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It's cheap in the places that are windy. One big challenge (mentioned tangentially in the article) is in moving this cheap energy from the windy center of the

It's cheap in the places that are windy. One big challenge (mentioned tangentially in the article) is in moving this cheap energy from the windy center of the continent to the populated coasts. The coolest project to tackle this problem (in my opinion) is Tres Amigas, a superconducting interchange between the west coast grid and the (wind-heavy) Texas grid. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tres_Amigas_SuperStation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tres_Amigas_SuperStation

jessaustin 9y ago
Lots of coastline is plenty windy. Why isn't there more offshore wind generation in USA like there is in other nations? My impression is that rich people who own land on the coast have no taste and think that offshore wind generation is an eyesore.
- strictnein 9y ago
  > "My impression is that rich people who own land on the coast..." Yep. An example: http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/04/20/cape.cod.wind.farm/index.html http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/04/20/cape.cod.wind.farm/index....
- ccorda 9y ago
  At least with respect to the west coast: > Unlike the Atlantic Ocean, where offshore wind farms can be bolted into the seabed in relatively shallow water, the West Coast's continental shelf plunges quickly and steeply. http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-offshore-wind-20160703-snap-story.html http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-offshore-wind-20160703...
  - olau 9y ago
    There are efforts underway to develop floating foundations, but I believe it's still in the test phase with only a few turbines deployed.
    - nicktelford 9y ago
      The first major floating wind farm is being deployed off the coast of Scotland right now!
      - olau 9y ago
        Yeah, I remembered it as 4 turbines, but it looks like it's 5. So as I said, it's a test farm. But yes, it's real, production-size turbines, not small scale models. I should have clarified that, sorry. I don't think anyone is going to build a major farm until this one has been running for a couple of years. And they've figured out how to cut costs. Happy to be proven wrong, of course. :) Statoil isn't the only company working on floating foundations, by the way, although I think they are by far farthest along when it comes to actually putting a big one into production. For instance, the former CTO of Siemens Wind Power is working on a design. He's going for standard components and as cheap as possible. I wouldn't be surprised to see that in a test production in a couple of years.
      - iheartmemcache 9y ago
        edit: Full mea culpa. Parent is right. Keeping this post intact since it still contains green-relevant information and some historical information that may be of interest. Big ups to Scotland for pushing this forward. The Northerners[0] are doing some clever things too like running their own municipal fiber after having their pleas being ignored for ages. The Danes have been at it for almost the better part of a decade[1]. IIRC, their national transport is 100% green 24/7 and has been for a few years now. They've hit events where 100% of their entire country grid was wind-powered, and are so good at it China[2] brought in Danish consultants for assistance. Here's a real time chart of their energy infrastructure (including exports to Sweden/Norway/Germany)[3]. As a MA native, I remember people on the Cape would joke about the "bridge tax" (i.e., anything coming into the Cape is ~25% more). I know until recently[4] their internet connectivity was horrenduous. Energy there is fairly intermittent as well. Hopefully, they'll pick up a few Siemens units (you can pick up retired Siemens Vestas units on ebay for < 100k that are rated in the 10s of MW!) and deploy a unit or two[6], if only as a PR stunt to make themselves look 'progressive'. A win/win if they can increase employment and bring jobs to the locals in addition to that energy. -- [0] http://gizmodo.com/5984187/british-farmers-install-their-own-1gbps-fiber-network-in-the-middle-of-nowhere http://gizmodo.com/5984187/british-farmers-install-their-own... "B4RN" is awesome. It's great to see what a community can get done when they ((apologies in advance:) broad)band together. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_offshore_wind_farms_in_Denmark https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_offshore_wind_farms_in... [2] http://www.reuters.com/article/us-denmark-windpower-china/china-to-call-on-denmark-to-help-build-offshore-wind-farm-idUSKCN1BF1DX http://www.reuters.com/article/us-denmark-windpower-china/ch... [3] https://en.energinet.dk/#energysystem https://en.energinet.dk/#energysystem - Real time chart! Porn for green energy nerds like me. [4] Thier municipality started to offer gigabit through a peering with the Boston/North Shore providers to position their community as a "business friendly, gigabit ready" region in order to attract more businesses, rather than relying on the traditional tourist-town economy. They brought in some contractors to lay cable from Boston (or likely just North of Boston[5]) which is active now with tons of businesses using it, though I'm not entirely sure if the general populace has FttH. [5] IIRC Andover or Quincy or somewheres around there (http://nationwidecolocation.com/massachusetts_colocation.htm http://nationwidecolocation.com/massachusetts_colocation.htm) was one of the major peering points where a significant amount of NE traffic ran through. Traditionally it has great connectivity first due to all of the DARPA peering that occured around universities (MIT still has the 18.x.x.x class A perma-leased from ARIN). This continued through the late 90s/2000s with Verizon using those DC's as their major peer-points (which is incidentally why FiOS was rolled out so early in the Boston suburbs). [6] You'd have to deploy them strategically in a region that isn't going to interfere with the yuppies boating experience as they go to the Vineyaahhhd on the 4th. NE has the same NIMBY problem that SF has in that regard.
  - eloff 9y ago
    There's a floating wind farm being deployed off Scotland, so this could be possible in the future: http://www.bbc.com/news/business-40699979 http://www.bbc.com/news/business-40699979
