By David Wojick
The Government of Maine has really big plans for floating wind, a floating net zero fantasy, in fact. Since floating wind power is the next big green thing, it is worth taking a close look at this ruinous vision.
Floating wind is a fad, not an established technology. It has yet to be built at utility scale or tested in a hurricane. The world’s biggest grid-connected system is a tiny 50 MW and just came online off Scotland.
The cost of floating wind is necessarily much greater than fixed wind. A fixed wind tower sits on a simple monopile, while a floating tower sits on a huge complex structure called a floater. We are talking about massive 500-foot towers with 500-ton turbines on top and 300-foot blades catching the wind.
The floater has to be large enough to keep this monster tower from blowing over. Then, it has to be even bigger to contain enough air to be buoyant. It also has to be anchored to the ocean floor in ways that require a lot of different mooring lines.
The small existing floating generator systems cost around three times what fixed wind costs per MW, but the big and hurricane-proof generators might cost even more. Over a hundred designs have been proposed, which shows just how immature Floating wind technology is.
Which brings us to Maine’s floating green dream, a costly nightmare for its people. When it comes to electricity use, Maine is a small state with average generation of just around 1,500 MW. But in an act of madness, they passed a law saying they will buy 3,000 MW of floating wind. Fixed wind is not an option because the Gulf of Maine is too deep.
How do they justify buying so much floating wind? Simple, it is a net zero fantasy. They have a 115-page “Maine Offshore Wind Roadmap” that explains it.
For a start, they shut down all their existing combustion generators, mostly burning either gas or wood. Maine is 90% forest, so there is a lot of wood. Then, they electrify all the other forms of combustion. For example, 60% of homes are heated with fuel oil, so they switch to heat pumps or something that works in really cold weather. Of course, all the cars and trucks are electric.
The projected cost of the 3,000 MW of floating wind is huge. Using the reported three times fixed wind figure, I get a rough estimate of $50 billion for construction and an equal amount for financing and profit, giving a total cost of around $100 billion. It could be a lot more once large-scale and hurricane-proof technology is developed if it ever is.
Apparently, the astronomical cost is no object because it is never mentioned. Not in the law, roadmap, or various technical support documents. Jobs are frequently mentioned, but they are part of the cost. But then, too, there is the much larger cost of the energy transition, without which the floating wind is simply not usable.
Clearly, the floating wind development may never occur, which brings us back to the present day, where things get really crazy. The State of Maine has started the process to build a huge new port specifically to handle this floating wind fantasy. I am not making this up.
With fixed wind, the shore facility is merely a marshaling yard where the pieces are held until barged out to the offshore site for assembly. There are just four big pieces: the monopile, tower, turbine, and blade set.
Floating wind is completely different because the huge floater is built at the port. The tower, turbines, and blade set are mounted on the floater there as well. Then, the whole assembly is towed to the site and anchored to the sea floor using eight or more mooring lines.
So this is really a highly specialized shipyard, a floater factory, not a port. There will have to be one or more dry docks to build the huge floaters in, plus a great deal of specialized equipment, especially cranes. Reportedly, steel floaters for a 15 MW turbine could typically weigh 3500 to 4500 tons, while concrete floaters would be in the range of 17,000 to 22,000 tons.
The final configuration is completely unknown until the floater design is finalized. Note, too, that this shipyard might only be in operation for the few years it takes to build 3,000 MW of floating wind generators.
The presently estimated cost of this shipyard/port is a bit under a billion dollars but it could easily be more depending on the complexity of the design. The cost of a unique new system tends to go way up when the engineering is actually done.
Starting this billion-dollar port project now is just foolish. It is highly likely that the required energy transition will not occur. The electricity will be very expensive, perhaps four to five times the present cost. Plus, we have no idea what the technology will look like, assuming it can be made to work in the tempestuous waters off Maine.
The people of Maine are unlikely to accept these onerous conditions, nor should they. This whole nutty project needs to be reconsidered.
It’s almost as if the proponents have never seen an angry sea.
well most if not all of the designers of the floaters come from the oil and gas industry where they have decades of experience with floaters and angry seas … so try again …
So why are there hundreds of different designs. You try again.
Oil rigs do not have 500 foot turbine towers. The physics is nasty.
A fair point I reckon. But oil and gas drilling platforms don’t usually have a huge (rotating) sail mounted above them. Old fashioned windjammers did of course. But they were prone to bounce around a lot and have been known to roll over.
