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Earth Power Science Technology

World's First Floating Wind Farm Emerges Off Coast of Scotland (bbc.co.uk) 252

AmiMoJo writes: The world's first full-scale floating wind farm has started to take shape off the north-east coast of Scotland. The revolutionary technology will allow wind power to be harvested in waters too deep for the current conventional bottom-standing turbines. The manufacturer hopes to cash in on a boom in the technology, especially in Japan and the west coast of the U.S., where waters are deep. The tower, including the blades, stretches to 175m and weighs 11,500 tons. The price of energy from bottom-standing offshore wind farms has plummeted 32% since 2012, and is now four years ahead of the government's expected target. Another big price drop is expected, taking offshore wind to a much lower price than new nuclear power.
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World's First Floating Wind Farm Emerges Off Coast of Scotland

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  • Emerges (Score:4, Funny)

    by turkeydance ( 1266624 ) on Monday July 24, 2017 @07:54PM (#54871471)
    then sinks
  • EVIL (Score:5, Funny)

    by MightyMartian ( 840721 ) on Monday July 24, 2017 @07:57PM (#54871487) Journal

    Godless heathens, everyone knows Jesus only wants coal fired power plants.

    • Nice stereotyping there mate.

      • by dbIII ( 701233 )
        Not at all IMHO - it's showing up the people who pretend Jesus is on their side on every issue for what they are. Coal is not "conservative" or "Christian". They are taking the Lord's name in vain.
        I find it really funny that windmills went from being a symbol of rural conservative values to being something that "conservatives" attack.
    • These are surely signs of the times my friend.

  • Strange bedfellows (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Ol Olsoc ( 1175323 ) on Monday July 24, 2017 @07:59PM (#54871497)
    Some environmentalists will oppose this because of presumed bird mortality, and many slash dotters who are definitely not environmentalists will oppose this because it is an energy source they hate.
    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward

      many slash dotters who are definitely not environmentalists will oppose this because it is an energy source they hate.

      You make it sound as though that hate is irrational. It's because we are tech geeks and coal energy makes microprocessors run much more smoothly. I know, I've burnt out three MBs since they started introducing that harsh wind-generated electricity into our grid.

      • by Pax681 ( 1002592 ) on Tuesday July 25, 2017 @06:39AM (#54873239)

        You make it sound as though that hate is irrational. It's because we are tech geeks and coal energy makes microprocessors run much more smoothly. I know, I've burnt out three MBs since they started introducing that harsh wind-generated electricity into our grid.

        tech geek?.. hand you card in NOW.. anyone with a clue would use something that can be as cheap as one of these puppies... Monster HTS200 HT Power Centre... surged and spike protection for mains.. just what would have kept you safe

    • by Whiney Mac Fanboy ( 963289 ) <whineymacfanboy@gmail.com> on Monday July 24, 2017 @09:29PM (#54871831) Homepage Journal

      Some environmentalists will oppose this because of presumed bird mortality,

      Not if they're rational. [treehugger.com]

      and many slash dotters who are definitely not environmentalists will oppose this because it is an energy source they hate.

      Hating an energy source isn't rational.

      Reality Check. Environmentalist & non-environmentalist don't hate wind turbines in significant numbers.The anti-turbine mob are all nimbys worried about spoiling their views, and old-energy shills and their useful idiots.

      • Not if they're rational.

        Who said anything about being rational? The "bird people" in this case are going full on bias and cognitive dissonance.

        They are FOR floating offshore turbines but they are against them.
        They can't tell if they kill birds - therefore they must be killing birds.
        They like the technology - but they believe it ads to what they believe is a problem.

        From TFA:

        The bird charity RSPB Scotland opposed the project - not because it dislikes the technology but because it believes too many offshore turbines in the area have already been approved.

        It fears thousands of sea birds may be killed by the offshore wind farms, although it admits that estimates are hugely uncertain because it is impossible to count bird corpses at sea.

        The RSPB's Aidan Smith told BBC News: "Generally we are very enthusiastic about floating wind technology because it allows turbines to be placed far offshore - away from seabird nesting sites, and it helps us tackle climate change.

        "We oppose the Hywind project because it adds to a situation we already believe is a problem."

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by blindseer ( 891256 )

        I oppose wind power because it's often not all that "green".

        http://www.carlineconomics.com... [carlineconomics.com]

        Building those windmill towers takes a lot of steel and concrete that could be put to better energy use, like nuclear power. I don't know how off shore wind power plays into this environmental disaster that on shore wind, but it can't be all that great if it costs twice as much to build out than onshore wind.