    - dmix 9y ago
      Those "floating" wind turbines are still bolted to the seabed (so they don't float away) and are interconnected with wires. They showed how they work via infographics on their website that was on the HN frontpage recently. So the OP's comment about the sloping sea shelf is still relevant.
      - jerven 9y ago
        Not as much as before, because the cost of cable to hold down the turbine is the only thing that gets more expensive with deeper water (the part connecting the floater to the "bolt"). These cables are relatively cheap. The other option's jackets or monopiles (95% of the market) require almost a 500 kg of steel extra per meter (very rough guideline). This means that at depths more than 25meter the monopile/jacket is more expensive than the wind turbine on top. With the hywind style floaters, this is not the case.
  - throwaway613834 9y ago
    What's the reason for going offshore? Is the wind not as strong on land?
    - sandworm101 9y ago
      Fewer issues re land owners. Wind tends to be more steady at sea.
    - philipkglass 9y ago
      Offshore you can install bigger turbines, because sea transportation of turbine components is not size-limited like rail/road transport. Taller turbines help to reach wind resources that are stronger and steadier. Also, even at the same height, offshore wind resources are often better than they are a few km inland. Finally, offshore wind can supply power to densely populated coastal areas when there isn't room to build turbines on land. The disadvantages are higher construction and maintenance costs; waves and salt water are much more challenging to materials than the ordinary conditions onshore turbine towers experience.
      - throwaway613834 9y ago
        Great, thank you!
      - edejong 9y ago
        Perfect answer. Another reason, which kind of joins with the density of the population is the significant noise pollution of larger wind farms.
    - greglindahl 9y ago
      Most cities are on the coast, so offshore offers generation near where it's needed. Doing offshore does not mean ignoring on-shore. In some cases offshore winds are strong enough that on-shore turbines are less cost effective. That's true for some of the east coast of the US.
    - Tomte 9y ago
      No people complaining about noise, moving shadows and bad aesthetics there.
- jxramos 9y ago
  There was an interesting City Journal article about fishermen getting in the mix that caught me by surprise in an interested party that never occurred to me before. City Journal has good historical background and context that they gather up on subjects too... "The mounting opposition to the development of offshore wind in Long Island’s waters is the latest example of the growing conflict between renewable-energy promoters and rural residents. Cuomo and climate-change activists love the idea of wind energy, but they’re not the ones having 500-, 600-, or even 700-foot-high wind turbines built in their neighborhoods or on top of their prime fishing spots. The backlash against Big Wind is evident in the numbers: since 2015, about 160 government entities, from Maine to California, have rejected or restricted wind projects. One recent example: on May 2, voters in three Michigan counties went to the polls to vote on wind-related ballot initiatives. Big Wind lost on every initiative." https://www.city-journal.org/html/bonackers-vs-big-wind-15333.html https://www.city-journal.org/html/bonackers-vs-big-wind-1533...
  - notatoad 9y ago
    "'Not even Superman standing on Montauk Point could see these wind farms,' he said. Maybe not; and maybe wealthy beachfront homeowners won’t be able to see the proposed turbines, but lots of fishermen will. And that has them spoiling for a fight." seriously? Why on earth does it matter if fishermen see wind farms? when did we invent the rule that all energy generation needs to be invisible?
    - yuliyp 9y ago
      The point is that they fear that fish will be scared away from the area by the presence of the turbines.
      - notatoad 9y ago
        Is there any evidence to suggest that's the case though? A quick google suggests the opposite to be true. [1] This reminds me of the middle-america folks who were claiming the wind turbines near their houses caused all kinds of disease, including somebody who claimed the wind turbines were causing people to contract aids. Not sure if it's just an unfounded fear of new things, or if it's a concerted effort by the fossil fuel lobby, but people really like to hate wind power. [1] http://www.aqua.dtu.dk/english/News/2012/04/120410_Fish-thriving-around-wind-farms http://www.aqua.dtu.dk/english/News/2012/04/120410_Fish-thri...
- samcheng 9y ago
  Offshore wind is considerably more expensive to build, maintain, and interconnect. This article suggests that offshore wind is 3X as expensive as onshore wind: http://www.windpowermonthly.com/article/1380738/global-costs-analysis-year-offshore-wind-costs-fell http://www.windpowermonthly.com/article/1380738/global-costs... That puts offshore wind as more expensive than gas turbines, for example. And that's assuming an offshore wind project could get past NIMBY opposition. There's a lot more land in the Midwest than there is coastline.
  - olau 9y ago
    Without floating foundations, offshore depends a lot on the specifics of the oceanbed. But DONG Energy, which I think is the world biggest developer of offshore wind, recently gave a bid on a subsidy of zero for a farm near Germany. Final investment decision is still in a couple of years so they may pull out of the bid if things don't develop as expected, but not without paying a big fee. So offshore is expected to get cheaper. There's a comparison with nuclear down in the thread. I think one important thing to keep in mind here is that these cost reductions coming from industrialization and improved economies of scale are REAL. They happen year over year, has happened for decades, and they will surely lower the price even further in the future. Just like solar. And battery tech for that matter. It's incremental improvements.
    - dogruck 9y ago
      You said dong energy.
      - sctb 9y ago
        Please don't post unsubstantively here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - Theodores 9y ago