Might want to try another positive-thinking angle: when these do roll over and sink, they can become helpful artificial reefs. Except if you are predictable, you’d say such reefs are pointless because they’d be Clima-Change™ bleached to death … right?
I’d like to see the list of designers and affiliations.
Please present proof of your most if not all claim.
I’d think it’s not the angry seas that Maine politicians need to worry about, but the angry voters may be a different issue.
Will the floaters become sinkers?
Floating Offshore Wind Systems in the Impoverished State of Maine
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/hunga-tonga-volcanic-eruption
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/natural-forces-cause-periodic-global-warming
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Despite the meager floating offshore MW in the world, pro-wind politicians, bureaucrats, etc., aided and abetted by the lapdog Main Media and “academia/think tanks”, in the impoverished State of Maine, continue to fantasize about building 3,000 MW of 850-ft-tall floating offshore wind turbines by 2040!!
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Maine government bureaucrats, etc., in a world of their own climate-fighting fantasies, want to have about 3,000 MW of floating wind turbines by 2040; a most expensive, totally unrealistic goal, that would further impoverish the already-poor State of Maine for many decades.
Those bureaucrats, etc., would help fatten the lucrative, 20-y, tax-shelters of mostly out-of-state, multi-millionaire, wind-subsidy chasers, who likely have minimal regard for: 1) Impacts on the environment and the fishing and tourist industries of Maine, and 2) Already-overstressed, over-taxed, over-regulated Maine ratepayers and taxpayers, who are trying to make ends meet in a near-zero, real-growth economy.
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Those fishery-destroying, 850-ft-tall floaters, with 24/7/365 strobe lights, visible 30 miles from any shore, would cost at least $7,500/ installed kW, or at least $22.5 billion, if built in 2023 (more after 2023)
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Almost the entire supply of the Maine projects would be designed and made in Europe, then transported across the Atlantic Ocean, in European specialized ships, then unloaded at a new, $500-million Maine storage/pre-assembly/staging/barge-loading area, then barged to European specialized erection ships for erection of the floating turbines. The financing will be mostly by European pension funds.
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About 500 Maine people would have jobs during the erection phase
The other erection jobs would be by specialized European people, mostly on cranes and ships
About 200 Maine people would have long-term O&M jobs, using European spare parts, during the 20-y electricity production phase.
https://www.maine.gov/governor/mills/news/governor-mills-signs-bill-create-jobs-advance-clean-energy-and-fight-climate-change-through
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The Maine people have much greater burdens to look forward to for the next 20 years, courtesy of the Governor Mills incompetent, woke bureaucracy that has infested the state government
The Maine people need to finally wake up, and put an end to the climate scare-mongering, which aims to subjugate and further impoverish them, by voting the entire Democrat woke cabal out and replace it with rational Republicans in 2024
The present course leads to financial disaster for the impoverished State of Maine and its people.
The purposely-kept-ignorant Maine people do not deserve such maltreatment
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Electricity Cost: Assume a $750 million, 100 MW project consists of foundations, wind turbines, cabling to shore, and installation at $7,500/kW.
Production 100 MW x 8766 h/y x 0.40, CF = 350,640,000 kWh/y
Amortize bank loan for $525 million, 70% of project, at 6.5%/y for 20 years, 13.396 c/kWh.
Owner return on $225 million, 30% of project, at 10%/y for 20 years, 7.431 c/kWh
Offshore O&M, about 30 miles out to sea, 8 c/kWh.
Supply chain, special ships, and ocean transport, 3 c/kWh
All other items, 4 c/kWh
Total cost 13.396 + 7.431 + 8 + 3 + 4 = 35.827 c/kWh
Less 50% subsidies (ITC, 5-y depreciation, interest deduction on borrowed funds) 17.913 c/kWh
Owner sells to utility at 17.913 c/kWh
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NOTE: The above prices compare with the average New England wholesale price of about 5 c/kWh, during the 2009 – 2022 period, 13 years, courtesy of:
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Gas-fueled CCGT plants, with low-cost, low-CO2, very-low particulate/kWh
Nuclear plants, with low-cost, near-zero CO2, zero particulate/kWh
Hydro plants, with low-cost, near-zero-CO2, zero particulate/kWh
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Cabling to Shore Plus $Billions for Grid Expansion on Shore: A high voltage cable would be hanging from each unit, until it reaches bottom, say about 200 to 500 feet.