        As far as "green" energy goes wind isn't nearly as bad as solar. I believe that wind could actually be prof

        • by Teun ( 17872 ) on Tuesday July 25, 2017 @01:44AM (#54872469)

          Wind is allowed to be abandoned, with rusted towers left in place. Sometimes they are required to tear down to a "grey-field" standard, where the towers and above ground structures must be removed but the buried concrete anchors can remain.

          You must live in a weird and unusually slack judiciary.

          In other words, this part of your worries/opposition to wind power has nothing to do with a shortcoming in the industry but everything with a shortcoming in your legal system.
          Additionally, land must be extremely cheap when the owners just let it lay fallow.

          Where I live the ~25 y/o turbines, in the day the largest on shore wind farm in Europe, were removed after new rows of nearly 200 meter giants were put alongside them.
          http://www.windparknoordoostpo... [windparkno...tpolder.nl]

        • by Barsteward ( 969998 ) on Tuesday July 25, 2017 @05:15AM (#54873011)
          "If we get air cooled nuclear power then I have my doubts that even wind can compete on being as cheap or "green"." - no-one who promotes nuclear seems to include the extortionate build/decommission costs or subsidies given to nuclear industry. http://www.ucsusa.org/nuclear-... [ucsusa.org]
          • by blindseer ( 891256 ) <blindseer@noSPAm.earthlink.net> on Tuesday July 25, 2017 @01:16PM (#54876129)

            I've looked over their website and it's just full of lies and scaremongering.

            One lie is that U-233 is weapons grade material. First, the U-233 that comes from a thorium reactor is so tainted with other uranium isotopes that it cannot be handled safely without very expensive processing. Second, a U-233 weapon is theoretical, no one has yet built one successfully. Sure, there were devices that contained U-233 that went *BOOM* but they were considered duds. Anyone that has the technology to turn U-233 into weapons grade material won't need the reactor, they can use common dirt and process that to get U-235 instead.

            Also, what are we supposed to so with all the weapons we have now? Break them apart and pretend this valuable plutonium doesn't exist? That plutonium can be turned into energy in a nuclear reactor. If this organization wants to be rid of nuclear weapons then they should be advocating for nuclear energy. The only way to destroy nuclear weapons material is in a nuclear reactor. You can try to contaminate it with other materials, bury it in a deep enough hole, but it will still be there for someone to dig back up and turn into weapons again.

            Getting back to the cost of nuclear energy I keep hearing on how nuclear energy is so expensive. That's because it is a self fulfilling prophesy. The people that license nuclear energy don't want it to be successful so they make it expensive. These projects are always over budget because the powers that be just cannot leave them alone and let them finish. Because if they did actually let them finish then the lie of expensive nuclear energy would be exposed as the lie it is.

            Nuclear energy can be safe, reliable, plentiful, and cheap. We know this because we've been getting safe, reliable, plentiful, and cheap energy from nuclear power for decades. Chernobyl was 30 years ago and none of the reactors like it exist anymore. Same for Three Mile Island which was 40 years ago. Fukushima was an accident at an aging nuclear power plant and no new ones would be built like it either. If people fear nuclear power accidents then we need new nuclear to replace the old nuclear or energy is going to get expensive, unreliable, harder to find, and not nearly as safe.

      • by jez9999 ( 618189 )

        The anti-turbine mob are all nimbys worried about spoiling their views

        What's so bad about not wanting your views spoiled?

        • by Ol Olsoc ( 1175323 ) on Tuesday July 25, 2017 @09:46AM (#54874323)

          The anti-turbine mob are all nimbys worried about spoiling their views

          What's so bad about not wanting your views spoiled?

          Nothing at all. It doesn't mean your want will trump everyone's need however. If you really need pristine natural views that look like they have not been touched by humans, you need to go to places that are pretty close to pristine, with very few humans.

      • Reality Check. Environmentalist & non-environmentalist don't hate wind turbines in significant numbers.The anti-turbine mob are all nimbys worried about spoiling their views, and old-energy shills and their useful idiots.

        While I consider myself a rational environmentalist, which gets me into a lot of arguments on both sides, I think the wind turbines look pretty nice. I'm not the only one - an artist friend of mine confessed that she found them "pretty cool."

        Meanwhile, it appears that in my area there are enough wind turbines that they are actually doing some load leveling with them. That has to be a trick and a half, given the ramp-up time, but you can see them come on line, and it isn't for lack of wind. The wind is al

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by arth1 ( 260657 )

      I oppose them because plans for and the cost of decommissioning them is not part of the budget planning.

