Construction Begins On New York's First Offshore Wind Farm (theverge.com) 74
New York State broke ground on Friday on its first offshore wind farm, kicking off a boom in similar projects aimed at transforming the state's -- and the nation's -- energy mix. The Verge reports: The South Fork Wind project off the coast of Long Island is expected to be operational by the end of 2023. New York has the largest pipeline of offshore wind projects underway of any state in the nation, with five in active development. South Fork Wind is being billed as one of the first-ever commercial-scale offshore wind farms in North America. Once completed, it should be able to generate 130 megawatts (MW) of power -- enough to power 70,000 homes in nearby East Hampton.
That alone amounts to a major scaling up of offshore wind capacity in the US. The nation so far only has two operational wind farms along its coasts -- off the shores of Rhode Island and Virginia -- with a combined capacity of just 42 MW. That's set to change dramatically over the next few years. Orsted and Eversource, the energy companies developing South Fork, have an even bigger project in the works nearby: Sunrise Wind, a 924-MW wind farm that's expected to break ground next year. Altogether, all the offshore projects under development in New York state's current portfolio total over 4,300 MW of clean energy. By 2035, the state hopes to harness more than twice as much renewable energy from offshore wind.
That alone amounts to a major scaling up of offshore wind capacity in the US. The nation so far only has two operational wind farms along its coasts -- off the shores of Rhode Island and Virginia -- with a combined capacity of just 42 MW. That's set to change dramatically over the next few years. Orsted and Eversource, the energy companies developing South Fork, have an even bigger project in the works nearby: Sunrise Wind, a 924-MW wind farm that's expected to break ground next year. Altogether, all the offshore projects under development in New York state's current portfolio total over 4,300 MW of clean energy. By 2035, the state hopes to harness more than twice as much renewable energy from offshore wind.
what about tidal turbines (Score:5, Interesting)
Tidal turbines on the other hand, are much smaller machines, must less waste to worry about ending up in landfills. Also, Unlike wind, the tides are pretty much a given at all times. they are also underwater and not an eyesore.
In reality, we should probably be utilizing multiple different technologies vs focusing on any single technology going forward, it seems that we are starting to do that which is nice.
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Ya, and the new Jesus is the rootin'est, tootin'est cowboy East, West, North, and South of the Pecos.
(New Yosemite Sam cartoon, Evangelicals will love it)
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I see what you did there.
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What's your objection to offshore wind turbines?
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What was supposed to be funny about that comment?
But the joke I was looking for was about "breaking ground" in the water. Maybe they have to freeze the ocean first?
Re: what about tidal turbines (Score:5, Insightful)
The technology of tidal turbines just isn't there yet. It's still at the "working it out and working how to scale it up based on a bunch of installations" phase. All the articles about tidal energy talk about it as ongoing development. I'm sure that as soon as it becomes more economical (and it's long term costs known) then investment in it will soar for the predictable-base-load reason you mention.
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Nothing will make these bitches happy. As soon as someone develops tidal technology they'll be bitching about how this runs oyster habitats.
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Re:what about tidal turbines (Score:4, Informative)
We do need to make more effort to recycle wind turbines, but we can and do already recycle parts of them and we know how to do the other bits (mainly the blades). It's an economic issue, as in it's just not economical to do it at the moment.
That was the case for switching away from fossil fuels, and we fixed that. We can fix this too.
Re:what about tidal turbines (Score:5, Informative)
I would much prefer we installed tidal turbines.
I would much prefer we just built and turned on a fusion reactor, since we're in a fairy land where mythical technology never demonstrated working at any reasonable scale apparently just magically works.
Oooh oooh wait. Fusion reactors IN THE OCEAN! Now we're talking.
Please don't ever "prefer" installing something experimental as a solution to a problem of long term management. You have zero basis to compare the long term viability of tidal to wind, since we have zero long term tidal installations. Pleas stick to "preferring" solutions we can actually build today, at scale, and which can actually solve problems, and leave everything else to science fiction writers.
Re:what about tidal turbines (Score:4, Informative)
Also, Unlike wind, the tides are pretty much a given at all times.
Perhaps you want to read up a little bit about:
a) what tides are
b) how tides work (more precisely, get created).
You have 4 times a day a 2 hour period: where there is no tide. That is 1/3rd of every damn day. Wind does not have that issue, though.
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That's not the case. Here is a diagram of the types of tide you get: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
The only time when the water isn't moving is when the curve is flat. If you choose the most common type of tide, the semidiurnal tide, you can see that there are 8 times a day when the water isn't moving, but they are brief. The rest of the time the water is moving, it just depends on the rate.
You can either just live with that and have highly predictable, reliable energy with maybe some backup for the slow
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the semidiurnal tide, you can see that there are 8 times a day when the water isn't moving, but they are brief.
No, they are not brief. They are roughly 2h long.
A tide is 6h long. From 1h before and 1h after either max level or lowest lever: there is no tidal flow.