The cables would need some type of flexible support system
There would be about 5 cables, each connected to sixty, 10 MW wind turbines, making landfall on the Maine shore, for connection to 5 substations (each having a 600 MW capacity, requiring several acres of equipment), then to connect to the New England HV grid, which will need $billions for expansion/reinforcement to transmit electricity to load centers, mostly in southern New England.
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Floating Offshore a Major Financial Burden on Maine People: Over-taxed, over-regulated, impoverished Maine people would buckle under such a heavy burden, while trying to make ends meet in the near-zero, real-growth Maine economy.
Excellent summary wilpost but it gets even worse. The most tender parts of a wind machine are the speed increasing gear and the machines shaft and thrust bearings that must accommodate rapid changes in wind direction and speed during operation. Such changes impose loads that are difficult to accommodate in a structure that must be as light as can be. Now add up/down, fore/aft and side to side rolling load changes to these components and they will fail even sooner than they already do. And then there is the ever-present salt that eats the …… out of everything.
The five turbine Scottish floating wind farm (Norwegian Hywind models) has been taken off line and all the turbines have been towed to Norway for “heavy maintenance”.
Oh, Gee
That is just after a few years.
WHAT ARE THESE INEXPERIENCED BUREAUCRAT IDIOTS IN MAINE THINKING?
THEY ARE JEOPARDIZING THE FUTURE OF THE ENTIRE STATE OF MAINE
AND THE FUTURE OF FISHERIES AND TOURISM
World Offshore Wind Capacity Placed on Operation in 2021
During 2021, worldwide offshore wind capacity placed in operation was 17,398 MW, of which China 13,790 MW, and the rest of the world 3,608 MW, of which UK 1,855 MW; Vietnam 643 MW; Denmark 604 MW; Netherlands 402 MW; Taiwan 109 MW
Of the 17,398 MW, just 57.1 MW was floating, about 1/3%
At end of 2021, 50,623 MW was in operation, of which just 123.4 MW was floating, about 1/4%
https://www.energy.gov/eere/wind/articles/offshore-wind-market-report-2022-edition
World’s First Floating Wind Farm to Undergo First Major Maintenance Campaign, Turbines to Be Towed to Norwegian Port
https://www.offshorewind.biz/2024/01/15/worlds-first-floating-wind-farm-to-undergo-first-major-maintenance-campaign-turbines-to-be-towed-to-norwegian-port/.
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By Adrijana Buljan
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The world’s first commercial-scale floating wind farm, the 5 turbines, 30 MW Hywind Scotland, officially entered the operations and maintenance (O&M) phase in October 2017. After a little over six years of operation, the Siemens Gamesa wind turbines are now due for major maintenance work.
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While offshore turbines undergo maintenance work more than once during their lifespans, and tasks, such as major component exchange are not uncommon, this is the first time this will be done on a floating farm.
“From operational data, we have identified the need for heavy maintenance on the wind farm turbines.
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This is the first such operation for a floating farm and the safest method to do this is to tow the turbines to shore and execute the operations in sheltered conditions,” an Equinor spokesperson said in a statement emailed to offshoreWIND.biz.
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The maintenance will be performed during the summer in the Gulen Port in Norway as Equinor has awarded the contract for the onshore works to the Wergeland Group, which is expected to finish the campaign in three to four months after the start.
“Wergeland is the closest port with offshore wind experience and sufficient water depth that can service these turbines. The work will be done in close collaboration with the turbine supplier Siemens Gamesa,” Equinor’s spokesperson said.
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Hywind Scotland, located 25 kilometres offshore Peterhead in Aberdeenshire, comprises five Siemens Gamesa 6 MW turbines mounted on SPAR-type foundations.
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The floating wind farm has been operating with high capacity factors since the commissioning. In 2021, Equinor reported that Hywind Scotland had reached the highest average capacity factor for any wind farm in the UK for its third consecutive year.
DOES MAINE FORESEE HAVING A DEEPWATER PORT FOR MAINTENANCE OF (250) 12 MW FLOATERS?