      Also, there are environmental concerns not well researched and understood yet, like underseas power cables and their impact on oceanic marine life with electrical sensory organs. Sharks have displayed problems from low voltage underseas cables, even when quite thickly insulated. It may well be ok, but I still want a bit more research before jumping on something because ooh windcraft!

      • by Teun ( 17872 ) on Tuesday July 25, 2017 @01:48AM (#54872475)

        I oppose them because plans for and the cost of decommissioning them is not part of the budget planning.

        Get your legal system fixed!

        Also, there are environmental concerns not well researched and understood yet, like underseas power cables and their impact on oceanic marine life with electrical sensory organs. Sharks have displayed problems from low voltage underseas cables, even when quite thickly insulated. It may well be ok, but I still want a bit more research before jumping on something because ooh windcraft!

        Underwater power cables exists for many years, probably for over a century, and the technology plus environmental impact is well understood.

        • by arth1 ( 260657 )

          Underwater power cables exists for many years, probably for over a century, and the technology plus environmental impact is well understood.

          - Underwater high voltage cables are relatively new.
          - Underwater high voltage cables that aren't laid on the bottom, but which hangs from floating vessels is new and not studied at all.

          There's an awful lot of marine life between.the surface and the bottom of the ocean.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        We have power cables on the sea floor since decades.

        • by arth1 ( 260657 )

          We have power cables on the sea floor since decades.

          Note "sea floor". We will beam the electricity down to the sea floor without a vertical cable going through layers of marine environments that aren't the sea floor?

      • I oppose them because plans for and the cost of decommissioning them is not part of the budget planning.

        Translation: You don't have a real evidence based objection so you are trying to make perfect the enemy of good. Coal plants don't have decommissioning costs as a part of their budget planning either. I can't decide if you are a troll or an idiot so I'm going to go with both.

        Also, there are environmental concerns not well researched and understood yet, like underseas power cables and their impact on oceanic marine life with electrical sensory organs

        So we should keep pumping trillions of tons of CO2 into the atmosphere instead since we already know that impact on marine (and non-marine) life? Here's a little top tip for you. We've had underseas cable including power cables for

      • While I agree about the decommissioning issue being something that should be resolved for all of these sorts of energy projects, I'd say the undersea cables are very likely of low risk. Much (and I don't really know, but I'm guessing +95%) of the cable is going to be at depths that there is little life, never mind "sharks". Only the short pass of the line that extends from the shore before the shelf is going to have any such impact, if there even is any.

        Governments seem to be excited to jump into corporate

    • by gl4ss ( 559668 )

      I'm just a little bit skeptical about the price and.. ..well. in the blurb it uses sneaky word tactics. see how it says that a price drop is expected. and that would make it cheaper than nuclear.

      (presumably nuclear with nuclear plant profits though calculated in, making it kinda like "cheaper than oil" when oil has plenty of profit built into it, making the price flexible downwards as soon as someone has a better energy source)

      • by sjbe ( 173966 ) on Tuesday July 25, 2017 @06:20AM (#54873177)

        I'm just a little bit skeptical about the price and.. ..well. in the blurb it uses sneaky word tactics. see how it says that a price drop is expected. and that would make it cheaper than nuclear.

        It's not that hard to be cheaper than nuclear when you consider ALL the costs and the amount of regulation needed to ensure safety. The full cost of insuring nuclear tends to get overlooked. I'm not aware of any fission plant that does not require a nation state to provide insurance guarantees in order to get built. While they are relatively safe in general, no private insurance company is going to write a policy against something like Chernobyl. Nuclear is cost competitive with subsidies (insurance and otherwise) but it's not so cheap that you cannot imagine solar or wind being cheaper in the right circumstances. Not to mention that the cost of solar and wind generation are falling MUCH faster than the cost of nuclear fission generation. I don't have any principled objections to fission generation (and I prefer it to fossil fuels) but let's not pretend it's "too cheap to meter".

        (presumably nuclear with nuclear plant profits though calculated in, making it kinda like "cheaper than oil" when oil has plenty of profit built into it, making the price flexible downwards as soon as someone has a better energy source)

        Well, oil and other fossil fuels get subsidies amounting to about $5 Trillion globally every year [wikipedia.org] (that's about 6% of global GDP in case you wondered) and I'm not even counting the cost of the environmental problems they cause. And yes, the profits are part of the equation too but if a new energy source (say solar) gets cheap enough to eat into the profit margins of oil then it is by definition competitive and that's a good thing. And frankly if I have my choice between a relatively clean renewable energy source and fossil fuels for about the same cost then it is a no brainer.

