Dutch Utility Plans Massive Wind Farm Island In North Sea (theguardian.com) 141
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Britain's homes could be lit and powered by wind farms surrounding an artificial island deep out in the North Sea, under advanced plans by a Dutch energy network. The radical proposal envisages an island being built to act as a hub for vast offshore wind farms that would eclipse today's facilities in scale. Dogger Bank, 125km (78 miles) off the East Yorkshire coast, has been identified as a potentially windy and shallow site. The power hub would send electricity over a long-distance cable to the UK and Netherlands, and possibly later to Belgium, Germany, and Denmark. TenneT, the project's backer and Dutch equivalent of the UK's National Grid, recently shared early findings of a study that said its plan could be billions of euros cheaper than conventional wind farms and international power cables. The sci-fi-sounding proposal is sold as an innovative answer to industry's challenge of continuing to make offshore wind cheaper, as turbines are pushed ever further off the coast to more expensive sites as the best spots closer to land fill up.
Re: (Score:3)
Power cables like this are a tad too thick for "snip".
But yes, multiple cables is preferable, because the surface area is bigger, and electricity only travels along the surface of cables.
I would like to know the environmental impact of the cables, though. Doggerbank is home to a lot of fish species, precisely because the water isn't that deep. Many of which have electricity sensing organs. Signal cables are bad enough for some types of sharks. It needs to be investigated what the impact is for power cab
Re: (Score:2)
Too much power is pushed down one cable for too long, well past any manufacturer design limits.
So the owners can make a profit or support unexpected energy demand for longer.
The nice "thick" then fails due to owner induced over use beyond any limits set by the manufacturer.
Thats why redundancy is always needed.
Governments and the private sector don't read what the manufacturer said about only using their product within set limits for a set ti
Re: (Score:2)
Too much power is pushed down one cable for too long, well past any manufacturer design limits.
The nice "thick" then fails due to owner induced over use beyond any limits set by the manufacturer.
Gee, maybe they could give you a job there. I bet they don't have any real engineers yet.
Re: (Score:2)
A few things you could have answered by RTFA: /. "engineers"). They have been building offshore wind turbines for many years.
- They plan multiple cables to the surrounding countries: Norway, Denmark, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, UK
- The cables will be be DC which is more efficient
- They have real engineers who know how to design stuff (unlike the
Re: (Score:1)
Hope nobody thinks to investigate why the power really failed.
Recover the evidence that points to too much power for too long.
Re: (Score:2)
Shouldn't the cable asset depreciate in taxable value over time, and when it falls below some threshold, i.e. $0, they know they need to replace it?
Nah, because the cost of replacing the cable pretty much wipes out normal depreciation schedules
Re: (Score:2)
Skin effect is an AC thing, not DC.
Re: (Score:2)
Skin effect applies to all electric flow, not just AC. Google it.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
They're using DC, not AC so your faulty reasoning doesn't apply.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, you are correct that skin effect is present at all frequencies and increases at higher frequencies.
This power plant uses DC transmission so it's kind of irrelevant.
Re: (Score:2)
Interestingly even at 50-60Hz it seems like it does have an effect
http://circuitcalculator.com/w... [circuitcalculator.com]
It's 9.81 mm at 60hz, 10.7 mm at 50Hz, though if you use the formula on wikipedia you get a slightly different answer of 9.22 mm, but I'm too lazy to look it up in a proper source.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
In Engineering Electromagnetics, Hayt points out[page needed] that in a power station a busbar for alternating current at 60 Hz with a radius larger than one-third of an inch (8 mm) is a waste of copper, and in practice bus bars for heavy AC current are rarely more than half an inch (12 mm) thick except for mechanical reasons.
If you look at these high power cables, it looks like they're made of a bunch of smaller cables, each with a diameter of about 8-10mm.
https://electronics.stackexcha... [stackexchange.com]
Re: (Score:2)
I would like to know the environmental impact of the cables, though. Doggerbank is home to a lot of fish species, precisely because the water isn't that deep. Many of which have electricity sensing organs. Signal cables are bad enough for some types of sharks. It needs to be investigated what the impact is for power cables, both those lying on the ocean floor and those hanging from the windmillls.
Electrical transmission by submarine Power cable has been around for quite some time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] and is in regular use in both fresh and salt water.
There aren't a lot of studies about this, my conjecture about that is that the cables are pretty well wrapped. Anyhow here's one study https://psmag.com/environment/... [psmag.com] The conclusion is that three feet away from the cables, the field is pretty much undetectable.
