Jones Beene wrote:
> England and No. Europe have fabulous offshore wind sites, which are being > exploited even with the obvious prolems of placing them in deep water . . . The offshore sites in England and Ireland are rather deep, as are the ones off the U.S. coast, but the best sites in Northern Europe are in the North Sea, which is amazingly shallow. It is 10 to 20 m deep most of the places where wind turbines will be constructed, and 94 m average for the whole sea. The world's largest offshore installation, Horns Rev, is 10 to 16 m deep, 16 km offshore: http://www.hornsrev.dk/Engelsk/default_ie.htm This site will have 4 GB nameplate capacity when it is finished, in 2030. It is probably around 40% actual; i.e. 1.6 GW -- nearly 2 average U.S. nukes. I recall photos of WWI battles in the North Sea which ships were sunk and the upper decks were above water, like some of the ships sunk in Pearl Harbor. The cost of offshore construction is falling, especially in the shallow areas. The wind offshore is superior to the best wind sites on land because there are no obstructions (hills & forest) and the wind is steadier and more predictable. Of course the land sites in North America are still superb, but not quite as good as offshore sites. (The overall annual average is somewhat lower.) The Dakotas are the best land sites on earth, and with the high towers now under development I think they could easily supply all of the energy used in North America. I expect they could supply the whole world with tall towers constructed with existing materials, but this would be expensive. It would have to be synthetic fuel, which is what Bockris' pre-cold fusion work was focused on. Cold fusion would make wind and all other conventional sources utterly uneconomical and obsolete. - Jed
