Alternative Energy - Windfarms: The Advantages of Floating Wind Farms - Beth Day Romulo

Floating Windfarm Platforms

Clean energy engineers in the United States have been working on a project to make offshore wind farms financially and environmentally viable. At the moment, all offshore wind turbines require a fixed platform, which is built into the seafloor. But floating turbines with anchors would offer more flexibility as to where wind farms could be placed.  

Dr. Habib Dagher, the executive director of the University of Maine’s Advanced Structures and Composites Center, is testing an experiment, which simulates conditions that full-scale floating wind turbines might face off the Maine coast, at an installation near Monhegan Island, in 360 feet of water. For 18 months in 2013 and 2014, a small operating version of the wind farm sat in water off Castine, Maine, sending electricity to the grid. This experiment proved that the technology worked. Now, Dr. Dagher’s team is using the data collected to confirm the final forms of the wind farm.

Conventional offshore wind development, which has its foundation deep beneath the ocean floor, are popular in Europe, but energy companies in the United States are just starting to use offshore turbines. Statoil, a Norwegian oil and gas company, is already developing the first commercial scale floating wind farm off the coast of Scotland.

In the US the Obama administration recently released an updated offshore wind plan, which identifies the floating structures as important in fighting climate change. More than half of the US offshore wind capacity is in deep water. Since floating wind farms are more expensive to build than land-based ones, cost has been obstacle to development.

Dr. Dagher said that if all went well, his team could have two full scale turbines pumping electricity into the Maine grind by 2019, and larger commercial farms starting construction in the Gulf of Maine by the mid 2020s.

Read more:nThe Advantages of Floating Wind Farms » Manila Bulletin Newsbit

Energy-Fracking: British Poll finds: Wind farms more popular than fracking sites - Fracking dangerous to your health

Fracking good for the corporate world - but not for your health

More people would prefer a wind farm in their local council area than a fracking site, according to research published recently by YouGov for the renewables company, Ecotricity.

When asked “Which of the following energy projects or plans would you prefer to have operating in your council area”, 62% said a wind farm, 19% said a fracking site and 19% said they didn’t know.

The research found that a wind farm was more popular than a fracking site, regardless of political opinion.

The preference for wind farms was lowest UKIP and Conservative supporters and highest among Lib Dem and Labour supporters

Conservatives: 50% chose wind, 33% chose fracking, 17% did not know
Labour: 76% chose wind, 9% chosefracking, 14% did not know
Lib Dem: 78% chose wind,14% chosefracking, 8% did not know
UKIP (Eurosceptics): 41% chose wind, 36%chose fracking, 24% did not know

Interesting note about these figures is that the Conservatives and the right-wing UKIP Eurosceptics had the least understanding of what fracking is all about.

Women were more likely to support wind farms than men. The research found that among women, 68% of women would prefer a wind farm, compared with 9% who would prefer a fracking site. The figures for men were: 56% would prefer a wind farm, compared with 29% a fracking site.

Fracking was more popular in older people. According to the research, of those that preferred fracking over wind, 29% were over 60.

To watch a video on what Fracking does to the environment and your health click here.

EU-Digest