intellireefs.com/p... [intellireefs.com]
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Still there are questions about impacts on marine life that are going to be specific to each and every turbine location. The specifics of what materials are used and how they are built, maintained and decommissioned are also very important to whether there is a net benefit and whether there is unacceptable environmental cost.
We know from every other massive industrial scale out that there are negative environmental affects and they shouldn't be swept under the rug just because we are locating them far enou
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We know from every other massive industrial scale out that there are negative environmental affects
effects
And we can be pretty sure that the negative environmental effects, even if not fully quantified, are an order or magnitude better than burning fossil fuels. That isn't sweeping them under the rug, that's making the best possible choice given the information we have.
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The net benefit and environmental cost of oil and gas production also hasn't been fully researched yet we are still drilling more wells and building more pipelines for that industry. It would be great if we were able to know the full impact of both renewable energy and fossil fuel production but at some point you just have to weigh the advantages/disadvantages of each industry and go with the one that appears to have greater advantages.
Subsidies are fine to get started, but we should also be taxing and regulating them adequately as well and making sure there is money being set aside for decommissioning in 30 or 40 years or whatever the lifespan is.
The same can also be said of the oil/gas industry. They are still gettin
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Still there are questions about impacts on marine life that are going to be specific to each and every turbine location. The specifics of what materials are used and how they are built, maintained and decommissioned are also very important to whether there is a net benefit and whether there is unacceptable environmental cost.
We know from every other massive industrial scale out that there are negative environmental affects and they shouldn't be swept under the rug just because we are locating them far enough out to see that they will be specks on the horizon.
Subsidies are fine to get started, but we should also be taxing and regulating them adequately as well and making sure there is money being set aside for decommissioning in 30 or 40 years or whatever the lifespan is.
The positive environmental effects of offshore wind farms is pretty well documented. In Scandinavia the environmental effects of wind farms have been studied by marine biologists since the 1990s. The turbine foundations provide habitat all the way through the water column, the critters and plants growing on the foundations in turn attract fish that feeds on them and tagging experiments have shown that seals in the North Sea, for example, make a b-line for the wind farms to hunt fish because those are the ri
Re: This is going to kill so much wildlife (Score:5, Insightful)
The experience in Denmark and the UK indicates otherwise. There are 10s of GW of offshore wind installed across the Baltic and North Seas. Offshore wind is a proven technology. Just because the marine environment is more challenging does not mean it cannot be handled. Otherwise, how could there possibly be so much offshore oil and gas drilling? And how do the operating and maintenance costs for a nuclear plant compare?
As for capital cost: the Hinkley Point C nuclear station is 3.2 GW, was brought online in 2012, and cost over £20bn to build. Operating and decommissioning costs are of a similar magnitude. Vineyard Wind is 0.8 GW, and estimated at something like €2.5bn. Similar-sized wind projects in the UK are less due to a more established industry and infrastructure. Slice and dice the numbers however you like, but this project is a fraction of the cost of nuclear.
It is true that a nuclear plant may seem to have a smaller footprint, but I suppose it depends on how you count it. Do you count the wind farm's entire area, or just the footprint (i.e., foundation) for each tower? How do you account for the fact that the ocean underneath the turbines is still ocean - it continues to be habitat, and can be used for transportation, recreation, and fishing activities? Heck, it could even be used for farming kelp or fish. You can't do anything within the footprint of a nuclear plant except the nuclear. And when the nuke has reached the end of its useful life, the decommissioning process takes decades until that land is greenfield again. By contrast, decommissioning a wind farm is pretty straightforward and inexpensive.
And, finally, let us not forget that if there is a catastrophic failure of a wind turbine - or even the entire wind farm - it doesn't disastrously contaminate the surrounding environment for decades-to-millennia.
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And, finally, let us not forget that if there is a catastrophic failure of a wind turbine - or even the entire wind farm - it doesn't disastrously contaminate the surrounding environment for decades-to-millennia.