    But what happens if you have a place like the North Sea surrounded by facilities for deploying oil rigs and associated infrastructure, for the oil to run out? There is considerable sunk cost in the infrastructure and with some subsidies to keep yards busy (as such things are needed for national security reasons) it all becomes a lot easier.
- nnfy 9y ago
  Yeah, that'll convince them to our side! Let's insult of their taste! Never mind that taste is subjective, and you cannot deny that modern wind turbines don't exactly blend with the natural horizon, be it sky, mountain, or forest...
  - freehunter 9y ago
    Well to be fair, skyscrapers don't blend with the horizon. Cell towers don't blend with the horizon. Cooling towers and smokestacks don't blend with the horizon. The nice thing with coal and nuclear power is that rich people can push it's production to poorer areas and forget that there are major externalities to allow them to flip a light switch. Rejecting wind power because it [insert reason here] is just saying "make the poor people deal with it". It is quite literally one of the most selfish decisions anyone can make, to force the world to stay on coal power because wind turbines "don't blend with the horizon".
    - nnfy 9y ago
      No. Don't make this a class warfare thing. The nice thing about nuclear/coal power plants is that you dont have to pepper the horizon with them. There is substantially less visual impact, and with nuclear, far less spatial footprint. And plenty of people, rich and poor, oppose skyscraper construction because of view loss. What is with this inane contemporary idea that we should not be able to use wealth to improve our quality of life? This is the ultimate form of empty virtue signaling. Why haven't you built a turbine on your property yet? I'd venture to guess that you're a well off developer, making you top 1% of the global population... But it's ok, so long as you have your own 1% to sneer at, right? It's their fault that we dont have turbines! Classism can be used for the same kind of scapegoating that racism and sexism are.
      - freehunter 9y ago
        Because here's the argument: I need power. Right now I get that power from coal plants. That's bad, right? I think that's bad. Let's not do that. Oh, you mean to get wind power you need to put the windmill somewhere windy? But my house is windy! Nah, let's keep the coal, at least I can't see it from my house. The inane contemporary argument is that you can use wealth to improve your quality of life. Like not burning coal to make electricity. Arguing that you'd rather stay on coal power than see a windmill isn't trying to improve your quality of life, it's actively destroying someone else's quality of life. But the lungs of a poor person are worth less than the view of a rich person, so that's what happens. At least coal doesn't "pepper the landscape?" Jesus christ, man. No one is asking you to put a turbine in your backyard, you're just throwing a fit about the hypothetical potential to maybe possibly one day cast a glance at one, and rejecting the idea on that basis. Did you know meat comes from dead animals too? Yeah, really pretty view from inside a bubble. Real nice horizon.
- KVFinn 9y ago
  >Lots of coastline is plenty windy. Why isn't there more offshore wind generation in USA like there is in other nations? My impression is that rich people who own land on the coast have no taste and think that offshore wind generation is an eyesore. Offshore has promise but it's significantly higher in cost and there isn't a lot of long term data on how well they hold up yet.
  - will_hughes 9y ago
    > there isn't a lot of long term data on how well they hold up yet. Whats your definition of long term? 26 years[1] is definitely getting there for me. A part of the reason for that first farm being decomissioned is because new generation turbines are capable of generating more energy than the entire farm[2]. So maintenance costs per kWh are higher than the new gear. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vindeby_Offshore_Wind_Farm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vindeby_Offshore_Wind_Farm [2] http://www.4coffshore.com/windfarms/dong-to-dismantle-vindeby-nid3279.html http://www.4coffshore.com/windfarms/dong-to-dismantle-vindeb...
- TomK32 9y ago
  Now you are talking Florida home owners vs boat live-aboards.
- prbuckley 9y ago
  Does anyone know what the status of using kite powered systems for off shore power generation is? I know makani has been working on that for over a decade now, it always seemed like a really promising approach to me but I haven't heard of any commercial applications of it. Here is a link to makani... https://x.company/makani/about/ https://x.company/makani/about/
  - flogic 9y ago
    Kite power is one of my pet hopes. I keep hoping it will gain some significant traction. Looks like there may be a a test power installation going up in Scotland https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/kite-power-station-scotland-wind-turbine-plant-electricity-a7348576.html https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/kite-power-station...
    - kbart 9y ago
      What happens to these kite power stations when there's no wind to keep them flying?
      - isostatic 9y ago
        When the jet stream dies we have bigger problems than a small drop in electrical production.
        eosophos 9y ago
        like what else?
      - ZeroGravitas 9y ago
        The Makani ones that Google were funding are basically wing shaped drone planes on a tether, usually the rotors on the front of the wing turn in the wind to generate power but they use their rotors running backwards under power provided by the tether to land vertically back at the base when there's no wind.
- specialist 9y ago
  I was shocked how windy Cleveland is. I'm told Chicago is more so. Windy city indeed. If its pratical to put wind farms in the North Sea off the coast of Scotland, I'm guessing using the Great Lakes would be too.
- cr1895 9y ago
  Some reasons: - (lack of) political will - abundance of cheap natural gas - lack of US expertise (compared to Europe, where offshore wind has existed for decades) - hurricanes
jabl 9y ago
cool ... superconducting ... yeah, har har, I get it. Seriously though, is that really cost competitive compared with HVDC transmission which has losses of around 3%/1000 km?
adrusi 9y ago
Of course, if we just wait long enough, the coasts will move inland, making then problem conveniently easier.
