US Launches Program To Boost Floating Wind Turbines (arstechnica.com) 66
The Biden administration has announced the latest in its renewable energy efforts, this time focused on a technology that hasn't really arrived yet: floating offshore wind turbines. From a report: Compared to turbines directly anchored on the seafloor, floating versions are estimated to cost about 50 percent more, which has made energy development of large areas of the ocean cost-prohibitive. The program announced this week will create a "wind shot" that aims to drop the costs by more than 70 percent over the next decade and position the US as a leader in this industry.
While offshore wind is booming in Europe and China (and poised for a belated takeoff in the US), existing hardware is built directly up from the seafloor, which requires sitting in shallow waters. This works out well for the US East Coast, where a broad continental shelf can host massive wind farms, many of which are in the permitting and planning stages. Most of those projects involve a partnership with European companies, as the US's long delay in adopting offshore wind has ceded the industry to the countries that pioneered the field. Based on a newly released map of the potential for offshore wind in the US, many areas with good potential are too deep to be exploited by wind turbines affixed to the ocean floor. This includes nearly the entire West Coast, Hawaii, and the Great Lakes. Even along the East Coast, floating turbines could greatly expand the areas open to development.
While offshore wind is booming in Europe and China (and poised for a belated takeoff in the US), existing hardware is built directly up from the seafloor, which requires sitting in shallow waters. This works out well for the US East Coast, where a broad continental shelf can host massive wind farms, many of which are in the permitting and planning stages. Most of those projects involve a partnership with European companies, as the US's long delay in adopting offshore wind has ceded the industry to the countries that pioneered the field. Based on a newly released map of the potential for offshore wind in the US, many areas with good potential are too deep to be exploited by wind turbines affixed to the ocean floor. This includes nearly the entire West Coast, Hawaii, and the Great Lakes. Even along the East Coast, floating turbines could greatly expand the areas open to development.
Seacrete/biorock (Score:5, Interesting)
They should be experimenting with seacrete/biorock. Not only does it take carbon out of the sea instead of being made out of concrete whose production contributes to AGW, but it tends to be self-repairing. Build a frame out of fiberglass or similar nonconductive rebar, then wrap it with metal so that it can be used for the biorock production.
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no this is about NIMBYism. Off-shore wind is one of the best opportunities for consistent renewable power, but the best places to put it in the US are also the best places for sailing, like Martha's Vineyard. Ted Kennedy basically tanked the first such project, Cape Wind, because it w
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I'm not assuming anything. I said what they should do, not what they will do. Oceanic acidification is a big problem.
Finally some strategic thinking. (Score:2)
I fear the same fate as solar panels under Obama. This needs strong commitment and a firm grip on the companies involved, however getting the US into the competition to build more of what should be the biggest source of energy on the planet can never be bad. Offshore wind is much cheaper than Nuclear but it's only just getting to be cheaper than fossil fuels - this is a great time to invest.
Re:Finally some strategic thinking. (Score:4, Informative)
"Launched about a decade ago, SunShot had similar goals for cost reductions in photovoltaic power—and reached them several years ahead of its deadline. That success has helped spawn several related renewable energy programs."
Re:Finally some strategic thinking. (Score:4, Insightful)
If they're in the permitting stage now...I think it will be interesting to see how much of a fight will be put up against this.
[grabs popcorn]
Re: Finally some strategic thinking. (Score:3)
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We're talking deep water here, which (for the East Coast particularly) is far enough from shore that it's over the horizon and quite literally impossible to see.
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I get the feeling that a LOT of East Coasters have already screamed NIMBY and not want to see all these wind turbines obstructing and interfering with their pristine ocean view real estate
Fixed that for you.
https://www.danspapers.com/2019/09/kennedys-used-their-power-to-kill-wind-farm/
Re:Finally some strategic thinking. (Score:5, Informative)
>I get the feeling that a LOT of East Coasters are going to scream NIMBY and not want to see all these wind turbines obstructing and interfering with their pristine ocean view real estate that they sell by the spoonful up there
Hi.
