Where wind power is working better than here
- Thread starter Gilligan
- Start date
Kinnakeet
Well-Known Member
I bet that cost a arm and a leg to maintain
Operations and maintenance costs are included in in the Levelized Cost of Energy. What that means in simple terms is that all sources of electricity are costed on a level playing field basis. There are over 6000 offshore wind turbines in Europe/Scandinavia alone*....they've got the systems and processes well sorted out. (We support the vessel side of all that). They also have the wind....in most cases a lot more wind than we have here where turbines are being planned for installation.
There are less than 10 in the US...LOL.
They might not have wackos getting all upset about the birdies and their flight patterns. Not to mention the people who complain about seeing these off shore from their beach houses.
The vast majority of offshore turbines "over there" are well beyond view from shore. Some that we service are 75 nautical miles offshore even. The average is about 25 nm.
Cool. All we need to worry about are birdies and differences in the water depth, if any. Oh yeah, cost for building these might be a factor. Maybe add that as a special tax to all EV's?
There are now farms using floating turbine pylons. The UK has benefit of access to the famous Dogger Bank for bottom installation of a lot of their turbines too. But yeah...they'll always be "bird blenders"....
Like everything else, cost to build them is included in the LCOE too. Turbine farms are being regularly built over there now without any government subsidy at all. The economics are actually working for them. For numerous reasons, I do not think the same will be the result here off the east coast, except perhaps for the northern-most farms that are planned.
SamSpade
Well-Known Member
I was just reading about this the other day - that as recently as 7000 BC, this area was ABOVE WATER (which we call Doggerland), and there is evidence of human habitation there, at that time. In fact, at that time, a great deal of the sea between continental Europe and the British Isles were above water.
This is a phenomenon I've read about sparingly over years - that after about 15-10,000 BC sea levels began to rise as more of the glaciers melted and receded - and engulfed different parts of the world - that there's reason to believe that the waters that flooded into the Black Sea from the Mediterranean when the ocean levels rose and wiped out a lot of coastal villages along the north and south shores - and this gave rise to the Noah story.
Which leads me to ask - has this been consistent over millenia? Are the oceans currently rising, because they've been doing it at a measurable pace for 20,000 years?
Well, I'm old....but not that old....
Hessian
Well-Known Member
I picked up an out-of-date book on the archaeology of Doggerlands....evidence supports two interesting theories. A. People survived on the wooded islands well into the Celtic ages...perhaps in the last 2000 years! And it was obvious they traded over vast areas. One theory has it that the "lost Atlantis" idea comes from their demise. Second theory (well supported) is that yes,,,the seas were slowly rising in the Pre Classical world BUT...a massive tsunami emerged from a fjord and swamped everything without warning.....evidence found in organic layers in Midcoastal England.
Just the tidbit of history for the day.....carry on.
SamSpade
Well-Known Member
The Storrega landslide - but that wouldn't have affected sea levels, just damage and flood settlements with massive waves.