Tag Archives: Offshore Wind

The Answer My Friends, Is Blowin’ in the Wind –

Image of Block Island Wind, off of Rhode Island

As noted in the Asbury Park Press, here, Orsted (DKK, DNNGY). with support from PSEG, will build Ocean Wind, a 1.11 GW farm about 15 miles east of Atlantic City.  “Ocean Wind” should come online in 2024. NJ’s Board of Public Utilities, BPU approved the $1.6 Billion, $1.44 per watt plan. (Press Release. Financial Information.)

That’s about twice the nameplate capacity of the Oyster Creek nuclear power plant, built in the late 1960’s and turned off in 2018, at 12.8% of the cost of new nuclear.

Back in 2008, NASA published this on Global Ocean Wind Energy Potential. 

Ocean Wind will power roughly 500,000 homes beginning in 2024. NJ Gov. Phil Murphy set the state’s Energy Master Plan to build 3.5 GW offshore wind to power 1.5 million homes by 2030.

Meanwhile, in Georgia, the newest nuclear power plants, the 2.234 GW Vogtle 3 and 4, the first new nuclear reactors built in the United States in 30 years, are now 6 years late and estimated to cost $28 billion. (Taxpayer.net).  That is a cost overrun of $14 billion, 100% over the initial cost of $14 billion.  (Atlanta Journal Constitution, Power).

New nuclear is 8.7 times the cost of new wind power capacity. And nuclear needs fuel, waste management, and the safety and security concerns with nuclear power can not be understated.

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A co-founder of Popular Logistics, I hold an MBA in “Managing for Sustainability” from Marlboro College and a Bachelor’s of Science in Biology from the City University of New York  College of Staten Island. I also hold a PMI’s PMP and CompTIA’sNetwork+ certifications. Available as a speaker and consultant, I can be reached at “Popular Logistics . com” as “L Furman.”

Offshore Wind Energy – Mitigating climate change

Offshore Wind Energy: Its potential to mitigate climate change

Offshore Wind Turbine, sunrise.

Sunrise

(For Webinar Click Here) New England Faculty Colloquium: Climate Change, Policy, and Energy Solutions Wednesday, March 2, 2011 – 2:30 pm

James Manwell, U Mass Amherst, Director, Wind Energy Center, (Press Release: Renewable Energy Research Laboratory)

Wind power in the United States has grown from 1,800 MW in 1990 to 35,000 MW by the end 2009. And off-shore wind farms are planned from Virginia to Massachusetts.  The costs have dropped ten-fold.  Electricity from wind is now less expensive than electricity from coal and nuclear – with none of the environmental costs.

Wind and solar are the opposite of fossil fuels and nuclear. With fossil fuels and nuclear it is easy to regulate the electricity the plant produces, but the wastes can be a problem.  With wind and solar there is no waste, but we can not regulate the output. Or rather, we can easily turn it down, but we can’t turn it up.  If we are to shift to a clean, sustainable energy paradigm we need to develop a more flexible grid and other technologies for a combined cycle system. The  Wind Energy Center at University of Massachusetts, Amherst, is, in their words, “responding to the need for superior, cutting edge research solutions to these issues.”

Deepwater Horizon: 40,000 Barrels Per Day or 70,000?

Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico Sunday, June 13, 2010. Oil continues to flow from the wellhead some 5,000 feet below the surface. (AP Photo/Dave Martin)

The Deepwater Horizon spill. Sunday, June 13, 2010, AP Photo/Dave Martin

Part 6 in a Series that began after Earth Day (1 Fossil Fuels and a Walk on the Moon, 2 Drill Baby Drill or Drill Baby Oops, 3 The Magnitude, 4 One Month After, 5 Like Chernobyl?)

Last month I wrote on Popoular Logistics “BP and the government say … 5,000 barrels per day is reaching the surface and most of the oil – 80%  to 90% – is below the surface. So I think it’s on the order of 25,000 to 50,000 barrels per day.” (click here)

This was a “back of the envelope” reflection of NPR’s analysis, reported May 14 (click here) that the spill was 70,000 barrels per day, with a margin of error of 14,000 barrels – so maybe as low as 56,000 Barrels per Day and maybe as much as 84,000 Barrels per Day.

In their article “Deepwater Horizon round up: it’s worse than you think (again) – June 11, 2010,” Nature.com noted “At the end of May the official estimate was raised again to between 12,000 and 19,000 barrels day. Now the Flow Rate Technical Group has produced a bevy of new estimates ranging from 25,000 to 40,000. Crucially, legal liability established for a spill can be linked to its size.” (click here) and here for the Flow Rate Technical Group.

It looks like I’m in good company. But I’d prefer to be wrong.

I also note that this is “business as usual” for BP and other fossil fuel companies, and compared it to the accident at the Kingston Steam Plant, 12/22/08, the Upper Big Branch Mine, 4/5/10, the Exxon Valdez, and Chevron-Texaco’s alleged dumping of 18 BILLION Gallons

of oil process waste in Ecuador between 1964 and 1990  (click here).

It is obvious to me that we MUST move to a post-carbon economy.

  • 100 gigawatts – offshore wind, $300 Billion
  • 100 gigawatts – land based wind $200 Billion
  • 50 gigawatts – solar $200 Billion (price is going down)
  • 50 gigawatts – marine current – $200 Billion.
  • Clean Energy Infrastructure: $900 Billion.
  • Save the World: Priceless.

Emergency phone numbers.

* Report oiled shoreline or request volunteer information: (866) 448-5816
* Submit alternative response technology, services or products: (281) 366-5511
* Submit your vessel for the Vessel of Opportunity Program: (281) 366-5511
* Submit a claim for damages: (800) 440-0858
* Report oiled wildlife: (866) 557-1401
* Medical support hotline:  (888) 623-0287

The Series, following “Earth Day for the Future”

(Here)

  1. Fossil Fuels and a Walk on the Moon (Here)
  2. Drill Baby, Drill – or Drill Baby, Oops (Here)
  3. The Magnitude of the Deepwater Horizon Spill (Here)
  4. One Month After The Spill BP Siphoning 3,000 Barrels Per Day (Here)
  5. Deepwater Horizon – the Chernobyl of Deep Water Drilling? (Here)
  6. Deepwater Horizon: 40,000 Barrels Per Day or 70,000? (Here)