As an "East Coaster" who lives exactly in the general area they're planning some of the largest installations, I can tell you I am VERY upset about the project.
Specifically, I'm upset that they're so far off the coast that they will be almost completely below the horizon. At 38 nautical miles (~70km, closest they will be to NY's coast) anything under ~335 meters (1100 ft) will be completely invisible without a higher vantage point. The largest offshore wind turbines like the Haliade-X, have a sea-to-blade-tip height of 366 meters (1200 ft), so if you squint you MIGHT see a tiny bit of blade poke over the horizon as it spins... but it'll probably be obstructed by sea spray and thermal distortion.
So I'll need a plane or an ocean-rated charter boat to see what would surely be an amazing sight, which is a real bummer.
=Smidge=
Re:Finally some strategic thinking. (Score:5, Informative)
Could you elaborate? "Solar panels under Obama" is a tremendous success story. Solyndra ended up being a high-profile embarrassment, but an outlier. The overall [wikipedia.org] investment [archives.gov] in PV during that timeframe is a main contributor to solar panel costs dropping [nrel.gov] by something like 80% [energy.gov] since the Bush years. By the end of Obama's administration, there was 25x as much PV capacity installed.
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If you repeat an "alternative fact" often enough, it becomes the truth.
Re:Finally some strategic thinking. (Score:4, Funny)
See Tiananmen square...
I tried but all my web searches came up empty.
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> I tried but all my web searches came up empty.
Either this was a lame attempt at humor or an accidental admission from MacMann that they're a Chinese disinformation/propaganda/FUD operative.
=Smidge=
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"US taxpayer money going to China" is a legitimate concern,
Not just that, but energy is a strategic interest. Having China involved in the market is likely good - definitely converting China from coal is one of the most important parts of saving the planet. Having China as a monopoly on solar panels can potentially be a real problem.
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Could you elaborate? "Solar panels under Obama"
I mean specifically Solyndra - and the idea that the US could become a major producer of solar panels. If that had happened I think that Trump would have had much more pressure to keep solar expansion going.
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You'd have to explain it to him first with small words and short sentences.
Re: Finally some strategic thinking. (Score:2)
Solar cells are dead, solar rectenna are the the future.
https://eepower.com/news/recte... [eepower.com]
Re:Finally some strategic thinking. (Score:4, Insightful)
Solar panels seem to be doing quite well, though most of the manufacturing seems (to me and without checking) to be offshore.
OTOH, "reducing the cost of floating wind turbines" sounds more like a research project than a manufacturing project. So, yeah, you've got to expect a LOT of failures. But all you need is one real success. If they can actually get a 70% reduction in costs (unlikely, by my estimate) then they'll have justified a tremendous investment. But just getting it to be competitive with shallow water would suffice the justify a very large investment. Think of all the problems that people have with visual pollution from off-shore wind-farms. That's literally been the thing that killed many projects.
Floating wind already exists in Scotland. (Score:2)
OTOH, "reducing the cost of floating wind turbines" sounds more like a research project than a manufacturing project.
Hywind Scotland is already running [equinor.com] and full scale floating offshore farms are planned so this is mostly about optimizing something that already exists. I suspect that's both R&D and learning how to manufacture things efficiently.
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OTOH, "reducing the cost of floating wind turbines" sounds more like a research project than a manufacturing project.
To me it sounds like both. There's no knowing how much building something costs until it is actually attempted. There's research and then development, we need both or we aren't learning anything. Development means building things.
One parallel was protests of testing new weapons by the US military. The people protesting claimed that with computer simulations being so advanced there's no need to actually deploy any weapons to verify their function. The counter argument is that there's no knowing the simu
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Why isn't the US DOE putting more effort into developing MSR technology?
Because there's no evidence that the problems with that technology actually can be solved.
