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Power Government

Denmark Strikes Deal On Artificial Wind Energy Island (theguardian.com) 48

Posted by BeauHD from the largest-construction-project-in-Danish-history dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Denmark's government has agreed to take a majority stake in a 25 billion euro artificial "energy island," which is to be built 50 miles (80km) offshore, in the middle of the North Sea. The island to the west of the Jutland peninsula will initially have an area of 120,000 sq meters -- the size of 18 football pitches -- and in its first phase will be able to provide 3m households with green energy. It will be protected from North Sea storms on three sides by a high sea wall, with a dock for service vessels taking up the fourth side.

In a broad deal struck on Wednesday night, the Social Democrat government agreed with its support parties and the rightwing opposition that the state should hold a 51% stake in the island, with the remainder held by the private sector. The project builds on an inter-party deal struck in June on energy policy, in which the parties agreed to construct two wind energy hubs, one artificial and another centered on the Baltic island of Bornholm. The two hubs will initially support 5GW of wind generation and triple Denmark's current installed offshore wind. The capacity will later be expanded to as much as 12GW.
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Denmark Strikes Deal On Artificial Wind Energy Island More

Denmark Strikes Deal On Artificial Wind Energy Island

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  • Are those real football pitches, where players actually use their feet to control the ball, or the American kind which is more like rugby?

    My guess would be American because in football pitches it would be a bit less than 17.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by quenda ( 644621 )

      Nah, American football *fields* are much smaller. And why would Europeans use that?
      Danish football involves kicking a severed head saved from a viking raid, and has not been played since the 12th century. At least not commonly in public.

      While 120,000 sq.m. is 16.8 official standard football pitches, the actual size of soccer pitches varies wildly, so 18 is near enough.

      • Was that because of scarcity of Viking-severed heads after the 12th century? I see that curling was not the first sport limited by natural resources.

        • Was that because of a scarcity of Viking-severed heads after the 12th century?

          Viking raids began to fade in the 10th century. By the time of the Battle of Hastings, the Vikings had settled down, converted to Christianity, and turned to agriculture in the areas they used to raid. In Normandy, they were even speaking French.

          By 1200, the Medieval Warm Period was ending, and the climate was heading toward the Little Ice Age. This ended the population growth in Scandanavia that had fueled the Viking raids.

          Disclaimer: According to 23andMe, I am 12% Viking. My sister is only 8%, so I p

          • England should perform a "reverse Viking" (not to be confused with a "reverse cowboy"), periodically raiding the Danish island for all the electricity their boats can carry!

          • In Normandy, they were even speaking French.
            Actually, nope.
            It took quite a while until they really switched to French.
            Even William the Conquer mostly spoke danish.

            This ended the population growth in Scandanavia that had fueled the Viking raids.
            No one really knows what ever field the viking raids.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by xonen ( 774419 )

      I's still figuring out how 'Artificial Wind' would work, like some sort of perpetual motion machine, and how that applies to 3-meter housings, before i could dive into that deeper question.

    • Also, what is the airspeed velocity of an unladen football?

  • Probably an Academic Question now, but... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by ytene ( 4376651 ) on Saturday February 06, 2021 @09:58AM (#61033974)
    ... I wonder what the situation is with international law, the 12-mile limit and artificial islands?

    I suggest it is academic in this instance only because the North Sea has been so thoroughly explored in the search for oil and natural gas that I suspect we have a pretty good idea of what is to be found on and below the ocean floor there.

    But this does strike me as a pertinent question given, for example, what is happening in the South China Sea around locations such as the Spratley Islands, where China is dredging up sand and coral, mixing that with concrete, then basically making artificial islands for air bases in that area. I don't think international law would recognise "a patch of ocean" as belonging to any particularly nation that might try to claim it... but if that same nation built an artificial island in that "patch of ocean", which they then claimed as their territory, would that nation automatically get recognition, territorial claims out to the 12-mile limit, and so on?

    Going back to the Denmark example... The OP notes that the proposal will build an artificial island approximately 50 miles [80 km] off the Jutland Peninsula [the land mass that forms Denmark today]. That distance - the separation between the proposed location and Denmark, is well beyond the 12-mile limit.

    But let's take this to an extreme... Suppose Denmark were to extend that artificial island back to their mainland... but then keep on extending it, south and west, until it drew close to the Netherlands. That would have the effect of blocking a significant part of Germany's access to the North Sea, including all the maritime industries that can be found along the rivers Elbe and Weser. For example, Lürssen Yachts are built in Bremen, Rendsburg and Hamburg, so they wouldn't be best pleased...

    Obviously I'm not for one moment suggesting that Denmark would do such a thing... but the whole concept of "digging up the ocean bed, forming an artificial island and then claiming it as sovereign territory seems a bit dubious to me... If a new island formed naturally [I believe we've observed this in the Pacific thanks to vulcanism] then that's something slightly different. But artificial islands? That could get real thorny, real fast.

    • Re:Probably an Academic Question now, but... (Score:5, Informative)

      by skoskav ( 1551805 ) on Saturday February 06, 2021 @10:41AM (#61034018)

      I don't think international law would recognise "a patch of ocean" as belonging to any particularly nation that might try to claim it... but if that same nation built an artificial island in that "patch of ocean", which they then claimed as their territory, would that nation automatically get recognition, territorial claims out to the 12-mile limit, and so on?