My conclusion is that it is not an issue.
Re: (Score:2)
You can look at cross-sections of undersea umbilical cables [esonetyellowpages.com]
These are shielded and wrapped in multiple layers [offshore-technology.com] of waterproof rubber, carbon fibre, rubber, insulation, copper shielding and power cables.
Re: (Score:2)
You must be American. No one else would flaunt ignorance like this.
Re: (Score:2)
https://www.dailystar.co.uk/ne... [dailystar.co.uk]
Jens Moller Jensen, of Copenhagen Police, said: "The arm has not been investigated yet, but it was found in the same area as the first and it was weighted down similarly. Therefore, we assume that the arm is connected to the submarine case."
This is like something out of Fargo. Got to love Scandinavians.
The Dutch have done this for a while. B-) (Score:5, Interesting)
The Dutch have expanded into the ocean and used wind power for quite a while.
They've expanded their country by building dikes, pumping out water using windmill pumps, and reclaiming the seabed.
Building an artificial island and surrounding it with windmills to generate enormous amounts of electrical energy (rather than, say, building nuclear reactors) is right in character. B-)
(Back in the mid 20th century, one of the Lampoon magazines had a joke conspiracy theory article about the Dutch taking over the world by expanding out into the ocean and pushing the water up onto everybody else's country. It somehow involved people in other countries being awakened by the sound of chainsaws, wielded by invading Dutch military squads, being applied to their kitchen doors (to convert them into the two-segment, house-ventilating, "Dutch doors").)
Re: (Score:1)
rather than, say, building nuclear reactors
Thankfully the Dutch are also building nuclear reactors. Safer thorium reactor trials could salvage nuclear power [engadget.com] The Dutch are aware that there are mathematical limits to renewable energy (due to intermittency), and consequently they are building clean baseload nuclear energy.
Given the reality of climate change, it is immoral to oppose nuclear power
Re: (Score:1)
Wrong. The future of energy is energy storage and nuclear power is entirely redundant, supremely expensive, and a disaster in the worst case. Vacuum flywheels, water pumps, hot water storage, any number of ways exist to invest in medium-term energy storage. All are better investments than nuclear.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
What about a nuclear reactor on an artificial island, far from any inhabited area? One with multiple electrical power links to the mainland? I have an idea on where they could build this artificial island.
Re: (Score:3)
What about a nuclear reactor on an artificial island, far from any inhabited area?
Now we're venturing into James Bond Villain territory...
Re: (Score:2)
What would this James Bond villain do with his nuclear reactor on an artificial island? Threaten to sell electricity at below market prices or.... not?
Re: (Score:2)
He’d drive every other electric utility out of business. Then, he’d...
RAISE THE RATES!
Re:The Dutch have done this for a while. B-) (Score:5, Insightful)
Aside from the expense of trying to build such a complex device and supply/maintain it on an island, the extreme weather is probably more than anyone can certify a nuclear plant for anyway.
Why bother spending more on a nuclear plant and running and decommissioning costs when you can just build a cheaper, cleaner wind farm? The wind farm won't need subsidies either, and the energy will be cheaper. Much cheaper.
Re: (Score:2)
The thing is that with nuclear power, all the people operating one say that the chances of their plant blowing up is on the order of 1 in a million per year or less. But over the past 5 decades we've seen WAY more bad mishaps happening causing damage to a very large area.... So the conclusion MUST be: We cannot safely use nuclear power on this planet.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I disagree with you. It turns out a lot of scientists disagree with you as well. The Dutch also disagree with you.
The leading 100% renewable plan has been debunked by the national academy of science [pnas.org]. It is not feasible with current technology. Energy storage is expensive. Yes nuclear is expensive as well, but 4th generation reactors can be factory built. The Dutch are innovating in that technology.
We need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. There is a reason the world's leading climate scienti
Re: (Score:1)
You were doing quite well until the end when you gave your deception away. You compared Germany to France, not how Germany has improved from where it started from. You selected France because it has the largest proportional of nuclear power in the world, but neglected to mention that they have decided not to fund any more of it and that decision nearly made two of their nuclear operators bankrupt. In other words, it was a corporate welfare programme and now they have a better, cheaper alternative.
