Giant Floating Windmills To Launch Next Year 162
pacroon writes "StatoilHydro is building the world's first full-scale floating wind turbine, Hywind, and testing it over a two-year period offshore of Karmøy, Norway. The company is investing approximately $80 million. Planned startup is in the fall of 2009. The project combines existing technology in innovative ways. A 2.3-MW wind turbine is attached to the top of a so-called Spar-buoy, a solution familiar from production platforms and offshore loading buoys. A model 3 meters tall has already been tested successfully in a wave simulator. The goal of the pilot is to qualify the technology and reduce costs to a level that will mean that floating wind turbines can compete with other energy sources."
Transmission? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Transmission? (Score:5, Informative)
The raft wont be floating freely, it will be anchored to a specific spot where the conditions for wind is good. However its much cheaper to use than construction something from the sea bottom in deep water. Most sea wind power are close to shore wind power plants that is build where the water is shallow or on islands. With this techonolgy a wind farm can be set up in deep water where the wind conditions are good.
Re:Transmission? (Score:5, Interesting)
This also solves the issue with noise from wind generators anchored in deep water, which the Danes have estimated could cause problems for whales - sound travels much farther in deep water.
And can we please spare the feckless comments on injuring birds, large size windmills move much too slowly to cause a bird damage unless they ploughed into it headlong, and any bird that would do that will have difficulties with flying into cliffs as well.
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one of the problems I can see is that there will be a lot of torque/forces on the turbine hubs/axes due to the gyroscopic forces/spar motion combo. I'm sure the engineers thought of that already though, I'm just wondering how they solved it.
Re:Transmission? (Score:5, Informative)
Tests carried out in Denmark for shallow installations showed the levels were only significant up to a few hundred metres. However, sound injected into deeper water will travel much further and will be more likely to impact bigger creatures like whales which tend to use lower frequencies than porpoises and seals. A recent study found that wind farms add 80â"110 dB to the existing low-frequency ambient noise (under 400 Hz), which could impact baleen whales communication and stress levels, and possibly prey distribution.
As far as I understand it, towers will transmit the noise directly to the ocean floor, but a floating platform, even if anchored, distributes most of the noise at the surface, although I could be mistaken in that.
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And can we please spare the feckless comments on injuring birds, large size windmills move much too slowly to cause a bird damage unless they ploughed into it headlong, and any bird that would do that will have difficulties with flying into cliffs as well.
I don't object to windmills, but the tip speed of the large windmills is quite fast. The article said these would be 80 meters in diameter, so if they rotated at one revolution every three seconds, that would be almost 200 miles per hour at the tip. I think that one of the main reasons large turbines do rotate so slowly is the high tip speed is difficult to deal with - at the speed of sound (340 m/s) shock waves become a problem, and structural problems show up at slower speeds. And of course, there ar
Re:Transmission? (Score:5, Informative)
To help our understanding of turbine hazards to birds we'd like to make an analogy, to your bicycle. Turn your bike upside down or put it in a work rack, set it to the highest gear...the one you use to go fast on a level slope.... and now move the wheel slowly with your hand. The chain moves rapidly with only a few degrees of wheel rotation. This symbolizes today's cutting edge 1.5 mW turbines, which have a very large surface area of blade exposed to the wind and a gearbox that turns the dynamo quickly while the blades move slowly. Birds dodge these slow moving blades relatively easily.
Now put the bike in the lowest gear...the one you use to climb hills...and move the wheel with your hand fast enough to turn the chain as fast as before. That symbolizes the 20-year-old "bird-o-matic" wind turbine design. Small blades with small surface areas have to turn rapidly to overcome the magnetic force of the dynamos, which generate electricity.
Recapping: small blades, low surface area, lots of dead birds possible; very big blades, with large surface area exposed to wind, very few dead birds.
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Borrowed from here [treehugger.com]:
Pulease. As an actual degree-granted environmental scientist (M.S., Environmental Sciences and Engineering), I find this site to be total baloney. Please take a look at treehugger's staff list - not a single environmental scientist or engineer in the bunch. In fact, there isn't a single technical degree in the lot of them. They're all web gurus, ex-fashion designers, design students and 20-something "serial entrepeneurs" (I would be embarassed to write that about myself) who have clearly jumped on the s
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YOU'RE QUOTING THESE PEOPLE AS EXPERTS ON WIND-TURBINE BLADE DESIGN!?