Spot on
I don’t see any costs about some sort of power storage system for when the wind don’t blow. If the average load is 1,500 MW and they are planning to build 3,000MW, then they must be figuring out some way to use the extra power when it exceeds the load in Maine. If they sell it across their borders, then those utilities either won’t be able to afford the power or else they will sell it as discount and the people in Maine will bear all of the capital expense.
You know how some women love a baby, even if it is a total cripple?
That is how the greenies love their wind and solar, which are total cripples without storage, which is impossibly expensive to cover just one day of wind/solar lull, which frequently occur in Germany, UK, New England, etc.
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/battery-system-capital-costs-losses-and-aging
All-in Turnkey Cost of Battery System to for a One-Day Wind Lull
At a future date:
Installed onshore/offshore wind systems would be 10,107 MW AC to provide 25% of NE grid load
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Installed solar systems would be 23,766 MW DC to provide 25% of NE grid load
Wind annual average output would be 31,250,000 MWh/y x 1/8,766 h/y = 3,565 MW
Wind capacity factor 3565/10107 = 0.353
For analysis purposes:
1) Wind MW is assumed to become 0.15 x 3565 = 535 MW, during a one-day wind lull
2) Tesla recommends normal battery operation within 20% full to 80% full, to achieve a 15-y useful service life. We assume the batteries are at 70% full at start of wind/solar lull, and maximum drawdown is to an abnormal 10% full, for a 0.6 available capacity.
3) A more exact analysis would be on an hour-to-hour basis, instead of annual average basis
Required Megapacks: At least (3565 – 535) MW x 0.770 MW/Megapack x 1/0.6, available capacity x 1/0.926, Tesla design factor = 7,083 Tesla, 4-h Megapacks, arranged in parallel to obtain the desired MW
Each parallel train would have (10) 4-h Megapacks, arranged in series to obtain 10 x 4 x 0.6 = 24-h service
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A total of 7083 x 10 = 70,830 Megapacks would offset a one-day wind lull
BTW, this assumes only batteries would offset the wind lull, i.e., no output from other power plants would be available.
Supplied by Tesla (7,083 x 10) Megapacks x $1.1 million each = $77.913 billion
Supply by Others $9,817 billion. See Part 1
All-in, turnkey cost about $77.913 b + $9.817 b = $87.729 billion, for a one-day wind lull
Battery Systems to Deal with Midday Solar Output Surge
A separate battery system, consisting of several thousand 4-h Megapacks, arranged in parallel, would be needed almost every day, to absorb a part of the MW and MWh of the midday solar surge, because that surge from 23,766 MW DC of solar systems likely would exceed midday demand; the alternative would be to export it to nearby grids, as Germany does to nearby countries.
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After round-trip losses of about 20%, the battery systems would discharge the remaining 80% during the peak hours of late-afternoon/early-evening
I think they are planning on doubling the load with all their evs and resistance heating. Heat pumps don’t work in very cold areas. We don’t need no useless batteries. DEI in motion. Astronauts stranded, planes falling from the skies, The NE believing if you can wish it, it will happen. Engineers by nature are questioners so they can not be trusted for what they tell the unicorn dreamers.
This project is wonderful.
As Francis Menton frequently points out, we need to challenge net zero proponents to show us one place where totally replacing fossil fuels has actually worked. The same is true for alternative energies.
To make net zero work, there needs to be a huge source of carbon-free energy available to replace fossil fuels. The New York state plan, as Roger Caizza and Mr. Menton have pointed out, relies on a miraculous, yet-to-be identified carbon and nuclear free generation system to step in and save the day. It’s a pipe dream
As long as these projects are just Popular Science flying cars (they’ll be everywhere in 20 years!) they allow alarmists to assure the general public that they have a plan. As each of those systems are built and fail, often failing even to get built, it brings the 95% of people who really don’t think about any of this just a little closer to understanding that there is no magic trick that gets us to net zero.
Yes, it’s going to be an expensive failure. But it’s also expensive to let people believe these fantasies can really be built and operated economically. This will disprove that.
That’s an interesting insight into net-zero, the whole thing is essentially a series of The Jetsons updated for the 21st century, with magical new technologies delivering limitless energy on demand, flying electric cars powered by batteries that weigh less than a gallon of fuel, but have the range to fly from London to New York non-stop, and just like the original 1960s Jetsons, none of these will be even on the horizon sixty years later.
“The people of Maine are unlikely to accept these onerous conditions”.