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Of all the problems tidal power generation has, slack tide is not the main issue. Perhaps you should read up a little bit about it?
1) tides are predictable years in advance
2) slack tide times are relatively short
3) slack tide occurs at different times over short distances. E.g. the south coast of England has 1h15 difference in time. Even opposite sides of the Isle of White has different times.
4) wind is very unpredictable
5) wind is very variable
6) weather systems cover large areas. E.g. the UK can gener
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And here are some graphs that show the UK's wind generation and how it goes up and down: https://gridwatch.templar.co.u... [templar.co.uk]
Re: what about tidal turbines (Score:2)
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Please don't put too much weight on that part of my comment, but focus on the rest. I had it in the back of mind about something I read the other day about electricity usage going up in summer, but the graphs here contradict that: https://gridwatch.templar.co.u... [templar.co.uk] In fairness, all offices I've worked in the last decade in the UK have been air conditioned, even though homes aren't.
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Where I live it gets much hotter and humid as well, but we do have widespread A/C.
On one of my few trips to Europe, maybe 20 years ago, a connecting flight at Heathrow was cancelled, forcing me to stay in London for a day. About 32C, humid, and no A/C in the hotel. It felt pretty awful to me, though others seemed less bothered by it. I ended up ditching the hotel and waiting at the airport instead, which was comfortably cool.
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2) slack tide times are relatively short
No, they are about 2h, and occur 4 times a day.
3) slack tide occurs at different times over short distances. E.g. the south coast of England has 1h15 difference in time. Even opposite sides of the Isle of White has different times.
Yes. That is correct. So when it is slack now west side of the south coast, it is slack 1h15 minutes later east side of the south coast.
That means: over a course of 2h - 3h it is always slack south coast.
No offenses. Nothing against tidal po
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Or of course you can build enough of them over a wide enough range that it smooths out. Systems based on tidal pools or barrages reduce or eliminate the problem altogether. Instead of insisting everybody else is wrong, perhaps stop digging yourself in to a deeper hole and admit you don't know much about the topic.
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Or of course you can build enough of them over a wide enough range that it smooths out.
China could. If it had a coastline with strong tidal currents. England can't.
Systems based on tidal pools or barrages reduce or eliminate the problem altogether.
No it does not. It is even worth. You only have 2 - 4 hours per tide change to utilize them.
You should really look up how tides work. Best is: make a sailing license, then you get it for free, and have some fun and meet hot chicks.
Instead of insisting everybod
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Seriously, how old are you? Clearly not getting laid at all, and presumably this is the only way you've found to spend any time near women: with them trapped on a small boat with you.
You're such an arrogant, ignorant prick: I am a qualified sailor. In fact I've been sailing on and off all my life, starting at the age of 5 when I lived by the sea in Cyprus to racing on
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So you are a sailor, and don't not know anything about tides?
Does not make any sense, sorry.
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We don't have tidal turbines to install. There's nowhere that's seriously trying to put this in to production at the moment, is there? Presumably this is because of the high up-front costs, difficulty with maintenance and corrosion/fouling and the environmental impact. Maybe we'll get there eventually, but nowhere seems to be in a rush to deploy this. Meanwhile off-shore wind generation is proving to be popular, it's widely deployed and the costs are coming down. Wind power is a proven technology.
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There's nowhere that's seriously trying to put this in to production at the moment, is there?
There are plenty of companies, especially in UK/Scotland that actually are installing tidal power plants.
Does not fix/change the fact that you obviously have no clue how tides work.
Wind Power replacing Indian Point Nuclear (Score:5, Informative)
More than likely to supplement the electricity lost from shutting down Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant [wikipedia.org] which was decommissioned in April 2021.
Re:Wind Power replacing Indian Point Nuclear (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Wind Power replacing Indian Point Nuclear (Score:5, Insightful)
Indian Point was generating 2000MW power when it shut down, it's going to take 15 wind farms of this scale to replace it. Probably shouldn't have shut it down before even breaking ground on its replacement...
Re:Wind Power replacing Indian Point Nuclear (Score:5, Informative)
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Ironically enough it was the environmentalists who led the charge in shutting down Indian Point over some over exaggerated claims that it was killing fish by the billions and leaking radioactive waste into the Hudson - and that dumb fuck Cuomo following in his father's footsteps to shut down yet another nuclear power plant.
Re:Wind Power replacing Indian Point Nuclear (Score:4, Insightful)
Probably shouldn't have shut it down before even breaking ground on its replacement...
Politicians love to kick the Can of Responsibility down the road. As long as a nuclear power plant was still humming along keeping the lights on they would see no reason to do anything.
Re: Wind Power replacing Indian Point Nuclear (Score:2)
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Re: Wind Power replacing Indian Point Nuclear (Score:2)
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Indian Point Nuclear - Risk of terrorist attack (Score:2, Interesting)
Indian Point was generating 2000MW power when it shut down, it's going to take 15 wind farms of this scale to replace it. Probably shouldn't have shut it down before even breaking ground on its replacement...