Not at all, it was literally one of the first results on Google that seemed to have a nice easy to grasp explanation of the reduced danger that modern wind turbines pose to wildlife. I'm sure someone with a bit more time on their hands could find a few more authoritative articles. However you seem to be getting terribly upset, purely because:
As an actual degree-granted environmental scientist (M.S., Environmental Sciences and Engineering), I find this site to be total baloney.
This "article" about the so-called misconceptions of wind-turbine bird-kills from a bunch of "sustainability enthusiasts" (their words) is about as worthless as it gets.
Seriously, unless you have a specific argument against what I quoted, your opinions on the authors are entirely irrelevant. They do in this case explain what I want
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Seriously, unless you have a specific argument against what I quoted, your opinions on the authors are entirely irrelevant. They do in this case explain what I wanted them to, and I don't vouch for the rest of the site.
ha ha. You quote unqualified, self-promoting dilitants as your technical source to justify your point of view, and somehow that makes my observations on the quality your experts irrelevant? You and I clearly live on a different planet. On mine experts quoted to support a technical argument should have some hint of technical ability. Credentials if you will. If not, your argument remains unsupported. And remember what your [frankly] off-the-wall argument was: spinning windmill blades look like a solid c
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You quote unqualified, self-promoting dilitants as your technical source to justify your point of view, and somehow that makes my observations on the quality your experts irrelevant?
But eh, they did explain it. If their explanation (the only part I quoted) was wrong, feel free to point out the error.
And remember what your [frankly] off-the-wall argument was: spinning windmill blades look like a solid cliff face to birds. Uh huh.
I said a bird blind enough to get hit by one of these would also have trouble hitting just about anything, I did not say windmills=cliffs.
It is scientifically and logically deceptive to cite people who don't know a damned thing about the topic in question
And for the third time, the one single and only point that matters: were they wrong?
and to give the impression that they are "experts".
Where did I do that?
I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and say you did it by accident, but be more careful next time, please.
Sufficient unto the day, the evil thereof.
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But eh, they did explain it. If their explanation (the only part I quoted) was wrong, feel free to point out the error.
No, they did not explain it. They made up some stuff they thought supported their conclusions. Point out the error(s)? Ok, I will.
1. They say that modern wind turbines use wide blades. That is not the case. The most efficient shape for blades has remained unchanged - long and thin.
2. They say that blades turn slowly. Not true. In their non-technical dilitant way they have confused low RPMs with low blade speed (they're artists, web designers, and self-promoters - not engineers). Even at a low RPM the tips of long blades can be travelling very fast - even approaching the speed of sound.
3. They say that just by adding gearing (their stupid bicycle analogy) turbines can get the same energy from lower blade speeds. Just put some gears in to speed up the generator part! Again that is not true. There is no free lunch and the blades have to turn at their most efficient speed given the wind-speed. You can't simply slow them down and add a gear to speed up the generator. Again, they show their utter lack of understanding not only of wind-turbine design, but of even the basic physics of everyday mechanical systems.
And these are the people you quote as experts! And because you did many people now think that wind turbines have been shown to be completely harmless to birds - based on the musings of a bunch of incompetents.
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No, they did not explain it. They made up some stuff they thought supported their conclusions. Point out the error(s)? Ok, I will.
1. They say that modern wind turbines use wide blades. That is not the case. The most efficient shape for blades has remained unchanged - long and thin.
The size of the blades has changed a bit since the early days though, don't you think? Going from small to 80 meters plus, which is much easier for birds to see and avoid? They even have to use specialised trucks to transport the blades around. Would you say the blades are physically wider than the early ones?
2. They say that blades turn slowly. Not true. In their non-technical dilitant way they have confused low RPMs with low blade speed (they're artists, web designers, and self-promoters - not engineers). Even at a low RPM the tips of long blades can be travelling very fast - even approaching the speed of sound.
And the tips are attached to the rest of the blade, which moves much slower, reducing the effective danger zone for birds as well as giving them something they can actually see. Speed of sound my a
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So its not really that much of a stretch to see 80% or 90% of the power in the country
Spin 'Em Up! (Score:5, Funny)
Now it's time to use their own bullshit against them. It is time to shut down every idiotic "green" project by any means necessary. Building a wind farm? Expect to hear every single lie told about conventional power thrown back in your face.
All those power lines leaking radiation into the environment!