The question is – are they willing to pay for it? Probably not. I am afraid we all will have to pay for it.
Floating Offshore Wind in Norway
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Equinor, a Norwegian company, put in operation, 11 Hywind, floating offshore wind turbines, each 8 MW, for a total of 88 MW, in the North Sea. The wind turbines are supplied by Siemens, a German company
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Production will be about 88 x 8766 x 0.5, claimed lifetime capacity factor = 385,704 MWh/y, which is about 35% of the electricity used by 2 nearby Norwegian oil rigs, which cost at least $1.0 billion each.
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On an annual basis, the existing diesel and gas-turbine generators on the rigs, designed to provide 100% of the rigs electricity requirements, 24/7/365, will provide only 65%, i.e., the wind turbines have 100% back up.
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The generators will counteract the up/down output of the wind turbines, on a less-than-minute-by-minute basis, 24/7/365
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The generators will provide almost all the electricity during low-wind periods, and 100% during high-wind periods, when rotors are feathered and locked.
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The capital cost of the entire project was about 8 billion Norwegian Kroner, or about $730 million, as of August 2023, when all 11 units were placed in operation, or $730 million/88 MW = $8,300/kW. See URL
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That cost was much higher than the estimated 5 billion NOK in 2019, i.e., 60% higher
The project is located about 70 miles from Norway, which means minimal transport costs of the entire supply to the erection sites
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The project would produce electricity at about 42 c/kWh, no subsidies, at about 21 c/kWh, with 50% subsidies
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In Norway, all work associated with oil rigs is very expensive.
Three shifts of workers are on the rigs for 6 weeks, work 60 h/week, and get 6 weeks off with pay, and are paid well over $150,000/y, plus benefits.
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If Norwegian units were used in Maine, the production costs would be even higher in Maine, because of the additional cost of transport of almost the entire supply, including specialized ships and cranes, across the Atlantic Ocean, plus:
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A high voltage cable would be hanging from each unit, until it reaches bottom, say about 200 to 500 feet.
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The cables would need some type of flexible support system
The cables would be combined into several cables to run horizontally to shore, for at least 25 to 30 miles, to several onshore substations, to the New England high voltage grid.
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https://www.offshore-mag.com/regional-reports/north-sea-europe/article/14195647/floating-wind-turbines-to-power-north-sea-gullfaks-snorre-platforms
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floating_wind_turbine
My doctor once told me I should look in the bowl after a morning visit to see if I had a floater or a sinker.
So this report reminds me that a “floater”, even in another incarnation, is still a pile of sh1t.
By any other name is just Dark Brandon.
If it’s not nutty, leftists aren’t interested. They always prefer fantasy to reality because in la-la land, anything is possible, you can just dream it. Reality bites.
The “Climate Change” insanity is nationwide.
Texas, a right-wing state, has the largest combined wind and solar of any state in the US.
https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/texas-number-one-in-renewable-and-nonrenewable-energy/
Two-thirds of Republicans under the age of 30 support the so-called “Climate Change” agenda and 42 percent of Republicans overall support it.
About 90 percent of Democrats support it.
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/08/09/what-the-data-says-about-americans-views-of-climate-change
Wait until those young “Republicans” buy their first electric car and find out how far it (doesn’t) go on a charge. They’ll be back to their old gas-guzzling jalopies as soon as the diesel-powered tow truck drops them off at home.
By the way, how well did all those wind turbines in Texas work in the last ice storm?
Actually, they won’t go back to ICE vehicles because (a) the resale value of an EV in way too low, and (b) they will not have a job so they can’t finance a new car, and (c) they will not be able to surf the internet looking for good deals on used ICE cars because of grid collapse.
“The State of Maine has started the process to build a huge new port specifically to handle this floating wind fantasy. I am not making this up.”
The State of California has built 1,600 feet of high speed rail. The rest of the 800 miles is all made up, somewhat like a fantasy novel.
At least it is visible from outer space, which is something
Well they would try and go offshore now wouldn’t they?
Volunteer firefighters say they will not fight fires around new renewables projects, transmission lines (msn.com)
Makes sense. I sure wouldn’t go anywhere near a rooftop solar setup no matter how critical ventilating the roof was. Hit it with a deck gun.
Especially battery fires, which require hazmat gear and last for hours and relight.
Billions to build a real shipyard for a speculative-at-best project? Hmmmm, lots of other people’s money already changing hands I think.