It's almost as if the DOE doesn't want to solve the problem of high level nuclear waste piling up. Or solve the problem of rising energy costs.
They want to solve the problem cheaply, because they're unwilling to go after the people who created the problem, because they're afraid someone will go after them for the problems they've created too.
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To some extent yes. But a large part of reducing the cost of anything is just making a lot of it. You learn by doing it, and thereby get more efficient, even if the design/process doesn't change. (See: Learning Curve Effect [wikipedia.org].) You also get economies of scale, which for lots of things tends to produce lower costs. You can purchase raw materials in bulk. You can justify larger capital in
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If they're talking about a 70% reduction, they're talking about something other than refining the current design.
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Certainly coming up with novel, lower-cost designs is one approach. I wouldn't count out the effects of "just building more," though.
For instance: say I wanted to make pizza to sell to other people. If I'm only making and selling one, I can just do that in my kitchen, using store-bought ingredients that I've prepared myself. I make the dough in a countertop mixer and let it rise. I cho
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We and some countries in Europe have all the tech needed to build floating wind turbines. Part of the delay is conservatives were obsessed with opening the Arctic, not for business reasons, but as a moral imperative. So huge amounts were spent on marine infrastructure that will never be used.
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Part of the delay is conservatives were obsessed with opening the Arctic, not for business reasons, but as a moral imperative.
Could you elaborate on this? It appears that access to Arctic waters will have considerable impacts in the future, on matters that are of economic and military importance along with perhaps other matters. Russia is certainly taking their icebreaker fleet seriously. China is building icebreakers and they have no waterways that currently freeze over. They apparently have ambitions to navigate through Arctic waters independently, or they know something about climate change that they aren't telling the rest
Re:Finally some strategic thinking. (Score:4, Informative)
Saying that offshore wind is cheaper than nuclear is a bit like saying a calculator is cheaper than a PC.
Offshore wind, any wind for that matter, does not deliver the same product as nuclear.
Remarks like this are denying the most important thing about both wind and solar: they are intermittent.
Add in whatever is necessary to make wind and solar deliver to the same reliability and predictability as nuclear, and you will find they are several times as expensive. The cost of backup, whether its batteries or building a duplicate facility running on natural gas, is prohibitive. The additional transmission capacity from wherever the wind farms are located is also significant. And if you go for batteries, the environmental costs of them will be just as damaging as coal.
If you want cheap and reliable power at a reasonable cost the only available options at the moment are coal and gas. If you want zero carbon power at the moment the only available option is nuclear. Wind and solar at the moment, and that includes both onshore and offshore, are only being built, and the products are only being purchased, because of a mixture of compulsion and subsidies.
The attempt to run modern economies on wind and solar is failing and will continue to fail. Look at Germany and the UK, who are really trying. And now, as reality dawns, are backing off as fast as they feel they decently can. And even the attempt to pretend they are not will have stopped by mid February of next year, when the true scale of the inadequacy and the scale of the crisis become apparent to voters.
sunk cost fallacy rides again (Score:2)
Just ask Kodak.
Re: Follow me, I'm right behind you. (Score:3)
Re: Follow me, I'm right behind you. (Score:1)
Re: Follow me, I'm right behind you. (Score:1)
Offshore Wind: Sink or Swim On Its Own (Score:1)
The program [...] aims to drop the costs by more than 70 percent over the next decade...
I can't help but read this as "more than 70 percent of the cost will be subsidized" at a time when unhinged federal spending is what is causing the current bout of rampant inflation. At least this Solyndra will only drag out over ten years.
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Well, at the time, we had the GDP, low inflation, high employment (the employment numbers going up today are only just NOW reaching these old top numbers), and a freight train of an economy running at the time that more than made up for the deficit and was actually starting to bring in more federal revenue than we've seen before which, if not
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and a freight train of an economy
I hardly call 2.5% GDP annual increase a 'freight train of an economy'. It's solid, but hardly stands out historically.
would have started paying that deficit down.