Wind turbines have huge carbon footprints because of their refined metal content. The only carbon-neutral wind turbines are made of wood.
The iron used in wind turbines has a half-life of billions of years!
The quantum flux caused by their rotating magnets makes eggshells thinner.
The vanes mix the air and cause acid rain.
Electricity from wind turbines has been shown to cause moleculitis in kids.
Using dozens of tiny generators instead of one big generator puts tons more negative ions into the atmosphere. Or is it positive ions? It better not be neutral ions, because those are pure poison.
--
Usually, I am against using lies to counter lies. The corrective for lies is truth. But in this case, I expect the creative use of lies to illustrate previous lies will be funny as hell, because it is so deserved.
Hoist by their own petard. Hehe, I said "petard."
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I'm not saying the windmills would or would not be harmful to birds, but your ideas on why they would not be show remarkably poor reasoning on your part
Re:Transmission? (Score:5, Informative)
Thanks.
I found a better article [azom.com] that explains the concept with better pictures.
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Power cable to sweden (Score:5, Funny)
They've discovered that a relatively unorthodox technology, known as "peer to peer" is a good solution. Unfortunately big corporations have made it illegal in every country but sweden. The upshot is that, instead of using the natural infrastructure of a p2p network that already exists, the company will be based in sweden, and all of the floating windmills will be directly tied to their HQ, by long cables. From sweden, the company will then export it back to your house, beside the windmill, on trucks.
But don't worry, you will get a shiny plastic wrapper for your 1-ton battery, and an insert with lots of credits to the corporations who made it possible, and copyright notices.
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Windmills (Score:5, Funny)
Powdered water (Score:2)
Re:Windmills (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Transmission? (Score:5, Informative)
>with the kind of floating power station, Any idea?
The subsurface structure:
Water depth: about 220 m (approx. 720 ft); buouy is a cylinder standing vertical in the water, the draft is about 100 m (305 ft);- buoy diameter, say 10 m.
Topside structure/turbine data:
Operating wind speed: 3-27 m/s; about 40 m long blades; rated capacity and speed: 2.3 MW; 5-15 rpm.
Mooring system:
Attached to buoy at about mid-point (say at depth 50 m); 3 mooring lines.
The power transmission system, the electrical cable:
The cable is attached to the buoy at either depth 50 m or at buoy bottom. The buoy will be subjected to both dynamic and static motion due to waves, currents and wind. The static motion is mainly horizontal offset caused by the static loads that are counteracted by the mooring system. The cable arrangement is able to adjust to these buoy motions without mechanical overload, this is achieved by the following methods:
1. Bend stiffener in the interface with the buoy (a 2-3 m long conical plastic thing which main purpose is to avoid overbending and associated fatigue damage in the interface with the buoy.
2. The cable is arranged in a compliant riser configuration between seabed and buoy, this allows the spar buoy to move without causing excessive tension and bending in the cable. This effect is achieved by "storing" over-lenght in a buoyant cable section. Hence - when the buoy moves - cable lenght is simply "paid" out (or in) from the buoyant section. Starting at the buoy there is a bend stiffener followed by say 150 m cable, then perhaps 60 m cable equipped with buoyancy until eventually there is cable to the seabed. There is of course an anchor somewhere at the seabed to keep the cable fixed.
The above technology is well known from the oil industry, the described riser configuration is a so called "pliant wave" or "lazy wave configuration". The main challenges with this concept is that it is new uncharted territory and that we do not yet know the actual parameters. Our experience is from the oil business, where such cables between platform and seabed are routinely used.
Greetings from a member of the engineering team within Nexans Norway AS, the Halden plant, which will design and manufacture the power transmission for the Hywind project.
Floating... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Floating... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Floating... (Score:4, Funny)
Birds? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Birds? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Birds? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Birds? (Score:5, Funny)
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Most of us who like the idea of wind technology don't particularly care about the handful of birds it might effect, and resent getting stereotyped by the people who want to marginalize everything we stand for.
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Do you support that or do you prefer existing solutions?
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Do you support that or do you prefer existing solutions?
Haha, it's the old false choice fallacy. In fact, I prefer nuclear energy over coal and petroleum, but I also prefer wind/solar/wave/hydro over nuclear.
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But I figure wind, solar, and maybe something like biodiesel from algae farms can all contribute to a solution with less environmental impact than coal and less dependencies upon source
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I have no problems with rational non-advocates. The person who tried to paint every environmental advocate with the same brush is not one of those.