Re: (Score:2)
My deception? What deception? I compared Germany and France because they are similar. They are both European countries with strong economies. Their populations are close enough in population to draw meaningful comparisons along with their annual energy usage. The made different decisions on energy which resulted in German electricity being 10x dirtier.
I can also compare Germany to Finland. Finland currently is using 30% nuclear with plans to increase that to 60% [wikipedia.org]. Not surprising given the high qual
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
In the grandparent post I saw links to a number of very interesting articles on how nuclear power is the only solution to the problem of greenhouse gas emissions. The parent post is just ad hominem. Interesting isn't it?
You can claim that wind and solar power is the solution to our greenhouse gas problem but without some kind of data that claim is rather empty, no? Sure, we do in fact see plenty of wind and solar power capacity being developed. In fact I see windmill parts being transported down the int
Re: (Score:2)
Why are you since years repeating the lie that nuclear power produces less CO2 than wind and solar?
Then later can basically installed with zero CO2 emissions, the first likely never will have zero (transportatin, mining etc.)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
No, but I have common sense.
The plants itself don't produce CO2.
The production of the plants won't produce CO2 in future when they are build with non CO2 producing electricity.
So the remaining thing, which might take longer to get rid off, is transportation to the building site and building the plant up.
In the end basically none of the thee technologoies will produce any CO2. So it is pretty idiotic to make CO2 comparision graphs about technologies that don't produce CO2 in the forst place.
Why solar energy
Re: (Score:3)
George Monbiot, in The Guardian, to his credit, did point out that the greens assume wind and solar will benefit from progress, whilst denying the same progress advantages for nuclear.
We all need energy. All energy companies are vested interests. Sixty years ago the British Coal Board put out a video saying nuclear was not here yet, not a reliable option. Money, politics, vested interests all round, all trying to sway public opinion.
Wind and solar are still in their early phase where it all looks full of fu
Re: (Score:2)
Nuclear power seems to have a negative learning curve. Each new nuclear plant seems to cost more than prior plants. This has been observed over decades. Wind and solar, OTOH, have been observed to get cheaper over time with dramatically lower costs each year.
Re: (Score:2)
Perhaps that’s a trend. But as an analogy, I remember early smart phones which had such awful interfaces, that if you’d asked me, I would have thought they had no future. Then one company got together the right mix of ingredients, and suddenly it all changed. Likewise, space rockets.
The public are right to be highly skeptical of nucler, but maybe the problems will be solved with new designs.
Re: The Dutch have done this for a while. B-) (Score:2)
You'd think that after 50 years they could have figured it out but it just keeps getting more expensive.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:The Dutch have done this for a while. B-) (Score:4, Insightful)
Look, the nuclear industry* has promised us a pony that turned out to glow in the dark and have two heads so many times, that the first time I will support a thorium-based reactor is if private industry develops and runs a prototype for 5 years in the CEO's backyard, not a moment sooner.
Meanwhile, in the real world, nuclear power relies heavily on subsidies, has a massive waste problem and is tied in with the political hairy problem of Proliferation.
The money wasted on new powerplants might as well be spent researching power storage solutions.
*NOTE: I said industry. I am not against nuclear power per se, but the current industry is a malicious beast that massively overpromises and underdelivers, and it has to die and reconstructed before I will take nuclear power seriously as an alternative.
Re: (Score:2)
Let's get real. Nuclear is one of the least subsidies electricity sources. Renewables are subsidized at a much higher rate.
Waste is not a massive problem. It is a red herring. Check out this youtube video series [youtube.com]. Honestly waste is not an issue. The number of people have ever been killed or even injured from
Re: (Score:1)
Thank you for nicely proving my point.
Re: (Score:2)
the first time I will support a thorium-based reactor is if private industry develops and runs a prototype for 5 years in the CEO's backyard, not a moment sooner.
Not going to happen for a good reason. An industry which is treated with fear and contempt will attract dangerous overregulation. That is precisely what happened in the nuclear industry with dedicated one size fits all standards which leave no room for innovation or development. Designing exclusively to the standard has resulted in no proper process developement in many years and the lack of new project (again driven by fear) has left the industry with old equipment lacking even the most basic of modern saf
Re: (Score:1)
Nice to own a new island and have a other nations submit to contracts making them dependant on your "green" energy at a nice profit.
Hold on just one second! (Score:2)
How did they solve the Don Quixote problem? ;)
Re: (Score:2)
Ooh, I know this one! By tilting the windmills, right?