Absolutely not. Forecasts showed the deficit continuing to grow. The thing pushing the economy at the OK level it was was deficit spending. Trump runs on debt...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/03/12/trump-vowed-eliminate-debt-years-hes-track-leave-it-least-percent-higher/
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I can't help but read this as "more than 70 percent of the cost will be subsidized" at a time when unhinged federal spending is what is causing the current bout of rampant inflation.
Over half of current inflation is caused by record corporate profits [epi.org].
Pretending this isn't so is celebrating your own suffering.
Wind turbines are silly. (Score:1)
Wind turbines are good for mechanical force, but pretty wretched for power generation, in terms of efficiency.
Balloons tethered with non-earthed cables would generate far more power and not have the obscene operational and material costs.
Re:Wind turbines are silly. (Score:4, Informative)
Balloons tethered with non-earthed cables would generate far more power and not have the obscene operational and material costs.
Personally I think we should just put all people with crazy pie in the sky ideas in one room. The bullshit will reach critical mass and collapse in on itself with incredible force and bam! Self sustaining fusion reaction. Free clean energy for everyone.
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Personally I think we should just put all people with crazy pie in the sky ideas in one room. The bullshit will reach critical mass and collapse in on itself with incredible force and bam! Self sustaining fusion reaction. Free clean energy for everyone.
If Flat Earth conferences can't accomplish that, nothing will.
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> Wind turbines are good for mechanical force, but pretty wretched for power generation, in terms of efficiency.
TIL 30%+ is "pretty wretched" efficiency for electrical power generation...
=Smidge=
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My thoughts exactly.
That post did make me go looking for any wind-powered electrostatic generation and there is this [wikipedia.org]. It seems unlikely to replace turbines but was fun to read about.
floating turbines are much more useful (Score:1)
If they can get the cost down "more than 70 percent over the next decade" it would be a huge win. Floating turbines could be installed almost anywhere along the coastlines, a vastly larger footprint than shallow water sites.
"contests for floating platform designs, develop software to help design offshore farms and integrate them into the grid", this concept has worked well in the past. "floating offshore wind offers the possibility of repurposing some of the offshore fossil fuel extraction industry and work
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That's what the companies building the stuff want, and if they do a good job, that's what they get. What the artistic types that actually do the design work want isn't just money (although they're glad to get it) but recognition, in the form of fame and awards. The money goes to the capitalists and the design awards go to the artists and t
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Why not tidal? (Score:2)
It seems obvious to me that you should build a tidal power plant in the ocean, not wind power.
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Tides do occur out in deep water. But by and large the highest tides - the ones we would want to harness - occur at the shore. See, for instance, the Bay of Fundy [bayoffundy.com]. "At the shore" does not qualify as deep water, and you wouldn't put a floating wind turbine there.
Silver (Score:2)
There is really not enough silver on the planet for all the silver bullets that are being bought.
Why limit this to offshore wind? (Score:2)
The goal is for the Department of Energy to fund development of offshore wind power technology and infrastructure to bring down costs in the future. With that in mind it may be a good idea to be aware of where the costs are right now. From the fine article....
Adding the 50 percent expense penalty for floating wind raises the costs above those of nuclear power.
If "nuclear power" is currently synonymous with "to expensive to bother with" then anything that costs more than nuclear power right now should be effectively off limits. Isn't a huge selling point of renewable energy supposed to be that it is cheap
Wind Shot... (Score:2)
boat anchor (Score:2)
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Gadgetbahn (Score:2)
These things are a waste of time and money and just a way to line the pockets of VC donors. It's the same thing with those solar-thermal plants they built instead of financing domestic PV manufacturing and rooftop solar. Now those plants are shutting down because their electricity it too expensive. You can just do the obvious thing. Just put wind chargers on farm and coastal offshore wind farms. Use national security acts and imminent domain to force the projects through quickly. Don't use tax subsidies. In