- freehunter 9y ago
  Yeah and after they build wind turbines inland and the coasts recede, the land owners will now start complaining that these now-offshore turbines are ruining their waterfront view of the sunken remains of Miami.
Retric 9y ago
The US is only 2000 miles wide so from the center that's just ~1000 miles which is fine even with normal power lines. You can do high voltage DC power transmission over 4 times that distance.
- AstralStorm 9y ago
  At non-negligible losses. (Expected about 10% for the whole system.) Not to mention maintenance of such long cable will be real hard, so redundancy is needed. (For comparison, check costs on much easier and cheaper transatlantic fibre cables.) And of course a facility placed further of the shore is harder to maintain as well.
  - svens_ 9y ago
    Not sure what you're getting at, apart from the loss the same disadvantages also apply if the cable is superconducting. Even worse, maintenance and running costs of superconducting cables are likely much higher due to the cooling (high temperature superconductors are "high temperature" in comparison to other superconductors - there's still lots of cooling needed).
  - epistasis 9y ago
    10% is practically negligible when the power is coming from cheap wind power on the plains. The 1200 mile Xiangjiaba–Shanghai HVDC line in China has transmission losses "well under 7%" [1]. This line was also completed almost three years ahead of schedule, which is an excellent contrast to Western nuclear plants that are being constructed in China. But then, nobody knows how to complete the AP1000 or EPR on time or on budget, as far as I can tell. Lots of HVDC lines are going to be essential for cheap power in the US in the future, I just hope the political will materializes for that. [1] http://3phasepower.blogspot.com/2010/08/xiangjiaba-shanghai-800kv-uhvdc.html?m=1 http://3phasepower.blogspot.com/2010/08/xiangjiaba-shanghai-... Edit: corrected the nuclear comparison.
    - mercurial 9y ago
      > EPR on time or on budget Sure, on one hand, this kind of project is likely to get into cost overruns. On the other hand, Areva looks like a fairly dysfunctional company following the tenure of Anne Lauvergeon, so it's not only a technical problem.
gordon_freeman 9y ago
Not sure if it's relevant question here but here I go: I was driving from LA towards Joshua Tree National Park and I saw so many wind turbines which were not operating even though there was plenty of wind blowing and the adjacent wind turbines were running. Is there any reason they were not operating? Can't be maintenance problem as I saw so many not running.
- danieka 9y ago
  If the wind force is too much for the turbine/blades to handle I think that the blades are locked in place. Don't know if that's what you saw though.
- 168 9y ago
  Perhaps turning off some turbines can provide a marginal increase in efficiency for the entire turbine farm?
- z2 9y ago
  It could be curtailment due to overcapacity or lack of transmission infrastructure to get the electricity to consumers [1]. I'm not quite sure why a more expensive source wouldn't be shut down instead, but maybe the unpredictability of wind power makes them the first to fall when demand is low? 1: https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/why-arent-those-wind-turbines-turning https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/why-arent-those...
  - Caveman_Coder 9y ago
    The key thing is reliability and most Balancing Authorities will have procedures dictating which generation comes offline.
- SpikedCola 9y ago
  I believe this is because wind turbines are brought online and taken offline according to demand. Nukes/gas stations can't have capacity adjusted very quickly, and take hours to get up to full production. Wind can be started/stopped quickly as demand rises and falls throughout the day "Demand response may also be used to increase demand during periods of high supply and/or low demand. Some types of generating plant must be run at close to full capacity (such as nuclear), while other types may produce at negligible marginal cost (such as wind and solar)."[0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demand_response https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demand_response
KVFinn 9y ago
It's cheap in the places that are windy. One big challenge (mentioned tangentially in the article) is in moving this cheap energy from the windy center of the continent to the populated coasts. I wish this was higher priority, because the same X is already very cheap where it is Y is true of so many renewable sources like solar as well. And a wide power grid with long distance markets produces more consistent power since it averages different weather in different places and different power sources all together.
- dsfyu404ed 9y ago
  To make something that is cheap in X but not on Y cheap in both you must first overcome the entrenched special interests who make money from that thing being expensive in Y.
  - KVFinn 9y ago
    >To make something that is cheap in X but not on Y cheap in both you must first overcome the entrenched special interests who make money from that thing being expensive in Y. Yes, it's a huge problem. States fight against buying cheaper power out of a state because they'd rather pay higher prices but keep the jobs and tax revenue in their own state. And on the other end, places that ended up with unusually cheap power (because the local market changes for example) sometimes oppose building out power lines that would enable the power to be sold nearby because it would end up increase local prices. So many screwy incentives! Really need a power grid initiative.
    - dsfyu404ed 9y ago
      >Yes, it's a huge problem. States fight against buying cheaper power out of a state because they'd rather pay higher prices but keep the jobs and tax revenue in their own state. Every day I drive past a bridge being constructed. It's a bunch of 50-100ft steel arch sections that go between concrete islands in a shallow river. They would have been done last year if they had just ordered up a replacement and had it brought in on a barge then put it in place. Instead they'd rather spend the money on what's essentially a welfare/jobs program. I wish they'd at least acknowledge that angle rather than playing dumb and looking like they got ripped off.