Anyone who has owned or worked on a boat kept on or near salt water (raising hand) will immediately recognize the multitude of problems any infrastructure project like this would face. Water, wind, sun, hot, cold, salt, electricity, sea life and non-stop motion all conspire with each other to constantly destroy whatever is stationed in this environment. Operators will be engaged in a non-stop battle against entropy. The constant maintenance required and very short service life compared to land-based infrastructure renders devices like this uneconomical from the get-go. For one thing, unlike on land one or two maintenance personnel can’t just drive up to one of these in a pickup truck and work on it. They’ll need very expensive ocean-going vessels with sizeable crews and equipment on standby and can work only during favorable sea & weather conditions. Then consider that terrestrial windmills only have a lifespan of about 20 years. Sea-based hardware will probably have an economic lifespan less than a third that, and at far greater expense compared to the energy captured.
Yes, if experience dictates that “a boat is a hole in the water that you throw money into”, what is a floating, spinning windmill going to be?
A hole where your’s and my money is thrown in to.
As an ex naval person and yachtsman who’s turned the wheel and looked to windward for sixty years, how I agree! During the construction vulnerabilities there’s this storm that arrives, not even a hurricane. Three fatalities, six months setback
I spent about 30 years racing various sailboats.
If I had all the money I spent, I would be seriously rich
They say: a sailboat is a moving hole in the water in which you pour money.
The same as the leftist posse, that uses Biden as a dummy spox, to push a lot of evils, including 30,000 MW of East Coast offshore by 2030, of which, so far, has about 1% been built!!
Gawd ole mighty, how long will this BS last?
The federal deficit for fiscal 2024, will be about $1.9 TRILLION of deficit spending at high interest rates to perpetrate BS
I’m a lifelong pleasure sailor who describes sailing with the old joke, “Tearing up $100 bills while standing in a cold shower.” That’s with small boats.
There are those of us who love it, but we do it with our own money.
Building a “new wave” electric company with windmills floating over deep, treacherous ocean is tearing up $1,000,000 bills with expensive equipment standing in a cold shower.
But it won’t be fun, and it’s your money!
Basements and roof skylights suffer the same disease. Mother Nature always wins the battle with entropy before your bank account does.
Perversely, that might actually be a good thing, since all involved might be forced to address reality before it’s too late.
At least with this stuff, when the subsidies end they can just sink it all and claim they’re making artificial reefs. Will be a lot cheaper than cleaning up the scarred landscape of windmills and solar panels.
Tons of spinning mass, bobbing and rocking in the swells.
That’s going to put lots of weird strains on the rotor shaft that will dramatically reduce it’s expected life.
floaters don’t bob and rock … center of gravity is below the surface …
You clearly know nothing about maritime construction, CoG and metacentric height. All ships have a CoG below sea level and all ships “bob” about or more specifically roll.
And all those that do have a CoG above sea level, have that corrected very quickly by the laws of physics, usually with much screaming and loss of life.
If the sea is moving, everything in it moves. Basic physics, perhaps you should try learning some.
Submerged submarines, when they get close to the surface are affected by swells.
You need to go back and review Newtonian mechanics aka physics. 800 foot lever arms even with the COG below the surface will rock. They will rock on a calm ocean just due to the wind.
Get the government out of the energy business and all of this nonsense goes away. Only government is reckless and stupid enough to do stuff like this.
Well, this is expected.
water is too deep off Maine for your cheap (ha ha … right) monopiles … and all the complex cranes needed for floaters in the port … guess what … same cranes BUT ON A SHIP in the ocean to mount the turbines on your monopiles …
and as far as a specialiced port to assemble the floaters … nothing special about it … its a port with cranes … like every other commercial port in the world …
Irrelevant answer. It will still be largely redundant until the your fantasy turbines have to be replaced. And of course it’s not just cranes, it’s dry docks etc, things many ports do not have.
Not sure what your point is DL. Triple cost estimate is standard, not mine. Should be more for a hurricane proof system if such is even possible.
Not too many hurricanes off of Maine. Nor’easters on the other hand, can be just as bad.
Nor’easters are hurricanes, just not tropical hurricanes.
It’s a port without a purpose. Have you built a garage for your personal Mars explorer space craft?
It’s still extra cost that is needed to build the floaters and will be needed to maintain them.