Indian Point NPP had a troubled history [theguardian.com]. A recent transformer fire also highlighted that many of the part of the plant can't be replaced because they are too old.
The Union of Concerned Scientists have also pointed out the risk of a terrorist attack [ucsusa.org] on Indian Point NPP would be devastating for NYC, here is a link to the full report [ucsusa.org].
Now that it is closed I feel a little more at ease sharing how easily this could have been achieved without any particular skills, like flying an aircraft. Causing a LOCA (
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These new wind farms are going to likely to take a decade or more to produce the total power that Indian Point produced when it was fully operational a few years ago.
It's too bad that New York didn't have the stomach to support building a modern reactor to replace it.
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Ha. when has it ever taken less than a decade for us to build a nuclear plant?
2,6GW (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:2,6GW (Score:4, Informative)
https://transmission.bpa.gov/b... [bpa.gov]
Same thing in Washington. The green line is the wind. It has peaked at 3,000 MW. Usually much less. It was dead calm for 8 straight days back in January. It was also overcast those same 8 straight days.
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Offshore wind is much more consistent than onshore.
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You say that, but the output from the UK's wind generators in the last year has varied from a few hundred MW or less to over 14,000 MW. More than half of the UK's wind generation is offshore. Just look at the week around 22nd July last year compared with the past week.
Nifty CSV with wind generation info can be downloaded from here:
https://gridwatch.templar.co.u... [templar.co.uk]
More data from here:
https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy... [ons.gov.uk]
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The UK's offshore wind is all on the coast at the moment. Once stuff further out in the North Seas comes online it will improve. The Dutch are also making progress in that area.
In 2020 wind accounted for 24% of the UK's entire electricity generation, and it continues to grow. Nuclear is pretty screwed now, because as that number grows there will be less and less demand for it, eventually resulting in non-renewable sources only being used intermittently. Nuclear sucks at intermittent operation.
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As long as the drought in the American West doesn't move over to the Great Lakes, then Niagara is good. However, if it does, then the American MId-West can kiss their corn crops goodbye. Kansas, Nebraska, S. and N. Dakota are already suffering.
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So the operators cut back on back up systems. They use optimistic estimates to justify whittling down spare capacity. In the Texas grid collapse of last year, the primary reason was, the gas pipelines were not winterized and
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Texas wind operators never signed a contract to deliver any fixed amount of energy to the grid at any time. Fossil fuel operators did. They should have kept the grid up and paid for the necessary winterization and be held accountable for their failure to deliver the energy they were contractually obligated to deliver. It was the fossil fuel guys who scrimped and whittled down capacity assuming wind will save their ass.
You can't attack the wind/sola
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But in practice, they get complacent, they see their reserve capacity not used for 10 years, and some executive is looking to cut some cost to make bonus, what is she going to do? Once their bonus depends on proving they dont need this excess capacity, they will find the evidence. They shut something, sell something, reduce inventory, and ... bonus. When the disaster strikes, and the promised reserve is not there,
Transformative (Score:1)
New York State broke ground on Friday on its first offshore wind farm, kicking off a boom in similar projects aimed at transforming the state’s — and the nation’s — energy mix.
In 15 years they'll have about 1/4 of the generation from wind capacity that Texas has today.
woo-de-effing-hoo
Who's money? OUR money! (Score:2)
I just wonder.... (Score:1)
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Atomic battery output is roughly jack shit per dollar. They make sense in a few applications, but bulk generation is not one of them. HTH, HAND!
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You're confusing electricity generation with electricity storage.
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NO ENERGY FROM REAL WORLD!
YOU DO NOT EVEN UNDERSTAND TIME CUBE.
Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING. Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING. Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.
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That post really does sound like the timecube guy doesn't it. I guess we're just EDUCATED and STUPID!
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Your entire reply there is very odd. You may consider it nit-picking, but you are comparing apples to oranges. You're also confused about some things. Tesla battery packs don't use rare earths. You can make arguments about scarcity of some of the metals used in them, but there would be no reason you would need to use those metals in home battery storage where neither low-weight nor high instantaneous power output are issues.
Also, an RTG or other atomic battery would ideally be paired with a large battery pa
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Atomic battery output is roughly jack shit per dollar. They make sense in a few applications, but bulk generation is not one of them. HTH, HAND!
And Tesla power pack with rare earth metals is then?
Oh, that's so cute. You got confused by the word "battery". You're adorbs! Also, there's very little rare earths in batteries. HTH, HAND!
While Atomic battery can be done from old rods of nuclear power plants that is technically waste?
If you do that then you wind up with a big refinement bill and a lot of nasty material. Or if you don't do it very well you wind up distributing material useful for dirty bombs. Either way that's a shit idea.
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