jessaustin 9y ago

Lots of coastline is plenty windy. Why isn't there more offshore wind generation in USA like there is in other nations? My impression is that rich people who own land on the coast have no taste and think that offshore wind generation is an eyesore.

strictnein 9y ago
> "My impression is that rich people who own land on the coast..." Yep. An example: http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/04/20/cape.cod.wind.farm/index.html http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/04/20/cape.cod.wind.farm/index....
ccorda 9y ago
At least with respect to the west coast: > Unlike the Atlantic Ocean, where offshore wind farms can be bolted into the seabed in relatively shallow water, the West Coast's continental shelf plunges quickly and steeply. http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-offshore-wind-20160703-snap-story.html http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-offshore-wind-20160703...
- olau 9y ago
  There are efforts underway to develop floating foundations, but I believe it's still in the test phase with only a few turbines deployed.
  - nicktelford 9y ago
    The first major floating wind farm is being deployed off the coast of Scotland right now!
    - olau 9y ago
      Yeah, I remembered it as 4 turbines, but it looks like it's 5. So as I said, it's a test farm. But yes, it's real, production-size turbines, not small scale models. I should have clarified that, sorry. I don't think anyone is going to build a major farm until this one has been running for a couple of years. And they've figured out how to cut costs. Happy to be proven wrong, of course. :) Statoil isn't the only company working on floating foundations, by the way, although I think they are by far farthest along when it comes to actually putting a big one into production. For instance, the former CTO of Siemens Wind Power is working on a design. He's going for standard components and as cheap as possible. I wouldn't be surprised to see that in a test production in a couple of years.
    - iheartmemcache 9y ago
      edit: Full mea culpa. Parent is right. Keeping this post intact since it still contains green-relevant information and some historical information that may be of interest. Big ups to Scotland for pushing this forward. The Northerners[0] are doing some clever things too like running their own municipal fiber after having their pleas being ignored for ages. The Danes have been at it for almost the better part of a decade[1]. IIRC, their national transport is 100% green 24/7 and has been for a few years now. They've hit events where 100% of their entire country grid was wind-powered, and are so good at it China[2] brought in Danish consultants for assistance. Here's a real time chart of their energy infrastructure (including exports to Sweden/Norway/Germany)[3]. As a MA native, I remember people on the Cape would joke about the "bridge tax" (i.e., anything coming into the Cape is ~25% more). I know until recently[4] their internet connectivity was horrenduous. Energy there is fairly intermittent as well. Hopefully, they'll pick up a few Siemens units (you can pick up retired Siemens Vestas units on ebay for < 100k that are rated in the 10s of MW!) and deploy a unit or two[6], if only as a PR stunt to make themselves look 'progressive'. A win/win if they can increase employment and bring jobs to the locals in addition to that energy. -- [0] http://gizmodo.com/5984187/british-farmers-install-their-own-1gbps-fiber-network-in-the-middle-of-nowhere http://gizmodo.com/5984187/british-farmers-install-their-own... "B4RN" is awesome. It's great to see what a community can get done when they ((apologies in advance:) broad)band together. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_offshore_wind_farms_in_Denmark https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_offshore_wind_farms_in... [2] http://www.reuters.com/article/us-denmark-windpower-china/china-to-call-on-denmark-to-help-build-offshore-wind-farm-idUSKCN1BF1DX http://www.reuters.com/article/us-denmark-windpower-china/ch... [3] https://en.energinet.dk/#energysystem https://en.energinet.dk/#energysystem - Real time chart! Porn for green energy nerds like me. [4] Thier municipality started to offer gigabit through a peering with the Boston/North Shore providers to position their community as a "business friendly, gigabit ready" region in order to attract more businesses, rather than relying on the traditional tourist-town economy. They brought in some contractors to lay cable from Boston (or likely just North of Boston[5]) which is active now with tons of businesses using it, though I'm not entirely sure if the general populace has FttH. [5] IIRC Andover or Quincy or somewheres around there (http://nationwidecolocation.com/massachusetts_colocation.htm http://nationwidecolocation.com/massachusetts_colocation.htm) was one of the major peering points where a significant amount of NE traffic ran through. Traditionally it has great connectivity first due to all of the DARPA peering that occured around universities (MIT still has the 18.x.x.x class A perma-leased from ARIN). This continued through the late 90s/2000s with Verizon using those DC's as their major peer-points (which is incidentally why FiOS was rolled out so early in the Boston suburbs). [6] You'd have to deploy them strategically in a region that isn't going to interfere with the yuppies boating experience as they go to the Vineyaahhhd on the 4th. NE has the same NIMBY problem that SF has in that regard.
- eloff 9y ago
  There's a floating wind farm being deployed off Scotland, so this could be possible in the future: http://www.bbc.com/news/business-40699979 http://www.bbc.com/news/business-40699979
  - dmix 9y ago
    Those "floating" wind turbines are still bolted to the seabed (so they don't float away) and are interconnected with wires. They showed how they work via infographics on their website that was on the HN frontpage recently. So the OP's comment about the sloping sea shelf is still relevant.