Nuclear power doesn't necessarily either. Chernobyl (of course) which was not a safe design in a variety of ways and nothing like it has ever been built in the west. The exclusion zone is 1000 square miles. Chernobyl is not a risk of nuclear power, it's a risk if you do seriously dumb shit, which no
Re: This is going to kill so much wildlife (Score:5, Insightful)
You: I'll cite two catastrophic failures of nuclear power plants (and one serious incident). These catastrophic failures contaminated the surrounding environment - in one case for decades already; the other for decades to come. BUT, I'll also claim that those don't count, because No True Nuke does that.
Just because Chernobyl was a dangerous design and people did dumb shit, or because Fukushima's problems are unlikely to happen in geologically stable areas, can't get the fact that they were catastrophic failures of nuclear power (whatever the cause), which resulted in serious contamination of the surrounding environment.
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Just because Chernobyl was a dangerous design and people did dumb shit, or because Fukushima's problems are unlikely to happen in geologically stable areas, can't get the fact that they were catastrophic failures of nuclear power (whatever the cause), which resulted in serious contamination of the surrounding environment.
No this is disingenuous, and deeply so.
The question is nuclear power vs wind power. Considering Chernobyl as part of that discussion is saying "what if abandon everything and start doing 19
Re: This is going to kill so much wildlife (Score:2)
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[citation needed]. I provided some numbers in my comment, where are yours?
I will concede
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Where was the planning?
The plan was to shut down nuclear as fast as possible. That means not worrying about little details like "supply replacement" or "load reduction".
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the offshore cost per kilowatt is more then nuclear
You forgot to count the cost of decommissioning always being higher than "expected" and The People having to foot the bill in the end.
For price and land conservation nuclear is the better choice
Nuclear is literally the most expensive kind of power, so that is hot horse shit. Further, wind farms use very little land, especially when they are sited offshore and use none.
Everything you said was bullshit.
Re: 800MW is great but... (Score:2)
The Dogger Bank (yes it is a real place) Wind Farm will produce 3.6GW when the final phase is complete.
https://doggerbank.com/ [doggerbank.com]
There are many 1GW+ Wind Farms already in operation around the world.
But... the USA has to start somewhere. We have to hope that this is not just playing lip service to off-shore lobbyists.
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12MW + is the best offshore wind turbine. AFAIK, a 15MW turbine is being tested
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Better than nothing, from small acorns etc...
Plus who knows whether the conditions out in the north atlantic are conducive to building the massive windfarms seen in northern europe in the relatively benign (and cruicially - shallow) North Sea.
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(and cruicially - shallow) North Sea.
There are 10,000 square miles of shallow ocean off the coast of New England at Georges Bank [wikipedia.org].
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That won't even power a Dolorean's time circuits.
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Aw. USA thinks 800MW is a major offshore wind farm. Just look at them with their sweet ickle wickle wind farm. So adorable.
This is genuinely good news that the US is moving in the correct direction.
But also, 800MW, aw so teeny tiny cute, I could just hug it and ruffle is little nacelles
The USA produced about the same wind power as all of Europe's onshore and offshore combined, so you're being ignorant.
Look at a map, compare the inner land area with the potential offshore area, and you'll see why the added expense of offshore wind power doesn't make sense for the USA.
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Offshore wind costs more, but it's more reliable.
There are factors which are important besides just cost.
This is not to say that cost is not important, it is very important. It is however not the only important criteria.
If history is any indication, demands for power will increase. The idea that all we have to do is meet current demands is foolish at best.
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So far from what I have found there does not appear to be serious affects on the actual wind from a natural perspective (just effects of the physical turbine on the environment) but there limits to how much wind power you can generate over a certain area before it starts to hit diminishing returns so it's not worth crowding smaller areas with tons of turbines, it's better to put certain amounts in certain areas to maximize efficiency.
https://www.pnas.org/content/1... [pnas.org]
Re: Repairable? (Score:2)