Re: (Score:3)
"How did they solve the Don Quixote problem? ;)"
Water. Lots and lots of water.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Drain the water away.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
By sending it to Spain?
Re: (Score:2)
By enlisting Meghan Markle to play Dulcinea.
Re: (Score:3)
Health care that extends to not letting people with mental problems roam the country side on horseback, with weapons from the middle ages.
Re: (Score:2)
Trump would abolish that in an instant
Re: (Score:2)
Standard minimum ground clearance for the rotors is something like 20m, chosen to minimize events like Quixote strikes, which could be ugly given that the blades can be moving at 80 m/sec, or about 180 mph.
Re: (Score:1)
By declaring independence and kicking the Spanish out [wikipedia.org]?
Sounds like a great idea! (Score:1)
Let's do this. Not because I think that off shore wind power is a good idea but because I think that this would be a good place to put a nuclear power plant.
I expect them to build this artificial island, lay the power cables, and put up the windmills, only to later have a storm come along and damage enough windmills, or some other problem, to send them into bankruptcy. At that point they'll have this island with the infrastructure for a power plant and not much else to do with it.
They show the island with
Re: (Score:1)
Let's do this. Not because I think that off shore wind power is a good idea but because I think that this would be a good place to put a nuclear power plant.
I expect them to build this artificial island, lay the power cables, and put up the windmills, only to later have a storm come along and damage enough windmills, or some other problem, to send them into bankruptcy. At that point they'll have this island with the infrastructure for a power plant and not much else to do with it.
They show the island with a landing strip for airplanes, and facilities for bringing in cargo by sea, so I guess this island could be used for a lot of things. I don't know how big the island is planned to be, and how long of a runway it could support, but if a long enough runway could be built then it could be a place to build an airport. Japan did this. Although Japan did this for the much more pressing problem of a lack of large flat areas for an airport, a problem that Europe does not have, yet.
When it comes to concerns of a nuclear power plant being damaged by a storm like windmills there is plenty of evidence of this not being a problem. There was just a major hurricane that slammed into a nuclear power plant in Florida and it was operating through the storm. When it comes to incidents like Fukushima we've learned on how to avoid them in the future. The reactors at Fukushima were very old and not up to modern specs of safety, and had long known safety violations but was allowed to continue operating regardless. In short, don't do that again.
In the unlikely event of a meltdown then there would be no need of an evacuation beyond the island itself. So, sure, build this island. I expect them to fail only to build a nuclear power plant on the site later.
Why was this modded down? Are people afraid the island would encroach on fishing in the area? Spoil the pristine waters or some BS?
Let's see if the windmills work. If they don't then let's do something productive with the island. Make it a wildlife preserve or something. I'm not sure how that would work with the windmills interfering with the birds flying over. Maybe bring some cats to the island to consume all the dead birds.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Oh, I have no doubt that six more nuclear reactors will shutter in 2018. I also have little doubt we'll see at least ten new ones come online.
It's all over but the shouting (Score:5, Insightful)
It won't be long before wind and solar have reached the point where they won't need any subsidies at all to compete with fossil fuels...which no doubt will still enjoy the billions of dollars in direct and indirect subsidies they get right now.
It's unfortunate that North America squandered its opportunity to lead the world in developing and manufacturing the means to provide renewable energy, thanks to lobbying by fossil fuel corporations and low-information taxpayers who have never figured out how little they spend subsidizing renewables, and how much they spend subsidizing oil, gas, and coal.
The U.S. isn't a good site for offshore wind (Score:5, Interesting)
In contrast, the U.S. west coast (where winds from the ocean are strongest and most consistent) pretty much has no continental shelf [google.com]. I'm in Southern California, and when I go fishing, by the time I'm a half km from shore, the water is already deeper than the North Sea. By about 3-5 km offshore, the water is a half kilometer deep. The east coast is better off [google.com], with a continental shelf that extends about 50-100 km out that's about 100-200 meters deep. But the wind blows predominantly from west to east, meaning the wind on this continental shelf is mostly spoiled by land, so is inconsistent and doesn't blow as strongly as off Europe. That's why most of the offshore wind in the U.S. has concentrated off the coast of Massachusetts - the land there makes a sharp turn to the east, providing about 200 km of continental shelf with wind unspoiled by land to the west.