BTW, you seem to think that all cranes are the same. Like everything else you have said today, that’s completely wrong.
Monopiles are cheap, compared to floaters. Sheesh, don’t you know anything?
If they keep the shipyard intact instead of dismantling it after the first round of construction, it would make the second round of construction much cheaper. That’s in only about 20 years time, when the first set of wind turbines reach their use-by date. It would cut the overall price by a massive amount of money which would bring the cost of the energy down from an estimated[*] 1,000% more than nuclear energy down to 1,000% more.
[*] estimates are to the nearest 1,000%.
That’s not hard, as nuclear not being build in this 20 year timeframe has a cost of 0.
And powerpoint presentations for SMRs to scam a few people can’t cost that much either.
Well, they just started building one in Wyoming.
https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/TerraPower-breaks-ground-for-Natrium-plant
OK – it’s a few guys (and one gal) who don’t know how to hold a shovel playing in a sandpit, but presumably the guy laughing his head off in the Deere digger got paid!
We’ll see won’t we?
Definitely, and my bet is you won’t like it.
Every other prediction you’ve made has been wrong.
The “Natrium” (i.e., sodium metal) cooled reactor uses liquid sodium for cooling the reactor and for keeping hot a secondary heat storage system. In prior sodium cooled reactor experiments, the available materials of construction have proven to be questionable for long term performance. For example, the Russian BN-600 sodium cooled reactor experienced about 2 sodium leaks per year with half leading to sodium fires. Have the Natrium people solved these problems? Perhaps it’s best to wait and see before building any more.
You have a one track mind, and it’s de-railed.
How many turbines do you think will reach their use by date? My bet is zero. They will likely fail by year 15 if not sooner.
Even fixed offshore doesn’t last 20 years. Floaters should wear out much quicker. By the time the entire field of floaters is finished, it will be time to start replacing the first ones installed.
Heck, by the time the last floater is installed, at least 10% of the previously installed ones will have been replaced.
That 7 year old Scottish floating wind boondoggle, that’s now being towed to shore for “maintenance”, my bet is none of them go back out (if any ever do) with the same turbine. 100% replacement.
Story Tip,
Finally, Peter Dutton stands up for nuclear power generation. !
Dutton ‘happy’ to fight election on nuclear (msn.com)
ps, I’d actually prefer a push for more coal…
.. but so long as they stop all this costly, erratic “unreliables” garbage , I’m ok with that.
The ongoing destruction of capital by simply throwing it into the sea in search of Net Zero knows no limit….clearly.
Making wind energy affordable to build and operate, plus maintenance of the system that only provides weather dependent intermittent variable power supply, is not easy.
We know it is not easy because governments that have mandated its construction have to provide contractors with ongoing financial support to prevent them declaring bankruptcy.
Did I mention there always has to be a back up power supply to even begin to make the intermittent mandated wind electricity generation functional?
Wind energy has a few problems. Chopping down forests, then building roads needed to construct and maintain the towers, is followed by clean up crews picking up dead (rare) birds that are a by product of wind energy technology. These are issues the Green energy supporters would rather not have. Having realised just how much land is consumed and destroyed when constructing and maintaining the industrialised wind generation facilities on what was previously open natural wild habitat, i.e. where nature exists. The authorities have decided to plant untested 15 MW turbine arrays in the oceans that are too deep to pile, a construction method which also kills whales in the process. Instead they have opted for an array of floaters. They could have chosen a more descriptive name maybe tethered or perhaps anchored to reflect the nautical location. They went with floaters…..
The name chosen for the project’s defining feature seems very appropriate.
No mention of the effect on our lobster and fishing industries, both will be hurt by these turbines. And then we have the Right whale and the endless regulations we habe to deal with that offshore wind does not. The disruption to the surface currents is very troublesome since baby lobsters float on these currents. They even changed the environmental laws to build this port, simply crazy.
With the floaters as numerous and as large as described, will there even be fishing?
I suspect exactly the opposite, if ever put to a vote. While it can more reasonably be put down to the madness of crowds rather than rational considerations, that is what we have these days.
Erm, don’t forget that CO2 doesn’t affect the weather.
The UK is similar. Labour, who will be in power two weeks from now, plan to have by 2030:
90 GW wind (including 5GW floating)
50 GW solar
This is to supply 45+ GW peak at present, rising a lot due to the move to EVs and heat pumps. There will be some wood burning plants and some nuclear, and some interconnect to Europe, but the basic plan is the above.