    - jerven 9y ago
      Not as much as before, because the cost of cable to hold down the turbine is the only thing that gets more expensive with deeper water (the part connecting the floater to the "bolt"). These cables are relatively cheap. The other option's jackets or monopiles (95% of the market) require almost a 500 kg of steel extra per meter (very rough guideline). This means that at depths more than 25meter the monopile/jacket is more expensive than the wind turbine on top. With the hywind style floaters, this is not the case.
- throwaway613834 9y ago
  What's the reason for going offshore? Is the wind not as strong on land?
  - sandworm101 9y ago
    Fewer issues re land owners. Wind tends to be more steady at sea.
  - philipkglass 9y ago
    Offshore you can install bigger turbines, because sea transportation of turbine components is not size-limited like rail/road transport. Taller turbines help to reach wind resources that are stronger and steadier. Also, even at the same height, offshore wind resources are often better than they are a few km inland. Finally, offshore wind can supply power to densely populated coastal areas when there isn't room to build turbines on land. The disadvantages are higher construction and maintenance costs; waves and salt water are much more challenging to materials than the ordinary conditions onshore turbine towers experience.
    - throwaway613834 9y ago
      Great, thank you!
    - edejong 9y ago
      Perfect answer. Another reason, which kind of joins with the density of the population is the significant noise pollution of larger wind farms.
  - greglindahl 9y ago
    Most cities are on the coast, so offshore offers generation near where it's needed. Doing offshore does not mean ignoring on-shore. In some cases offshore winds are strong enough that on-shore turbines are less cost effective. That's true for some of the east coast of the US.
  - Tomte 9y ago
    No people complaining about noise, moving shadows and bad aesthetics there.
jxramos 9y ago
There was an interesting City Journal article about fishermen getting in the mix that caught me by surprise in an interested party that never occurred to me before. City Journal has good historical background and context that they gather up on subjects too... "The mounting opposition to the development of offshore wind in Long Island’s waters is the latest example of the growing conflict between renewable-energy promoters and rural residents. Cuomo and climate-change activists love the idea of wind energy, but they’re not the ones having 500-, 600-, or even 700-foot-high wind turbines built in their neighborhoods or on top of their prime fishing spots. The backlash against Big Wind is evident in the numbers: since 2015, about 160 government entities, from Maine to California, have rejected or restricted wind projects. One recent example: on May 2, voters in three Michigan counties went to the polls to vote on wind-related ballot initiatives. Big Wind lost on every initiative." https://www.city-journal.org/html/bonackers-vs-big-wind-15333.html https://www.city-journal.org/html/bonackers-vs-big-wind-1533...
- notatoad 9y ago
  "'Not even Superman standing on Montauk Point could see these wind farms,' he said. Maybe not; and maybe wealthy beachfront homeowners won’t be able to see the proposed turbines, but lots of fishermen will. And that has them spoiling for a fight." seriously? Why on earth does it matter if fishermen see wind farms? when did we invent the rule that all energy generation needs to be invisible?
  - yuliyp 9y ago
    The point is that they fear that fish will be scared away from the area by the presence of the turbines.
    - notatoad 9y ago
      Is there any evidence to suggest that's the case though? A quick google suggests the opposite to be true. [1] This reminds me of the middle-america folks who were claiming the wind turbines near their houses caused all kinds of disease, including somebody who claimed the wind turbines were causing people to contract aids. Not sure if it's just an unfounded fear of new things, or if it's a concerted effort by the fossil fuel lobby, but people really like to hate wind power. [1] http://www.aqua.dtu.dk/english/News/2012/04/120410_Fish-thriving-around-wind-farms http://www.aqua.dtu.dk/english/News/2012/04/120410_Fish-thri...
samcheng 9y ago
Offshore wind is considerably more expensive to build, maintain, and interconnect. This article suggests that offshore wind is 3X as expensive as onshore wind: http://www.windpowermonthly.com/article/1380738/global-costs-analysis-year-offshore-wind-costs-fell http://www.windpowermonthly.com/article/1380738/global-costs... That puts offshore wind as more expensive than gas turbines, for example. And that's assuming an offshore wind project could get past NIMBY opposition. There's a lot more land in the Midwest than there is coastline.
- olau 9y ago
  Without floating foundations, offshore depends a lot on the specifics of the oceanbed. But DONG Energy, which I think is the world biggest developer of offshore wind, recently gave a bid on a subsidy of zero for a farm near Germany. Final investment decision is still in a couple of years so they may pull out of the bid if things don't develop as expected, but not without paying a big fee. So offshore is expected to get cheaper. There's a comparison with nuclear down in the thread. I think one important thing to keep in mind here is that these cost reductions coming from industrialization and improved economies of scale are REAL. They happen year over year, has happened for decades, and they will surely lower the price even further in the future. Just like solar. And battery tech for that matter. It's incremental improvements.
  - dogruck 9y ago
    You said dong energy.
    - sctb 9y ago
      Please don't post unsubstantively here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- Theodores 9y ago