      [...] but the whole concept of "digging up the ocean bed, forming an artificial island and then claiming it as sovereign territory seems a bit dubious to me... If a new island formed naturally [I believe we've observed this in the Pacific thanks to vulcanism] then that's something slightly different. But artificial islands? That could get real thorny, real fast.

      I think that your concerns are addressed in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea [un.org], specifically Article 60, section 7 and 8, to which the nearby nations have in some way ratified [un.org]:

      7. Artificial islands, installations and structures and the safety zones
      around them may not be established where interference may be caused to the
      use of recognized sea lanes essential to international navigation.

      8. Artificial islands, installations and structures do not possess the
      status of islands. They have no territorial sea of their own, and their presence
      does not affect the delimitation of the territorial sea, the exclusive economic
      zone or the continental shelf

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Whibla ( 210729 )

      ... I wonder what the situation is with international law, the 12-mile limit and artificial islands?

      The 12 mile limit was specified as part of the Convention of the High Seas, signed by 63 nations in 1958. The law has since moved on, notably with the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, signed in 1982. This latter treaty created the notion of Exclusive Economic Zones, which extend 200 miles from the baseline (the mean low water mark) and are areas of the sea in which a sovereign state has special rights regarding the exploration and use of marine resources, including energy production from

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Looking at the concept art it's not really an island, more like a very large oil rig kind of construction. Not clear if it is anchored or if it reaches all the way to seabed.

    • There is no 12 miles limit.
      Jurisdiction limit is 30 miles. So the artificial island is well inside of the current territory.
      And limit of exploiting the ocean is 200 miles.
      If countries are to close to each other, the limit is in the middle between them.

  • My first thoughts on reading the headline was "WTF is artificial wind?", then "Ok, how about artificial wind energy?, then "Wow, that was poorly worded."

    Either way, it sounds interesting, and I hope the engineering challenges can be resolved in such a way that it will be built to last.

    • There are several hundred fans on the plains around here in Austria and they are always blowing. The cost of electricity to power them must be enormous. Fortunately, there is a Russian built nuclear power station nearby in Slovakia to power them all.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by MrKaos ( 858439 )

        Fortunately, there is a Russian built nuclear power station nearby in Slovakia to power them all.

        With all that hot air wind power is more reliable than ever.

  • In Europe, what will they do about the lawyers screaming about damage to undersea species? Such a monstrously large project has gotta be worth a few dozen luxury yachts in settlements before the red tape is cleared 12 years from now.

    This is not a sarcasm.

    • In Europe, what will they do about the lawyers screaming about damage to undersea species? Such a monstrously large project has gotta be worth a few dozen luxury yachts in settlements before the red tape is cleared 12 years from now.

      This is not a sarcasm.

      Can't be worse than the oil platforms in the same area the island is replacing ;)

      And no, I doubt there is any money to be made in such ludicrious court cases, and settlements are illegal in Denmark and considered a form of bribery (denying justice).

      • https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.go... [nih.gov]
        https://www.asme.org/topics-re... [asme.org]

        Offshore oil and gas platforms are very productive. Fishing companies howled when the original North Sea platforms were planned, resulting in regulations that they be removed down to the sea bed at the end of life. When that time came, the fishing companies howled that they remain.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by amorsen ( 7485 )

        Can't be worse than the oil platforms in the same area the island is replacing ;)

        The actual structures of oil platforms are a boon for life in the sea. They act like artificial reefs. The various dumpings of waste from those platforms are not so beneficial...

        Not so with artificial islands. All the material that does not get into the right place will leave a dead zone on the sea floor.

        Building steel platforms is a vastly better idea than islands. It is also well-known technology with an established supply chain and reasonably reliable deliveries.

        • We have pretty good experiences with artificial islands as well. The pepper islet made for the Øresund bridge, caused a swell in marine wildlife in the area.

    • Building stuff at sea, usually helps sea life, as artificial reefs. Most of the sea is a desert and most life is concentrated around reefs. Wind turbines, oil rigs etc function as reefs.
      • Last summer, I was involved in the removal of a natural gas platform and associated subsea structures. I can see why the platform had to go, but the rest was a shame, as the only place you see anything living was around these structures. The surrounding area was like an empty desert.

    • European law does not have "settlements".

  • So if your house is higher than 10 feet. you are not allowed to use that power?
    Is that the roof height or just the ceiling?

  • That's 'bout three hundred fiddy meters squared,
    says the Loch Ness monster.

  • Add a few bungalows for rent, a casino, some shops and a nude beach while you're at it.

  • For those who are science nerds around here, and specially astronomy, this "windy island" reminds me of Tycho Brahe.

    He is a Danish aristocrat and astronomer/astrologer in the mid to late 1500s, who was granted an island by the Swedish king to build an observatory. It was built and named Uraniborg, only to find that his instruments were inaccurate due to the windy place, so he built another observatory below ground level.

    His observations led Johannes Kepler to confirm Copernicus' model of Helicentrism, adjus

  • 3m households is a lot, in a country of 5.8m people. Industry, transportation and other uses will need other sources but looking at the population number if feels like 50bn up front might not be that huge.

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