https://spectrum.ieee.org/floating-offshore-wind-turbine
"In a hangar at the University of Edinburgh, a triangular steel contraption
sits beside a giant tank of water. Inside the tank, a technician in a yellow
dinghy adjusts equipment so that the triangled structure can be hoisted into
the water to see how it deals with simulated waves and currents. One day soon,
a platform 50 times as large may float in the deep waters of the North Sea,
buoying up a massive wind turbine to harvest the steady, strong breezes there.
About an hour’s ride up the coast, full-scale 3,000-tonne behemoths already
float in Aberdeen Bay, capturing enough wind energy to electrify nearly 35,000
Scottish households.
The prototype at the FloWave facility—one of 10 new floating wind-power designs
tested here—is progressing fast, says Tom Davey, who oversees testing.
“Everything you see here has been manufactured and put in the water in the last
couple months.”
There’s good reason for this hustle: The United Kingdom wants to add 34
gigawatts of offshore wind power by 2030, en route to decarbonizing its grid by
2035. But the shallow waters east of London are already packed with wind
turbines. Scotland’s deeper waters are therefore the U.K.’s next frontier.
Auctions have set aside parcels for 27 floating wind farms, with a combined
capacity exceeding 24 GW.
This rush to deep water is a global phenomenon. To arrest the accelerating pace
of a changing climate, the world needs a lot more clean energy to electrify
heating, transportation, and industry and to displace fossil-fuel generation.
Offshore wind power is already playing a key role in this transition. But the
steadiest, strongest wind blows over deep water—well beyond the 60- to 70-meter
limit for the fixed foundations that anchor traditional wind turbines to the
ocean floor. And in many places, such as North America’s deep Pacific coast,
the strongest and steadiest wind blows in the evening, which would perfectly
complement solar energy’s daytime peaks.
Hence the push for wind platforms that float. The Biden administration has
called for 15 GW of floating offshore wind capacity in the United States by
2035, and recent research suggests that the U.S. Pacific coast could support
100 GW more by midcentury. Ireland, South Korea, and Taiwan are among the other
countries with bold floating wind ambitions."
Via
Future Crunch:
https://futurecrunch.com/226-eighth-continent/
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