  But what happens if you have a place like the North Sea surrounded by facilities for deploying oil rigs and associated infrastructure, for the oil to run out? There is considerable sunk cost in the infrastructure and with some subsidies to keep yards busy (as such things are needed for national security reasons) it all becomes a lot easier.
nnfy 9y ago
Yeah, that'll convince them to our side! Let's insult of their taste! Never mind that taste is subjective, and you cannot deny that modern wind turbines don't exactly blend with the natural horizon, be it sky, mountain, or forest...
- freehunter 9y ago
  Well to be fair, skyscrapers don't blend with the horizon. Cell towers don't blend with the horizon. Cooling towers and smokestacks don't blend with the horizon. The nice thing with coal and nuclear power is that rich people can push it's production to poorer areas and forget that there are major externalities to allow them to flip a light switch. Rejecting wind power because it [insert reason here] is just saying "make the poor people deal with it". It is quite literally one of the most selfish decisions anyone can make, to force the world to stay on coal power because wind turbines "don't blend with the horizon".
  - nnfy 9y ago
    No. Don't make this a class warfare thing. The nice thing about nuclear/coal power plants is that you dont have to pepper the horizon with them. There is substantially less visual impact, and with nuclear, far less spatial footprint. And plenty of people, rich and poor, oppose skyscraper construction because of view loss. What is with this inane contemporary idea that we should not be able to use wealth to improve our quality of life? This is the ultimate form of empty virtue signaling. Why haven't you built a turbine on your property yet? I'd venture to guess that you're a well off developer, making you top 1% of the global population... But it's ok, so long as you have your own 1% to sneer at, right? It's their fault that we dont have turbines! Classism can be used for the same kind of scapegoating that racism and sexism are.
    - freehunter 9y ago
      Because here's the argument: I need power. Right now I get that power from coal plants. That's bad, right? I think that's bad. Let's not do that. Oh, you mean to get wind power you need to put the windmill somewhere windy? But my house is windy! Nah, let's keep the coal, at least I can't see it from my house. The inane contemporary argument is that you can use wealth to improve your quality of life. Like not burning coal to make electricity. Arguing that you'd rather stay on coal power than see a windmill isn't trying to improve your quality of life, it's actively destroying someone else's quality of life. But the lungs of a poor person are worth less than the view of a rich person, so that's what happens. At least coal doesn't "pepper the landscape?" Jesus christ, man. No one is asking you to put a turbine in your backyard, you're just throwing a fit about the hypothetical potential to maybe possibly one day cast a glance at one, and rejecting the idea on that basis. Did you know meat comes from dead animals too? Yeah, really pretty view from inside a bubble. Real nice horizon.
KVFinn 9y ago
>Lots of coastline is plenty windy. Why isn't there more offshore wind generation in USA like there is in other nations? My impression is that rich people who own land on the coast have no taste and think that offshore wind generation is an eyesore. Offshore has promise but it's significantly higher in cost and there isn't a lot of long term data on how well they hold up yet.
- will_hughes 9y ago
  > there isn't a lot of long term data on how well they hold up yet. Whats your definition of long term? 26 years[1] is definitely getting there for me. A part of the reason for that first farm being decomissioned is because new generation turbines are capable of generating more energy than the entire farm[2]. So maintenance costs per kWh are higher than the new gear. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vindeby_Offshore_Wind_Farm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vindeby_Offshore_Wind_Farm [2] http://www.4coffshore.com/windfarms/dong-to-dismantle-vindeby-nid3279.html http://www.4coffshore.com/windfarms/dong-to-dismantle-vindeb...
TomK32 9y ago
Now you are talking Florida home owners vs boat live-aboards.
prbuckley 9y ago
Does anyone know what the status of using kite powered systems for off shore power generation is? I know makani has been working on that for over a decade now, it always seemed like a really promising approach to me but I haven't heard of any commercial applications of it. Here is a link to makani... https://x.company/makani/about/ https://x.company/makani/about/
- flogic 9y ago
  Kite power is one of my pet hopes. I keep hoping it will gain some significant traction. Looks like there may be a a test power installation going up in Scotland https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/kite-power-station-scotland-wind-turbine-plant-electricity-a7348576.html https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/kite-power-station...
  - kbart 9y ago
    What happens to these kite power stations when there's no wind to keep them flying?
    - isostatic 9y ago
      When the jet stream dies we have bigger problems than a small drop in electrical production.
      - eosophos 9y ago
        like what else?
    - ZeroGravitas 9y ago
      The Makani ones that Google were funding are basically wing shaped drone planes on a tether, usually the rotors on the front of the wing turn in the wind to generate power but they use their rotors running backwards under power provided by the tether to land vertically back at the base when there's no wind.
specialist 9y ago
I was shocked how windy Cleveland is. I'm told Chicago is more so. Windy city indeed. If its pratical to put wind farms in the North Sea off the coast of Scotland, I'm guessing using the Great Lakes would be too.
cr1895 9y ago
Some reasons: - (lack of) political will - abundance of cheap natural gas - lack of US expertise (compared to Europe, where offshore wind has existed for decades) - hurricanes