        • by DarthVain ( 724186 ) on Tuesday July 25, 2017 @10:00AM (#54874457)

          Ugh, I hate the continued comparison of nuclear and "green" energy. It is *not* an apples to apples comparison.

          I agree, I think most people have long dispelled the myth of "too cheap to meter" nuclear energy. Regulation, Construction costs, decommissioning, refurbishment, etc... Including the longer term inflation of all these things all escalate the TCO, even if the "fuel" costs might be "too cheap to meter". That said, the only things it should be compared to are other types of base load generation, which includes : Coal, Gas, Oil (though not really cost effective), Hydro (limited geographically). That is about it off the top of my head. Of those if you are looking to bring *new* sources online you are pretty much limited to Coal and Gas. Both of which have some pretty big footprints environmentally. Coal being the worse or dirtiest option, and Gas with Fracking not all that much better. Both are currently very cheap right now, but at least with Gas at current consumption how long will that be, particularly as the issues with fracking become more well known and opposition to new extraction potentially growing. That leaves nuclear as really still the best option for base load generation. Which is what frustrates me in regards to so many "environmentalists" condemning them and stagnating development.

          At some point in the far flung future perhaps we will have truly massively distributed generation through renewable green technologies, and perhaps at that point we've solved the storage capacity issue so that we can maintain grid electrification for more than a few hours, but until then I certainly do not see any real (better) alternatives. That is of course assuming even more far flung ideas such as fission and free energy don't get developed, but that isn't going to happen anytime soon, if ever.

    • Some environmentalists will oppose this because of presumed bird mortality

      How hard can it be to put a cage around this thing? In terms of not having to clean bird guts out of your machines alone this seems like a no-brainer.

    • by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 25, 2017 @02:58AM (#54872663)

      I oppose it because all of the things we're putting into the ocean is causing water levels to rise. At 11,500 tons, what poor island is going to be flooded due to our greed? Don't believe me? Just look at the historical data. The more tonnage we put into the oceans the more floods occur. Remember when Noah built his massive boat, a boat big enough to fit a pair of every living create on it as well as food and supplies? He flooded the whole world with his floating zoo obsession. Lets not repeat the same mistake with massive floating fans designed to cool the coasts. Aren't beaches windy enough?

    • by rtb61 ( 674572 )

      Vertical axis wind turbines are better in terms of bill kill and noise and seem to be poised to overtake spinning propellers with very high blade tip speeds. When it comes to floating platforms they are also far more stable and safer than large spinning propellers.

      Nuclear is not so much for the base load but to ensure energy supply and to cover the growing demands of recycling, pushing for zero waste by using energy to recycle everything.

      • by dbIII ( 701233 )

        pushing for zero waste by using energy to recycle everything

        It's kind of sad to see science education slipping so much. You never get zero waste. You've been fed a stupid and counterproductive lie that is going to hurt nuclear advocacy more than help it. That doesn't mean the waste can't be managed though. The Harford facilities website will help to undo some of that propaganda damage with a dose of reality. I suggest you look at that before embarrassing yourself any more here.

    • by dbIII ( 701233 )
      Only the ones made of straw.
  • FTA:

    The bird charity RSPB Scotland opposed the project - not because it dislikes the technology but because it believes too many offshore turbines in the area have already been approved. It fears thousands of sea birds may be killed by the offshore wind farms, although it admits that estimates are hugely uncertain because it is impossible to count bird corpses at sea.

    Note that there's no mentioned of a time frame. I mean, "thousands" of birds a day? We should move them. "thousands" of birds a year? I'm a bit less concerned. "thousands" of birds a decade? C'mon. Not to mention the whole "thousands"...2000? 10,000? 100,000?

    I'm just curious--is there a simple way to detect when a bird strikes one of these? Maybe have a microphone that listens for some kind of "thud" when one hits?

    I mean, one of the advantages of this is that you can move it somewhere else. S

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Ol Olsoc ( 1175323 )

      Note that there's no mentioned of a time frame. I mean, "thousands" of birds a day? We should move them. "thousands" of birds a year? I'm a bit less concerned. "thousands" of birds a decade?

      It is pretty much Bullshit. Birds manage to avoid all manner of moving things.

      It is also amusing to see my coal burning energy friends and their deep and abiding concern bout the birds - especially the ones who shoot anything that flies for the Lulz.

      • by arth1 ( 260657 )

        It is pretty much Bullshit. Birds manage to avoid all manner of moving things.

