Offshore wind to power every British home by 2020

Graeme

Heineken

Britain has a bigger problem than energy . . .

Drowning.

http://news.scotsman.com/uk.cfm?id=710322005
_________________
"Actually, humans died out long ago."
---Abused, abandoned hunting dog

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---Me and my brother

cube · Fusion Joined: Mar 12, 2005 Posts: 3574

one 5M RePower windmill == 17 Gwh annual production source

Britain Electricity - production: 372.6 billion kWh (2005) source

To meet 20% wind energy requires 21,917 X 0.20 == 4384 windmills

There 365 days in a year and 13 years from now till 2020 so if the Brits start propping up a windmill everyday starting today then they should make it! oops you mean you didn't install one today?
*cracks whip* Hurry up damn it....you're behind schedule!

Did I mention this is suppose to be an offshore windmill not land based? The previous pics were a prototype version. You didn't think this would be easy did you?

cube · Fusion Joined: Mar 12, 2005 Posts: 3574

essex

These turbines in the right place and not near homes or causing environmental destruction are fine BUT and it is a big " but " they wear out quickly and are very expensive to install and maintain. They are at the end of a long " food " chain of fossil fuel use. When that's gone then what ??
If this was the solution then all that electricity use will simply prop up a continuously expansionary economic model which rapes the earth.

Solar water heating, insulation, and good old conservation helped by high prices are what is needed.

BTW posters who claim that the UK will drown clearly plan to be around millenia from now " when " all that ice eventually melts. Good luck to you, fossil fuels will have been exhausted in 40 years and an ice age is not that far away.
Sorry to snow on your parade.

KillTheHumans

kokoda · Heavy Crude Joined: Aug 24, 2006 Posts: 422

Of all the renewable energy options wind power is the one that I think has the most potential.

It has a great EROI ratio averaging nearly 20-1 over the life of the turbine. That is better than oil, solar, coal, hydro and nuclear.

The problem is that it only represents about 1% of the world energy output. That is an awful lot of scaling up that is required.

cube · Fusion Joined: Mar 12, 2005 Posts: 3574

thor · Heavy Crude Joined: Jun 21, 2005 Posts: 451

double

thor · Heavy Crude Joined: Jun 21, 2005 Posts: 451

Whether or not they'll meet their targets, building these windmills out in the sea should be done anyway since it's better to have them and not to want them then to want them and not to have them...

Once the energy crunch begins in earnest, you'll thank the heavens that you did install some capacity to generate electricity. Everybody else will fall behind, never able to install these windmills during the permanent economic contraction.

MD

mkwin · Intermediate Crude Joined: Jun 01, 2007 Posts: 596

mkwin · Intermediate Crude Joined: Jun 01, 2007 Posts: 596

TheTurtle

Heineken