5 ms·
Many countries that have invested heavily into offshore have done so either because land is a premium or the geography makes in difficult to bui
by avar 3y ago
Many countries that have
invested heavily into offshore
have done so either because land
is a premium or the geography
makes in difficult to buil
on land.
The Netherlands is investing heavily in offshore wind, and last I looked it's not those reasons, but NIMBYs.
The cost per kW for offshore wind is higher, and even in a country as dense as The Netherlands the footprint of a windmill is relatively trivial, and can be combined with farming etc.
But people don't like how they look and sound, so we're paying a premium to have wind installed offshore.
- autoexec 3y agoThere's been research done showing that people's view on how windmills look is most strongly influenced by how they feel about wind energy in general. I wonder if people in the Netherlands have disproportionately negative views of wind energy. As for noise, it probably varies a lot depending on how close you are, and the type of turbines in use so maybe it does bother some people (although not everyone feels that way https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jun/26/minimal-sound-and-almost-no-fury-life-in-the-shadow-of-australias-windfarm-hell https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jun/26/minimal-...) but I know there's also a lot of fear around "wind farm syndrome" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_turbine_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_turbine_syndrome) which I'd place in the same category as people worried about wifi and 5G signals (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_hypersensitivity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_hypersensitivi...) making them sick and hopefully that can be overcome with education.
- Fnoord 3y agoGive the people who have to live near these machines a benefit from it, such as a monthly discount on electricity? Has this been tried?
- rootusrootus 3y agoSort of like the people who are willing to have a cell phone tower put on their property. Ugly, but the rent more than makes up for that.
- pyuser583 3y agoOr like oil - “black gold.”
- mattlondon 3y agoIt is not just where people live. People like to walk and hike and camp and holiday places, and sometimes they don't like it if their view is "ruined".
- Propelloni 3y agoSo called Bürgerbeteiligungsgesellschaften (citizen participation companies) are quite common in rural Germany. Basically a citizen of a concerned community can opt to become a shareholder of such a company and gets a yearly kickback from the proceeds. It's not quite that simple but that's the basic idea. The other form you find even more often is the so called Energiegenossenschaft (energy cooperative) which is organized like any other cooperative. The federal system of the FRoG promotes these local cooperatives over capital companies in certain areas, such as utilities. AFAIK, there is no model where you reap benefits without doing something first, ie. join a cooperative or buy shares.
- Wohlf 3y agoI wonder if it's more proximity that's the issue. In larger countries a wind farm would most likely just be an eyesore on the horizon or nearby hills, but in the Netherlands it could effectively be in someone's backyard, blocking the visible sky and casting large shadows.
- ben_w 3y agoI went to university in Aberystwyth 20 years ago, and there were wind farms visible in the distance. As people were still complaining about them being eyesores back then, on one occasion I just scanned over the horizon, seeing what I could see — Those turbines were only noticed because they were unusual, they were greatly outnumbered by the unsightly clutter of pylons, the roads[0], and even particularly ugly farm buildings. [0] despite this being rural Wales where even the major road from there to anywhere else, the A44, was slightly narrower than an American residential street: https://maps.app.goo.gl/YitFrEFRt576Yz7K9?g_st=ic https://maps.app.goo.gl/YitFrEFRt576Yz7K9?g_st=ic
- gamepsys 3y agoI think this is all a way of saying The Netherlands land is at a premium. Views and noise pollution are valued higher than cheaper electricity. The United States has over 200 times more land than The Netherlands, and only 20 times the population. The US has plenty of windy places with adequate infrastructure where selling electricity is valued higher than view/noise because no one lives within 30km of the windmill.
- andsoitis 3y ago> Views and noise pollution are valued higher than cheaper electricity. Nothing like walking on the beach to relax and seeing wind farms or oil rigs off the coast.
- mechagodzilla 3y agoI love walking on the beach, and I can’t imagine seeing a tiny structure miles off in the distance somehow detracting from the experience.
- andsoitis 3y agoI’m thinking the sight of this (oil rigs off the Huntington Beach coast): https://sustainability.stanford.edu/news/californias-oil-spill-and-challenges-regulating-shore-drilling https://sustainability.stanford.edu/news/californias-oil-spi...
- dukeyukey 3y agoI loved for years on the coast with wind farms in the distance, I quite liked it. Like living in a solar punk town.
- exodust 3y agoInteresting the official Ørsted promo video about South Fork Wind is 3 minutes long, and contains no more than 8 seconds of footage showing the actual turbines. 8 seconds! Don't blink. The main focus is slow-motion shots of smiling people and kids. They really don't want any focus on how they look. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5R_5Tzd5wQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5R_5Tzd5wQ
- dukeyukey 3y ago"people don't like how they look and sound" is just another effect of density. I doubt Dutch people are inherently more NIMBY than Americans, it's just there's nowhere to hide infrastructure in the Netherlands (unless offshore).
- KptMarchewa 3y agoCost per kW might be higher, but offshore has higher capacity factor which is very important.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- chii 3y ago> but NIMBYs a high rise is one thing, but having windfarms near residential areas is probably not great. they are quite loud. > But people don't like how they look and sound and they have the right to object. They should not have to pay a sacrifice without compensation. This is why that premium exists - it spreads the cost of that sacrifice (to whoever is going to consume the power generated).
- raverbashing 3y agoSea is much more windy than land as well
- makomk 3y agoAt least here in the UK (which has the second most offshore wind generation in the world behind China) it's both - onshore wind got stuck in NIMBY planning hell and there's not really enough land in the right places to make it an easy option. Also, it looked for a while like with sufficient investment offshore wind could actually wind up being cheaper due to higher capacity factor, larger turbines, etc. Frustratingly, a lot of the British press has been pretending that the NIMBY issues didn't exist and the current government just made them up for ideological reasons or because their super-rich donors didn't like wind turbines, along with presenting onshore wind as the solution to all our problems and essentially ignoring the offshore wind and pretending the government has done nothing on renewables. (This seems to happen with literally everything - whatever the current governemnt didn't do or cancelled is spun as a magic solution and any problems it was having before are written out of existence.)
- patrick451 3y ago> but NIMBYs. This is tired. Let's build a busy train track outside your bedroom window and see how long this condescension last.