        The problem isn't birds hitting or being hit by the blades, but the vortices they create, which are strong enough to collapse bird lungs even when they clear the blade by a good margin. The birds have no natural instinct to detect and avoid invisible dangers normally not present in nature.
        A secondary problem (which is less of a problem in this case) is the noise they cause, which interrupts courting and nesting.

        • by dwywit ( 1109409 )

          I recall seeing a report about bats being found near the bases of wind turbines - dead, but the cause wasn't immediately apparent. You'd imagine bats' echo-location would be sufficient to avoid blades.

          Autopsies revealed severe lung damage, burst capillaries, etc, leading to the supposition of a sudden localised pressure drop, i.e. the vortices near wind turbine blades.

        • by dbIII ( 701233 )
          Peak oil hasn't happened but you've certainly hit peak bullshit. You really have a lot of contempt for the readers here don't you?
          Large buildings, very high cliffs etc all produce those sort of winds as well but they don't seem to be collapsing the lungs of birds. A violent storm is an order of magnitude stronger again.
        • The birds have no natural instinct to detect and avoid invisible dangers normally not present in nature.

          After a few generations, the birds will learn to detect them.

    • You guys realize that wind and solar farms literally kill thousands of birds every year, right?

      http://www.latimes.com/local/c... [latimes.com]

      6,000 birds a year at the Mojave Desert solar farm. You know... in the desert... where there are much less birds because.... it's a desert.

      I'm all for solar and wind. But let's stop pretending they don't have any drawbacks at all. Like the shear amount of rare earth minerals that have to be farmed by workers making $1.00/wk and dying from lung cancer.

      This is the perfect quote:

      >T

    • I think when "thousands" is being bandied around, it probably just means "I think it is a lot". I am sure there has been at least some research into this, and in my view it is definitely something worth taking into account when planning where to place windfarms, so we don't place them exactly where loads of vulnerable, migratory birds have their customary flight path - this is what makes this idea so attractive, because it makes it possible to choose sites with much more flexibility.

      I suspect the issue with

  • or U-Boats or the Spanish Armada. There is always something out to do harm to things off the British Isles.
  • by AlanObject ( 3603453 ) on Monday July 24, 2017 @08:18PM (#54871575)
    Trump hates wind farms.
    • by Xtifr ( 1323 )

      Making Trump mad would probably be counted as an unexpected-but-pleasant bonus to this by most Scots. :)

    • by DrXym ( 126579 )
      Yes and in part that's because of Scotland putting some close to his golf course. Think on that for a moment - this asshole forms a longlasting opinion about a major source of renewable energy because he doesn't what they look like from the links.
    • That's why we're getting as many as we can ;-)

  • The box behind the blades - the nacelle - could hold two double-decker buses

    If this is true, these things a gigantic...I need to pay a visit if they will allow me.

    Can any "Slashdotter" collaborate the nacelle's size metric? Hard to believe.

  • Ted Kennedy was famous for opposing a wind farm near his beach house because he thought it ruined the view. I'm guessing he's not the only one. Sea side wind needs to not piss off the wealthy who own that beach front property.
    • by unrtst ( 777550 )

      You sure that was Ted, and not Trump? https://www.theguardian.com/en... [theguardian.com]
      Or his own words: https://twitter.com/realdonald... [twitter.com]

      "@Al_Co: @realDonaldTrump Wind Turbines are Ugly and a FRAUD. Remove them. UK is going down the gutter." @aberdeenshire @AlexSalmond

      I have no idea how a wind turbine can be a fraud, but mixing in absurdities seems to be his MO.
      (fwiw, I don't doubt your claim)

      • by slew ( 2918 )

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

        Can't be denying those rich Commonwealth folk (e.g., Mitt Romney, John Kerry, and the Kennedy clan) views from their oceanfront properties...

      • by mpercy ( 1085347 )

        http://abcnews.go.com/US/story... [go.com]

        Minerals Management Service, an office of the U.S. Department of the Interior, will have the final say probably in early 2008, Gordon said. If approved at the federal level -- the wind farm's footprint would lie within the federal waters of Nantucket Sound -- Gordon would aim for completion in 2010.

        But another obstacle is a political heavyweight with a famous name, a local Cape Cod address and hardline opposition to the project.

        U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy's primary residence is

  • What happens if you combine this with harvesting wave energy? There are wave energy electric stations that are also based on platforms.

    If it is windy, it is wavy.

    Just saying...

  • Will it disappear for another 100 years too?

  • Gaia exhibiting her fine grasp of emergent behavior ...

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