Re:Birds? (Score:5, Informative)
People who shun technology are called Ludites.
The last time I heard of a windfarm cancelled because of birds was here in the state of Victoria in Australia, it was about 2yrs ago. It was a right-wing government minister that killed the project, obsetnsibly because of concerns by experts over "rare birds". This proffesional anti-environmentalist trawled the environmental impact statement and found a mention of (IIRC) the orange-bellied parrot. He was the one who chose to kill the project there were no prosteters, and the impact statement had given the project the thumbs-up.
The "environmentalists" have been ranting about wind farms since the 1970's, the vast majority of people (green or otherwise) knew the bird thing was bullshit and wanted the farm. However when the minister cancelled the project because "experts said rare parrots were found breeding in the area", mass-media dutifully blamed "environmentalists".
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Hippie hunters (Score:2)
This particular "envirofacist" once supported a young family in the early 80's by working/living at an old growth sawmill [google.com.au] in Australia. The logs from the trees we were cutting were up to 14' in diameter, I left the job becuse the forestry lease was running out and the area was to become a national park. We had some problems with people up trees, chained to dozers, ect, but they pale in compa
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I'm an environmentalists, I care about dumb animals.
Re:Birds? (Score:4, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power#Birds
Re:Birds? (Score:5, Funny)
And don't tell me that this calculation is not serious. After all, the RIAA gets away with this type of calculation all the time!
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That's easy. Following the RIAA example, windmill operators will hire people to hunt down the birds, and/or shoot them on sight.
Re:Birds? (Score:5, Interesting)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power#Birds [wikipedia.org]
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Somehow or another (there are a lot of different and sometimes contradictory mechanisms at play) most people associate "chickens" (and eating chickens) with an enormously different set of concepts and moral ideals than they do wild birds of all sorts -- especially the big pretty ones like herons and such, but somewhat for any bird outside. Even pigeons and seagulls fare better, I think.
Random vaguely-offtopical bonus link: Polish chicken! [flickr.com]
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I have no moral qualms whatsoever about killing animals for usefull purposes. I do have issues with killing so many wild animals that it affects the sustainability of the species as a whole, or shifts the local ecosystem in undesirable (or unpredictable) ways. Which is why I'll eat as much cow and chick
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Bats seem to have a real problem with them (Score:5, Informative)
From the article
" Towering up to 228 feet above the Appalachian Mountain ridge, far above the tree line, windmills are lined up like marching aliens from War of the Worlds.
Up close, they emit a high-pitched electrical hum. From a distance of a few hundred yards, their 115-foot blades make a steady whooshing sound as their tips cut through the air at up to 140 mph."
"A study conducted at FPL's Mountaineer Wind Energy Center here this year indicated that its 44 turbines may have caused between 1,300 and 2,000 bat deaths in a six-week period. That study was led by Edward B. Arnett, a scientist with Bat Conservation International, and financed largely by the American Wind Energy Association and its 700 member companies."
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It's complete bullshit.
Note the following facts:
The original "wind turbines kill birds" campaign used several outlets to say the same thing, using the same four dead birds picture with no evidence.
Glass buildings in cities, radio towers (lights at night), cars all kill way more birds than wind power ever could.
"Fluffy" the house-cat let out at night, and feral cats kill 10,000 times the estimated bird kill from 100% of the US power needs from wind.
In other words, i
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Altamont did kill a lot of eagles, and since it was one of the first, the reputation stuck. The reality is that Altamont has "has the highest numbers an
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Also, the time in between blades to pass through the gap depends solely on rotational speed, not tip velocity. That's what people mean when they say they turn "slowly."
It depends on how you model the danger
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Just out of interest (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Just out of interest (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Just out of interest (Score:4, Insightful)
I think there should be a city ordinance that states that each apartment building with more than 10 subunits should be forced to either install a set of solar panels or allow the local utility to do so. The surface area in my city alone could help the resident imprint. Make the law at the city level so it can be chosen to be followed by the local residents and if the property owner installs the system themselves allow their panels energy to impact the residents bill. I think there are forces in this type of legislation that could drive the market for panels and attracting residents with energy savings.
Putting panels sky scrapers don't make sense because they simply use too much energy compared to their top surface area, their impact would be minimal - but look around, there are many places these things could go. In some buildings during the day there is absolutely no one too, they are off somewhere else using energy but the building where they live is just feeding into the grid (or paying off their evening's usage).
