Massachusetts' offshore wind project moving forward.

Gilligan

#*! boat!
PREMO Member
Up to 800MW...that's a pretty good number. Recently completed "large" farms in Europe/Scandinavia are in the 600-700MW range. But that number keeps climbing as the turbines get larger and the operators continually seek greater economies of scale.

As a point of comparison, the only existing US offshore wind farm has an output of around 30MW.

https://www.offshorewind.biz/2017/12/20/developers-file-bids-for-powering-massachusetts-with-offshore-wind/?utm_source=emark&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=daily-update-offshore-wind-2017-12-21&uid=69352
 

Gilligan

#*! boat!
PREMO Member
I guess now we have to see who has the stronger lobby. The wind farm or fishing industry.

(This article was in my hometown paper, but it is behind a pay wall. Fortunately I found a copy in an Arkansas paper.)

http://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2017/dec/27/sea-turbine-plans-worry-fishermen-20171/

They'd have to come up with a factual basis for their concerns. 4000 turbines operating in coastal fishing waters elsewhere in the world, with another 4000 on the way, would suggest that their concerns are misplaced. In fact, there is plenty of evidence that shows how the foundations of oil and gas platforms and, more recently, wind turbine foundations, actually benefit the marine life that surrounds them. All except for marine mammals maybe....jury still out and studies underway on how blade acoustics transmittted underwater are screwing with whale and dolphin navigation and ranging
 

nutz

Well-Known Member
Up to 800MW...that's a pretty good number. Recently completed "large" farms in Europe/Scandinavia are in the 600-700MW range. But that number keeps climbing as the turbines get larger and the operators continually seek greater economies of scale.

As a point of comparison, the only existing US offshore wind farm has an output of around 30MW.

https://www.offshorewind.biz/2017/12/20/developers-file-bids-for-powering-massachusetts-with-offshore-wind/?utm_source=emark&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=daily-update-offshore-wind-2017-12-21&uid=69352

Any clues how much of this is being funded by tax dollars/DOE /whoever grant money?
 

Gilligan

#*! boat!
PREMO Member
Any clues how much of this is being funded by tax dollars/DOE /whoever grant money?

The bulk of it will be subsidy-free, based on how it's going in Europe. Maybe not 100% subsidy free initially, but the operators involved are all the highly experienced European and Scandinavian companies that have achieved remarkable reduction in production costs "over there".

During the Obama years, the government (DoE mostly) threw away a ton of money for states to play with "pilot projects" in wind and solar; nearly all were financial failures and some of the solar plants were spectacular technical failures as well. All that money is gone...largely wasted. Ironic that now some truly serious and large-scale off shore wind projects are taking shape...with more standard types of financing (private investment, public bonds, etc).
 

MADPEBS1

Man, I'm still here !!!
i just can't get excited about something that MIGHT come online in 9 years.... I'm all for it, but christ as you said there are 1000's out there in other countries, The Bureaucracy SUX's sometimes....
 

Gilligan

#*! boat!
PREMO Member
i just can't get excited about something that MIGHT come online in 9 years.... .

Many of the projects are already set in contractual stone and commercial power will be produced/sold by 2022...but the capacity will continue to be expanded for quite some time past then.
 
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