The subsidy on oil and gas, if attributed entirely to gasoline alone, works out to about 2.3 cents per gallon. Even if you take the high estimates some people like to use (which includes things like low income assistance to purchase home heating oil), it works out to about 10 cents per gallon. The Federal fuel tax on gasoline is 18.4 cents per gallon, plus about 30 cents per gallon at the state and local level. So there's no net subsidy for fossil fuels. Rather there's a huge tax on it (albeit not as big as in other countries). Huge enough to more than swamp out the coal subsidies (which are only about 1/4 that of oil and gas subsidies).
So low-information or not, they're still right. The people complaining about the "huge" subsidies fossil fuels get always look at total dollar amounts. The total amount is huge because the vast majority of our energy is still derived from fossil fuels. If you instead look at the subsidy per unit of energy generated (i.e. how much the subsidy skews the price, depending on the energy source), you can see how massive renewable subsidies are [ncpa.org] compared to fossil fuels and nuclear.
There's nothing wrong with this - you want to subsidize technologies you wish to develop more quickly. But arguing rewewables subsidies are underfunded compared to fossil fuels based on total dollar amount is just plain ignorant. It's like complaining that California gets $4 billion in federal highway funding while Wyoming only gets $360 million. It's not because Wyoming is being short-changed, it's because California has a lot more roads (and cars) than Wyoming. The proper comparison in that case would be federal highway dollars per mile of road (or perhaps miles driven on said roads). Just like the proper comparison for energy subsidies is per kWh or per megajoule.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Do you have a citation for your subsidy figures? I'd like to see if they include externalised costs, wars etc. Not to mention that we are looking at electricity, not gasoline.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
> Uhh, the source was linked in his post [ncpa.org].
Ugh. NCPA is a well-known oil-shill. [exxonsecrets.org] I wouldn't take anything they say at face value.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
MOD parent up.
Re: (Score:1)
Why are you commenting about gasoline subsidies, then throwing around words like "ignorant"? We're talking about electricity. Have you ever heard the term "comparing apples and oranges"?
Re: (Score:2)
Most of US municipal electricity is generated using fossil fuels [eia.gov].
Re: (Score:2)
By that reasoning, the bigger and more successful a company becomes, the more subsidies it should get.
Re: (Score:1)
The US, unfortunately, isn't a leader when one considers the amount of energy it uses versus the amount it generates in one renewable way or another.
I agree with pretty much everything you said, but I think we have to accept that a country with very high energy use will post pretty large raw numbers even if just a small percentage of its generating capacity is "green". On the other hand Denmark, which is tiny, generated 42% of its electricity from wind in 2016.
Here's a link to a list of countries doing wel
Dutch and Wind? (Score:2)
Dutch and wind in the article, and no one has posted some sort of Dutch Oven joke yet?
I would, but I'm coming up with nothing at the moment.
Re: (Score:3)
Nor any comments about Dutch boys putting their fingers in dykes... er, dikes.
Re: (Score:2)
It sounds like some sort of sexual prevresion which I'm not familiar with, and that always attracts attention.
Re: (Score:2)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2)
HVDC from turbines? (Score:2)
Those undersea cables will be high voltage DC, which is difficult to generate. Can the turbines directly generate the DC and avoid a conversion step?
Re: (Score:2)
Those undersea cables will be high voltage DC, which is difficult to generate. Can the turbines directly generate the DC and avoid a conversion step?
Of course they can. Have you never heard of a bridge rectifier? Your car's alternator supplies DC to the battery on a regular basis. The alternator uses the same principles to generate electricity as a wind turbine.
Re: (Score:2)
I'd obviously differ with jittles on this, but I'd class a bridge rectifier (or indeed, any rectifier) as a conversion step. I can't think of any technology for rectification which doesn't involve an appreciable forward voltage drop, and therefore an energy cost.
I'm not even sure that by splitting the rotor into multiple coils on a commutator [wikipedia.org] would help a lot. If you only
Re: (Score:2)
I'd obviously differ with jittles on this, but I'd class a bridge rectifier (or indeed, any rectifier) as a conversion step. I can't think of any technology for rectification which doesn't involve an appreciable forward voltage drop, and therefore an energy cost.
Ahh I missed the end of that sentence from the GP. Obviously it is impossible to make a conversion without a conversion step. Everyone knows that a turbine is going to want to produce AC instead of DC. I still say that DC is quite trivial to generate, however. You could teach a 12 year old the proper knowledge to create an AC to DC transformer.
Re: (Score:2)
The chemistry of pouring liquid hydrocarbons fuel onto a fire is fundamentally the same as that of the diesel engine ; the engineering is a little different.