jabl 9y ago

cool ... superconducting ... yeah, har har, I get it. Seriously though, is that really cost competitive compared with HVDC transmission which has losses of around 3%/1000 km?

adrusi 9y ago

Of course, if we just wait long enough, the coasts will move inland, making then problem conveniently easier.

freehunter 9y ago
Yeah and after they build wind turbines inland and the coasts recede, the land owners will now start complaining that these now-offshore turbines are ruining their waterfront view of the sunken remains of Miami.

Retric 9y ago

The US is only 2000 miles wide so from the center that's just ~1000 miles which is fine even with normal power lines. You can do high voltage DC power transmission over 4 times that distance.

AstralStorm 9y ago
At non-negligible losses. (Expected about 10% for the whole system.) Not to mention maintenance of such long cable will be real hard, so redundancy is needed. (For comparison, check costs on much easier and cheaper transatlantic fibre cables.) And of course a facility placed further of the shore is harder to maintain as well.
- svens_ 9y ago
  Not sure what you're getting at, apart from the loss the same disadvantages also apply if the cable is superconducting. Even worse, maintenance and running costs of superconducting cables are likely much higher due to the cooling (high temperature superconductors are "high temperature" in comparison to other superconductors - there's still lots of cooling needed).
- epistasis 9y ago
  10% is practically negligible when the power is coming from cheap wind power on the plains. The 1200 mile Xiangjiaba–Shanghai HVDC line in China has transmission losses "well under 7%" [1]. This line was also completed almost three years ahead of schedule, which is an excellent contrast to Western nuclear plants that are being constructed in China. But then, nobody knows how to complete the AP1000 or EPR on time or on budget, as far as I can tell. Lots of HVDC lines are going to be essential for cheap power in the US in the future, I just hope the political will materializes for that. [1] http://3phasepower.blogspot.com/2010/08/xiangjiaba-shanghai-800kv-uhvdc.html?m=1 http://3phasepower.blogspot.com/2010/08/xiangjiaba-shanghai-... Edit: corrected the nuclear comparison.
  - mercurial 9y ago
    > EPR on time or on budget Sure, on one hand, this kind of project is likely to get into cost overruns. On the other hand, Areva looks like a fairly dysfunctional company following the tenure of Anne Lauvergeon, so it's not only a technical problem.

gordon_freeman 9y ago

Not sure if it's relevant question here but here I go: I was driving from LA towards Joshua Tree National Park and I saw so many wind turbines which were not operating even though there was plenty of wind blowing and the adjacent wind turbines were running. Is there any reason they were not operating? Can't be maintenance problem as I saw so many not running.

danieka 9y ago
If the wind force is too much for the turbine/blades to handle I think that the blades are locked in place. Don't know if that's what you saw though.
168 9y ago
Perhaps turning off some turbines can provide a marginal increase in efficiency for the entire turbine farm?
z2 9y ago
It could be curtailment due to overcapacity or lack of transmission infrastructure to get the electricity to consumers [1]. I'm not quite sure why a more expensive source wouldn't be shut down instead, but maybe the unpredictability of wind power makes them the first to fall when demand is low? 1: https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/why-arent-those-wind-turbines-turning https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/why-arent-those...
- Caveman_Coder 9y ago
  The key thing is reliability and most Balancing Authorities will have procedures dictating which generation comes offline.
SpikedCola 9y ago
I believe this is because wind turbines are brought online and taken offline according to demand. Nukes/gas stations can't have capacity adjusted very quickly, and take hours to get up to full production. Wind can be started/stopped quickly as demand rises and falls throughout the day "Demand response may also be used to increase demand during periods of high supply and/or low demand. Some types of generating plant must be run at close to full capacity (such as nuclear), while other types may produce at negligible marginal cost (such as wind and solar)."[0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demand_response https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demand_response

KVFinn 9y ago

It's cheap in the places that are windy. One big challenge (mentioned tangentially in the article) is in moving this cheap energy from the windy center of the continent to the populated coasts. I wish this was higher priority, because the same X is already very cheap where it is Y is true of so many renewable sources like solar as well. And a wide power grid with long distance markets produces more consistent power since it averages different weather in different places and different power sources all together.

dsfyu404ed 9y ago
To make something that is cheap in X but not on Y cheap in both you must first overcome the entrenched special interests who make money from that thing being expensive in Y.
- KVFinn 9y ago
  >To make something that is cheap in X but not on Y cheap in both you must first overcome the entrenched special interests who make money from that thing being expensive in Y. Yes, it's a huge problem. States fight against buying cheaper power out of a state because they'd rather pay higher prices but keep the jobs and tax revenue in their own state. And on the other end, places that ended up with unusually cheap power (because the local market changes for example) sometimes oppose building out power lines that would enable the power to be sold nearby because it would end up increase local prices. So many screwy incentives! Really need a power grid initiative.
  - dsfyu404ed 9y ago
    >Yes, it's a huge problem. States fight against buying cheaper power out of a state because they'd rather pay higher prices but keep the jobs and tax revenue in their own state. Every day I drive past a bridge being constructed. It's a bunch of 50-100ft steel arch sections that go between concrete islands in a shallow river. They would have been done last year if they had just ordered up a replacement and had it brought in on a barge then put it in place. Instead they'd rather spend the money on what's essentially a welfare/jobs program. I wish they'd at least acknowledge that angle rather than playing dumb and looking like they got ripped off.