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Earth Power United States

America's Offshore Wind Potential is Huge but Untapped (theverge.com) 142

Posted by EditorDavid from the call-me-the-breeze dept.
A new analysis "shows that over 4,000 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind potential is available along the U.S. coastline," capable of fulfilling up to 25% of U.S. energy demand in 2050. (And it could also add $1.8 trillion in economy-boosting investment, while employing up to 390,000 workers.)

This new analysis comes from Berkeley researchers, who worked with nonprofit clean energy research firm GridLab and climate policy think tank Energy Innovation, reports the Verge: The Biden administration has committed to halving the nation's emissions by the end of the decade and has plans to source electricity completely from carbon pollution-free energy by 2035. Adding to that urgency, U.S. electricity demand is forecast to nearly triple by 2050, according to the Berkeley report. On top of a growing economy, the clean energy transition means electrifying more vehicles and homes — all of which put more stress on the power grid unless more power supply comes online at a similar pace.

To meet that demand and hit its climate goals, the report says the U.S. has to add 27 gigawatts of offshore wind and 85 GW of land-based wind and solar each year between 2035 and 2050. That timeline might still seem far away, but it's a big escalation of the Biden administration's current goal of deploying 30 GW of offshore wind by 2030. Europe, with an electricity grid about 70% the size of the U.S., already has about as much offshore wind capacity as the Biden administration hopes to build up by the end of the decade. Right now, wind energy makes up just over 10% of the U.S. electricity mix, and nearly all of that comes from land-based turbines...

For now, the U.S. has just two small wind farms off the coasts of Rhode Island and Virginia. Construction started on the foundations for the nation's first commercial-scale wind farm off Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, in June... Project costs have gone up with higher interest rates and rising prices for key commodities like steel, Heatmap reports. That's led to power purchase agreements falling through for some projects in early development, including plans in Rhode Island for an 884-megawatt wind farm that alone would have added more than 20 times as much generation capacity as the U.S. has today from offshore wind. Developers are struggling to make projects profitable without passing costs on to consumers...

The study found a modest 2 to 3 percent increase in wholesale electricity costs with ambitious renewable energy deployment. But renewable energy costs have fallen so dramatically in the past that the researchers think those costs could wind up being smaller over time.
The report points out that wind energy complements solar, by producing the most wind energy right when demand is peaking (in the summertime on the West Coast, and during the winter on the East Coast).
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America's Offshore Wind Potential is Huge but Untapped More

America's Offshore Wind Potential is Huge but Untapped

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  • Based on UK real data for 2 years from their largest consolidator of renewables, offshore windfarms are more expensive than solar or onshore wind, when storage and transmission costs are included. One reason is that in the UK the correlation of wind strength between different wind farms is quite high, so they need a lot of storage, this may be less in the case of the USA.They also need expensive maintenance, and don't last very long.

    • Of course offshore is more expensive than onshore, nobody disputes that. And what do you think the lifetime of an offshore wind turbine is and why would it need more routine maintenance than an onshore one?

    • Re:Offshore wind is the most expensive solution (Score:5, Insightful)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Sunday August 06, 2023 @05:05AM (#63743894) Homepage Journal

      Offshore wind is more expensive than onshore wind, but it's also more consistent, and avoids some problems with NIMBYs. Current gen offshore wind is exceeding 50% capacity factor, for example.

      And offshore wind is still much cheaper than coal/gas, and vastly cheaper than nuclear.

      • Australia's plan to get to 80% renewable by 2030 has been costed at 1.5 trillion dollars by Net Zero Australia. That is 14% of GDP, every year. The final plan, 100% renewable by 2050, is costed at 8 trillion dollars. You can buy an awful lot of nuclear reactors for 8 trillion dollars. The annual cost then keeps up at the same rate as the original equipment is replaced.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          Sounds like a bargain, considering that climate change is an existential threat to Australia. If temperatures rise too much, parts of Australia will become uninhabitable, or people will have to stay indoors for much of the summer months.

    • Offshore wind-farms are certainly more expensive than onshore, but they deliver energy more consistently because the wind at sea is stronger and more predictable. Offshore wind turbines generally last for 20-25 years, and onshore 35 year. But that is expected to increase to 30 or more.

      It's also possible to builder taller power plants at sea. Wind power plants built twenty years ago were 150 m tall, while current plans are for 280 m and even 350 m.

      Also note that Denmark is the leading country here and
    • Well.. Stupid planning constraints make onshore wind and solar difficult in the UK. UK offshore wind is around 9 times cheaper than gas generated electricity, and is the cheapest source.
      https://www.theguardian.com/en... [theguardian.com]
      Nuclear is probably the most expensive, by a long way..

  • Weather could be an issue (Score:4, Interesting)

    by MtViewGuy ( 197597 ) on Sunday August 06, 2023 @03:06AM (#63743802)

    While there is plentiful continental shelf space for offshore wind farms in the US Atlantic Coast and the Gulf of Mexico, there is however one major issue the builders need to deal with: hurricanes. The Gulf of Mexico and the US Atlantic Coast from Miami all the way up to Boston are vulnerable to a hurricane strike, and when you have storms of huge size with wind speeds of over 100 mph (160 km/h), the potential of serious damage to an offshore wind farm is very real.

  • Build nuclear reactors and solar FFS. That's the only solution -- even hydro is shaky.

  • skeptical (Score:3)

    by groobly ( 6155920 ) on Sunday August 06, 2023 @11:52AM (#63744452)

    Somebody who wanted this result paid somebody else who wanted this result to get this result.

  • The part of the site with the data is down right now, but my take away from this is: wind can only provide 25% of our power, at maximum, and only after 27 years of vastly increased investment. That's... actually not great. Trying to be positive let's keep thinking: If 25% is wind, and 20% solar, and 5% hydroelectric, and 20% nuclear then...... we are still screwed. 2050 is too late. We can't build renewables fast enough, and even if we could they can only satisfy a fraction of the need. We can't build

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