Re: (Score:3)
The article says they'll build an island close to the turbines. The turbines will generate AC and send it a short distance to the island. The island will convert the AC to DC for the long links to the mainland.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The Dutch have been building "wind farms" all round the north sea (eg South and East England) for about 300 YEARS, and there have been DC cables carrying megawatts between UK and France since the 1950's.
Plus anything that makes the Dogger Bank more visible to sailors will save a lot of lives in the long run - there are massive numbers of shipwrecks there because of the shallow water. (Nothing to do with Vodka at all, honest).
Can someone explain why this is better? (Score:2)
I mean, I get it's not an eyesore as some people claim, if it's offshore, but surely the cost of shipping the items out there and running a hefty cable back to land is astronomical?
Also servicing?
Is there that little free land in the region?
Re:Can someone explain why this is better? (Score:4, Informative)
I mean, I get it's not an eyesore as some people claim, if it's offshore, but surely the cost of shipping the items out there and running a hefty cable back to land is astronomical? Also servicing?
Is there that little free land in the region?
A few things to consider:
- There is indeed little free space the way it is -- the entire country is about twice the size of New Jersey, with similar population density. (16,000 square miles, over 17,000,000 people, 1062 people per square mile). No sky scrapers.
- The Netherlands is *really* flat -- about half is actually below sea level, and probably over 80% at less than 8m / 25 ft above sea level.
- You'll get much higher wind speeds / more energy generation on top of hills (of which there are few), or off-shore in the middle of unobstructed sea.
- The North Sea is relatively shallow (overall mean depth of 300ft/ 90 meters, but much shallower in many areas. Still, I'd expect that they'd use artificial structures similar to oil drill platforms to install the windmills rather than 'true' islands
Re: (Score:2)
The project is (at least partly, perhaps majorly) to power the UK. The UK has lots of space to put wind turbines in windy places.
The old rural NIMBYs just don't want them, so the UK government (whose support base is mostly older, rural-er, NIMBYer people) has decided not to approve any wind turbine projects on land.
The real answer is: put them on land, and raise the middle finger to the old rural people. They don't care, they won't be around when the global climate is completely broken by their selfishness.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, that's quite contentions. Most of the UK's windier places are in the remote highlands and peninsulas of Scotland. Where you have several other real concerns, like the energy cost of long transmission lines to market.
That's a genuine problem, I agree, but y
Re: (Score:2)
Europe already has at least a hundred GW of offshore generation, unlike the USA....
When you look at per-capita total wind generation (not just offshore), you'll see the US is about the same as the EU. Now, most of ours is on-shore, but that's because our West coast (where the wind is best) has essentially zero continental shelf, unlike Europe. So we have very few places, if any, where you can put offshore generation on the West coast. So we put it elsewhere. I do not see how you can penalize the US for having the misfortune of geography that is not conducive to offshore wind farms on
Is it 2013 again? (Score:5, Interesting)
125km undersea cables could be good practice (Score:2)
The Paleontologists Will Be Angry (Score:2)
They've been finding all sorts of good stuff (mammoth and other "modern" fossils, even archaeological finds) from dredging, fishermen, and the like. Well, maybe they'll be able to check out the stuff being dredged up to build the island.
I was worried about shipwrecks and the like (since there've been numerous naval engagements in the area). But apparently none were actually on the Dogger Bank itself (the German warship Blucher being the closest and it's 50 miles away). Still, navigation is going to get e
Re: (Score:2)
Dumbass UK (Score:1)
The Brexiters will have the knives out (Score:2)
International cooperation - nope, that's something that the British government and Brexiting majority would never accept. Gunboats will be dispatched to defend our borders from these filthy foreigners and their disgusting non-1950s stereotype ideas. And we'll man the gunboats with Dad's Army volunteers and get Gibraltar to pay for it!
(sgd) Swivel-Eyed Loon
Re: (Score:3)
I bet you can sell wind farm plans to trump quite easily.
"See the dutch thing? we will do it, but with BIGGER towers, and eagle wing shaped turbines! it will make em look like complete wimps!"
Re: (Score:3)
"See the dutch thing? we will do it, but with BIGGER towers, and eagle wing shaped turbines!
"Why do those wing-shaped turbines have a right-angle bend in th- ... oh. I get it."
As for the article: "The sci-fi-sounding proposal" ? If you were born in 1913, perhaps.