Clang clang clang with the hammer … couldn’t resist. This is great news. You see, just like banks are where the money is, offshore MA is where the wind is. And you can’t keep people away from it now:
Denmark-based DONG Energy A/S, the world’s largest developer of offshore wind farms, Monday said it would build up to 100 giant wind turbines, generating as much as 1,000 megawatts of electricity — more than double the output Cape Wind had proposed for its site off Cape Cod. The Danish company recently acquired one of the leases for a stretch of ocean that the US government has designated for wind farms. It has dubbed the local operation Bay State Wind.
via European firm pitches huge wind farm off Vineyard – The Boston Globe.
So this is very hopeful. It’s clean energy that can take up some of the slack of Pilgrim Nuclear shutting down. It gives the South Shore something to be happy about — though no word in the article as to whether they’d use New Bedford’s Wind Energy Center. And DONG says it can accept a lower price than Cape Wind for the energy.
Now … why do we need the Danish to come in a build us a wind farm? Because as a matter of government policy, they are the global leaders in wind. Obviously they had a lot of offshore wind sites available, and most critically, Denmark’s government made it a goal to convert to renewable energy: 100% by 2050! This created a demand for wind farms, and Danish wind companies flourished. Like they say:
Denmark is good at things green, and at making a business out of them. Investment in a green transition could enhance Danish opportunities for a global technological lead. Danish companies already have a global stronghold in several technological areas in which both Denmark and
the rest of the world will invest in the decades to come in order to secure energy efficiency and produce renewable energy. An ambitious but realistic transition will underpin these strongholds. The transition will strengthen the domestic market for green solutions and it will promote technological innovation and research. Exploiting these opportunities will create new green jobs throughout Denmark.
This should be the future of Massachusetts. Not a greasy “combo platter” with continued unnecessary dependency on fossil fuels for a generation, but an Olympic training regimen to overcome an enormous challenge.
Update: Context from stomv — this is a BFD:
Some context
New England currently has 846 MW of land-based wind capacity (source). The capacity factor of that generation is about 25 percent (source). That means an annual generation of approximately 1,850,000 MWh.Offshore wind has higher capacity factors — this site will likely be on the order of 40 percent. A 1,000 MW project with 40 percent CF generates 3,500,000 MWh.
The DONG project will generate twice the electricity in a year than was generated by all the wind farms in New England in 2014.
P.S. Pilgrim generates approximately 5,500,000 MWh a year. The DONG project replaces roughly 2/3 of Pilgrim’s output.
Tell me why we need dirty energy pipelines again?
fredrichlariccia says
and I say screw the corporate fossil fuel Wall Street oligarchs.
Wind and solar clean energy is the future and the future is now !
Fred Rich LaRiccia
gmoke says
Once upon a time, not too many years ago, I went to the Harvard Business School Alumni weekend (my sister is an alum and got me in) and attended a panel on the energy industry. The panel consisted of HBS alums who were in almost every sector of the energy production industry and laid out their experience and expectations. At the end, I got to ask a question which referenced the 30 years, then, of work the Brazilians had done on bagasse as an alternative to gasoline in transportation, the Germans had done on renewables for their electricity, and the French had done on nuclear and wondered whether the USA had taken a wrong turn. I thought I was asking a question about how the USA had ignored the possibilities and promises of new(er) technology but that’s not what the panel heard.
The reply from one of the panelists was, “That sounds like industrial policy. The United States doesn’t do industrial policy.” He said it with a smile, obviously proud of that stance. I was appalled and disappointed that they’d missed my point and were so determinedly backward.
Trickle up says
like smug, self-righteous ignorance.
Bob Neer says
It is screamingly obvious that MA can generate jobs and wealth from alternate energy which plays to our strengths — education, technology — and ships money out of state — Texas, Nigeria, the Middle East — for fossil fuels. Therefore, we should invest in the former, which will generate jobs for us, and discourage the latter, which cost us money and don’t return jack (and, not incidentally, damage our personal health and our environmental welfare).
stomv says
New England currently has 846 MW of land-based wind capacity (source). The capacity factor of that generation is about 25 percent (source). That means an annual generation of approximately 1,850,000 MWh.
Offshore wind has higher capacity factors — this site will likely be on the order of 40 percent. A 1,000 MW project with 40 percent CF generates 3,500,000 MWh.
The DONG project will generate twice the electricity in a year than was generated by all the wind farms in New England in 2014.
P.S. Pilgrim generates approximately 5,500,000 MWh a year. The DONG project replaces roughly 2/3 of Pilgrim’s output.