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What do ya think of Wind farms offshore ?
Would the fishing pick up due to more structure ?
Would it really ruin your view of the water or would we just forget about them after a year or two ?

Lets hear it , do you want them off of your beach ?

You where I am Les. I look at the oil rigs offshore every day. It doesn't bother me a bit...until I drive north or south and I see no rigs. I always think how beautiful it is and wish the rigs weren't off my local coast.

I imagine that I would feel the same about windmills.

depends on who gains . The Town of Hull Mass. has a Municipal Electric Utility ,they own the grid . Currently owns two wind generation stations on land . Plans four more installations off shore that will exceed the energy requirements of the Town for the next 20 years . Excess power will be sold back to the grid and help offset property taxes .
That's a sound plan . I think that a direct relationship with the renewable energy source's and the citizens of a community that location allows the construction of said devices is essential for the success of wind generation electric power . Something similar to the system used in Alaska where every man women and child receives a check annually ( from fees charged to oil service companys operating the pipeline ) from a State mandated trust .
Why should big business be allowed to harness community's wind and sell it back to the people the winds pass over to get tax concessions for the shareholders only . Can you imagine pumping oil out of Saudi Arabia with out paying the Saudi's for the privilege ? I think wind power is going to be big in the future for the little town of Hull Mass. They have already captured interest in Washington DC. but It still remains a controversial issue for the rest of Massachusetts Bay .

Nuke, what size are the generators there , I'm guessing about 3meg each.

I think that here in Texas they should use the wind to make electricity then use that to make Hyd. to run a power plant.
as you can't store the power from the wind generators and the wind comes and goes [ Read , not a constant ]

The power can be stored as Hyd. [ In tanks ] then used as CLEAN burning fuel for the plant or use in vehicles.

If "big business" wants to spend the money to build a wind farm without using taxpayer dollars, they should be able to do what ever they want with their profits. No community owns the wind. Besides, their not using it up. If the community wants to build their own farm down wind they could use the same wind to make their own energy.

If it's offshore structure, it means offshore fish.
Simple as pie....example: La. & Texas (have no clue about west coast anything)

I say drill, erect, do whatever....you should see the ugliness of the coal electric plant I see everyday, spewing out a nice "yellow" stream around the city.

Take those tree hugging "oh my million dollar view" bastards out for a cruise on my river and let them see all that, then they still won't want a few offshore wind mills.

Then if we could, we can show them the proof that "vertical" structure is way better than bottom structure, when it comes to attracting all marine species. And that FISHING is and can be a huge money maker for any Florida community......even this, Navy Town, if taken seriously.

Actually may not add many new structures here.
The talk is to use the structures already in place. Maybe add to deck and foot print, not truly a "new" facility. Thus not freaking the tree huggers as much.

I totally agree that if the big wigs invest, then they should reap the rewards. BUT..............................that electricity has to get on land some how, and there is where communities could win I think.

Most stuff would have to located close right?

creating the power and distributing the power are two totally different things. The current infastructure in many places simply cannot handle the load.

But I say "make it so"

welder wrote:Nuke, what size are the generators there , I'm guessing about 3meg each.

I think that here in Texas they should use the wind to make electricity then use that to make Hyd. to run a power plant.
as you can't store the power from the wind generators and the wind comes and goes [ Read , not a constant ]

The power can be stored as Hyd. [ In tanks ] then used as CLEAN burning fuel for the plant or use in vehicles.

There is no need to store excess power. Excess gets sold onto the grid and then deficits made up from the grid. Size the system right and you'll never have to pay for power. Adding Hydrogen production / burning plants will only increase cost and changing energy forms always leads to losses so your better of using it all straight away.

Chris , the reason I mentioned storing it was that the wind does not always blow when we need it, meaning peek times and it is not a constant.

At 0600 when were getting ready for work ,cooking, washing, lights and more, the wind isn't blowing and we have a bunch of KWH's going on.

And of course the mills only work at a certain wind speed or you burn up generators.

That is the point of a National grid, you don't need to generate the power when you need it, as long as someone is using it and someone is producing excess power when you need it.

Look at it this way there are 5 major options for renewable power.

Solar
Wind
Hydro
Geothermal
Tide/wave.

If each region throughout the US was to identify which of these they could utilize the best ie Hydro in the Rockies, Tidal in the golf of Mexico etc. you would probably find the total power produced nationally at any given point of time would be sufficient to run the entire country. So on a still day you might be using power from a solar plant 2 states over but a week later that state may be covered in cloud and need to use some of your wind energy.

So the trick is to size all the local systems to produce marginally in excess of its annual requirements and then let statistics and wires fill the gaps.

According to one company called Vesta, they are installing one every 4 minutes.

There were some folks up in New England trying to build some off Nantucket, there was a lot of resistance from people who didn't want their view spoiled. Most people who can afford a home on Nantucket are quite well off and it seems they have stalled the plans for now.As for myself I have seen windmills in Hull and Nova Scotia and don't find them offensive at all. Our former government seems to have been run by big oil, hopefully the new one will do better,we shall see.
Clambo