This is a picture of wind velocities around Massachusetts earlier today. What do you notice?
Image from Windy.com
If you answered “Gosh, Ned, it appears the wind blows faster over the ocean than it does over land,” then well done, and ten points for Gryffindor House! If I then asked you where you would want to put a wind turbine to cash in on some of that tasty wind, you might logically conclude “Why, in the ocean, of course.”
Except for the fact that everything is harder in the ocean. On account of all the water. Still, the ocean has a lot going for it. As mentioned, there’s boatloads of wind. Also, nobody lives there. Put it far enough offshore and nobody will even see that unsightly wind turbine (except for maybe rich senators on yachts — more on that later). Since a lot of people live near the shore, you’ll be making electricity satisfyingly close to where consumers will snarf it up. This is not always true for, say, a wind farm in western Iowa. And here’s a funny one: the United States has waited so freaking long to get into the offshore wind game that the technology is by now very mature. There are a lot of reasons for that delay, but for now we can be glad that the figurative winds are finally shifting.
Things don’t change until they do.
I like that quote, because it reminds cynics like me that events can always surprise you. It’s been obvious for a long time that the seafloor off Cape Cod is a good location for a wind farm. The first proposals date back to 2001. But they met with much opposition. Including from Senator Ted Kennedy, who, as luck would have it, happened to have a nice house on the Cape Cod shore. It was difficult to build something in Massachusetts that Ted Kennedy didn’t like. But since 2001, a number of things have changed. For one thing, the good senator is no longer with us. But beyond that, many regulatory issues and environmental concerns have been sorted out, and now the offshore wind industry in the United States is off to a good, if belated, start. It only took 23 years, but as of last Tuesday the Vineyard Wind project is delivering power to customers. Vineyard Wind 1 will eventually consist of 62 turbines, and it will supply power to some 400,000 homes.
First Power from Nation-Leading Vineyard Wind 1 Project.
I like to remind myself that there are a great many things like this. They’re moving forward slowly, and for a long time they’re hidden from view. Each one represents years of effort and planning and setbacks and determination. Wind farms, solar projects, grid-scale batteries, or maybe research in nuclear fusion.
Things don’t change until they do. But then they do. A few years ago I thought I’d never see a wind turbine off Massachusetts. But look!
Rambles Blog at Star Chamber 