I asked perplexity.ai about their plans for storage, in the light of this. This is what it said (my emphasis):
Those whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad.
50GW solar? Really. I’m actually a fan of solar. In appropriate places. But at 50-60N latitude in a notoriously wet climate? The maximum sun angle in southern England on Dec 21st will be around 17 degrees and the day will be maybe 8 hours long. Further North it only gets worse. Seems to me like most of the solar power in England will be generated exactly when it is least needed — on nice late Spring and early Summer days.
There’s actually a small amount of logic to support solar, in that wind tends to be seasonal in the UK, with peak generation from early October to late March, and lower average generation from early April to late September.
So in theory, with a combination of wind and solar we could reduce our storage requirements from unimaginably large to still unimaginably large, however it remains an open question if, from a CO2 standpoint, we’d simply be better off burning the coal used to build them ourselves.
But to plan for this without considering the amount of storage needed to make it work?
I agree, at the most fundamental level, they have literally no idea what they are talking about.
I went to a hustings in Sarf Lunnon tonight. They do not know what they are talking about, exactly as you say I.E.
And not interested in learning – as I’ve contacted the two [‘Con’ and Lab] leading candidates. Each manages to speak [why do I think of Norway, & ‘deceased, shuffled off this mortal coil, joined the Choir Invisibule’?] the party line.
Depressing.
Auto
Yes. They are planning to triple UK solar. 50 GW may be a bit high, the current installed base is 15.6 GW. You can tell from gridwatch what happens in the winter:
http://www.gridwatch.co.uk/solar
Almost vanishes, and what there is is sharply peaked.
In the middle of a desert, miles from the nearest grid, solar lets you use the diesel generator a bit less. Beyond that, they don’t make much sense anywhere.
The five turbine Scottish floating wind farm has been taken off line and all the turbines have been towed to Norway for “heavy maintenance”.
Oh, Gee.
That is after only a few years, during which there were various troubles.
No wonder, there are so few floaters in the world.
World Offshore Wind Capacity Placed on Operation in 2021
During 2021, worldwide offshore wind capacity placed in operation was 17,398 MW, of which China 13,790 MW, and the rest of the world 3,608 MW, of which UK 1,855 MW; Vietnam 643 MW; Denmark 604 MW; Netherlands 402 MW; Taiwan 109 MW
Of the 17,398 MW, just 57.1 MW was floating, about 1/3%
At end of 2021, 50,623 MW was in operation, of which just 123.4 MW was floating, about 1/4%
https://www.energy.gov/eere/wind/articles/offshore-wind-market-report-2022-edition
Towed to Norway, you say?
Is that part of the traditional ‘nothing to see here’ solution when things don’t work out as imagined.
Apparently there are no suitable harbours/facilities in Scotland.
Oh, no.
The Media are owned and controlled by the Norwegian government, so not a peep about any malfunctioning item will be written about, whereas in Scotland revelations could become an uncontrollable free-for-all.
Some years ago, my wife was on an IsldndicAir flight to Oslo.
When they were about 100 miles from an airport, the plane hit a hole, and dropped like a stone, with everything flying all over the place.
Luckily my wife’s seatbelt was on, but she saw all sorts of stuff and some people float to ceiling and then to the rear.
Not a word in the papers, except that the plane arrived late, something that could not be hidden.
The biggest unmentioned problem here is that the floating wind system will take more energy to produce and operate than it will ever generate in its functional lifetime. It is not an energy source.
And I bet that all the cranes, trucks, and other machinery needed to build the shipyard/port along with the barges needed to tow the platforms are all powered by batteries and those batteries are charged by the fixed wind turbines along with all the solar panels covering most of Maine, right?
About $500 million for a storage, staging, pre-assembly, maintenance facility, on a pristine island.
The Maine people will be soooo screwed, which they will realize after a few years, and deeper in debt
This is like a lottery for the wind people. Keep coming up with different untried ideas until they hit the jackpot when one is adopted and then the money rolls in. They don’t have to worry about mother nature because they can always blame any failure on Climate Change.
It sounds like a LOT of money will be allocated, many corrupt pockets will be filled, the project will drag out for many years in the development stage, and then it will be abandoned due to technical difficulties. Solyndra 2.0.