It would be costly and would need to be implemented over some time frame; but the market would drive for the cheapest - and eventually most efficient of hardware.
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Re:Just out of interest (Score:5, Informative)
On the other hand -- I've noticed very small p/v and wind turbine installations popping up on the roadsides in our area in the last few years - powering things like illumination lights for traffic signs, lights at bus-stops, speed-triggered LED speed warning signs and the like. The wind turbines are dinky things with rotor diameters of perhaps three or four feet. (Note, this is along the shore of the Severn Estuary, which is presumably more reliably windy than most places inland.) I'm curious if manufacturing economies of scale have brought such small devices down to the point that they're cost effective, as well as green, anyone know?
British Solar Water Heating (Score:4, Interesting)
The big problem there is getting your hands on a Stirling engine.
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It appears they are suitable for small things along the roadside where the cost of installation of electrical service far outweighs the cost of electricity - signs along the highway, and such - and moreover things which aren't exactly the most critical infrastructure (like, oh, stoplights).
When it comes to things that chew lots of power, though, I'm sure there's no contest.
It reminds me of those solar garden-lights that they sell that you can just stick in the ground instead of digging trenches and run
Small wind battery chargers (Score:3, Informative)
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http://gov.ca.gov/index.php?/press-release/3588/ [ca.gov]
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I disagree - while the skyscraper may not have all its demands met by solar, it would be a fine candidate, because it may enough consumption that it could guarantee that all the solar is being used, and seems more likely to have the capital for it than a smaller complex would.
The problem is that these things still do not make enough sense from the purely financial perspective. Electricity is cheap. Solar panels have a big up-front cost, and when you consider interest, maintenance, and such, the pay-back pe
Re:Just out of interest (Score:5, Insightful)
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Are the masts designed to fold under extreme winds (Score:2)
Re:Are the masts designed to fold under extreme wi (Score:1)
Re:Are the masts designed to fold under extreme wi (Score:5, Informative)
"Planned startup is in the fall of 2009" (Score:2)
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Steady winds (Score:5, Informative)
* Being able to go deeper means further offshore, which means less people on land looking for an easy pay off due to bogus eyesore / property value complaints.
* In a massive storm these ones lean over, spilling away the force of the wind and reducing exposed surface area as cos(tilt).
* The bird cuisinart effect is largely debunked. Many more are killed flying into windows (home or glass box buildings), stationary bridges and radio towers, and hit by cars while attending to roadkill. Many studies out there to back this up. "Homepower magazine" does a nice job of collecting peer reviewed studies (they had a great writeup on it, but I can't find that now). Also need to balance against the more dilute effect of wildlife killed by a coal plant's SO2 etc emissions. Granted most studies are not looking at sea birds.
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Not debunked. Solved. Early wind turbines were small and very fast. Too fast for birds.
Re:Steady winds (Score:5, Funny)
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While the newer ones turn at a much lower RPM, they are so much bigger that speed at the tips of each blade are easily moving in excess of 100 kph.
Math: Say 100m diameter turbine, takes 5 sec to turn once. circumference = PI*d = 314m which means the tip has to travel 314m/5sec or 62.8m/s = 226 km/hr. I just made up the 5 sec, I don't really know the standard RPM would be exactly.
Even so, the new monster turbines are so bi
Since it is alway out among the waves . . (Score:5, Interesting)
Why not include a wave generator as part of the system?
For the rare individual who does not know. A wave generator in this context does not make waves but uses the motion of waves to generate electricity.
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It's a good thing you clarified, otherwise the rare individual would imagine this company has the department of "Let's make this thing work", which tries to harvest energy, and the department of "No you won't", which sabotages their efforts.
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Probably because they can get more power for their money out of building another few windmills than they could by strapping on a few wave generators.
These things are probably not optimized for wave-generation anyway. You'd be more concerned that your windmills can stay in one spot despite waves, and storms, and such. Otherwise, you're liable to lose windmills.
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Possible but the earlier poster above was probably right that it is a bad idea to combine two immature technologies.
Wave generators extract energ
Video (Score:4, Informative)
Check out the last minute of the above to see their mock-ups.
Gorillaz (Score:2)
Good close-ups of an interesting floating windmill design at 1m21s and 2m36s. I'm not too sure how it works though...
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