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Heribert Proepper / AP file
Ten European countries agree to develop an electricity grid to deliver wind power generated in the North Sea across Europe.
Ten European countries have signed an agreement to generate electricity from the waters of the North Sea and deliver it across the continent. Such a supergrid would boost the development of offshore wind farms in a notoriously rough and stormy region -- a resource that advocates say is "enormous."
"It even surpasses the energy equivalent of petrol reserves in the Middle East," according to a statement from the Belgian government announcing last Friday's signing.
The deal may provide the European Union with smoother sailing toward its ambitious goals of opening up electricity markets for cross-border competition and achieving a 20 percent cut in carbon dioxide emissions, Colin Macilwain pointed out in Nature News.
But first, engineers working on the estimated nearly $30 billion project must overcome technical challenges -- such as exactly how they'll ship electricity through undersea cables for hundreds of miles.
Traditional transmission grids operate on alternating current (AC), but a subsea grid would use direct current (DC), due to losses that occur when the aluminum or copper conductor is buried.
"In effect, the cable and surrounding earth form a capacitor, draining power from the AC lines, and rendering them useless over long distances," writes Macilwain. "So a subsea grid has to be DC -- posing a challenge for electrical engineers who lack the technological tools they have developed for AC power."
Another problem is that circuit breakers don't exist for high-voltage DC. One potential solution is a high-voltage DC converter being developed by Dragan Jovcic at the University of Aberdeen.
In addition to technical hurdles, the North Sea supergrid project must wrangle with political and regulatory issues. Some European nations, including Germany, are throwing more of their weight behind the Desertec project, which aims to bring solar and wind power generated in the Sahara to Europe.
Take a look at these stories for more about offshore wind power projects:
- Google joins $5 billion U.S. offshore wind grid project
- First German wind farm at sea opens
- Offshore wind power could alter ocean currents
- Offshore wind projects feel economic squeeze
- Feds OK first U.S. offshore wind farm
John Roach is a contributing writer for msnbc.com. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by hitting the "like" button on the Cosmic Log Facebook page or following msnbc.com's science editor, Alan Boyle, on Twitter (@b0yle).
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I wonder what Tesla and Edison would have to say about this.
meanwhile, we will stick to destroying our environment and funding terrorists on their war against...us.
Every 3Megawatt generator uses 2+tonnes of 'Rare Earths' in their generators.
Hundreds of offshore wind turbines could be suffering from a design flaw that makes them sink into the sea. see http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/natural_resources/article7096654.ece
China produced over 97% of the 'rare earths' last year. China has stopped exporting any-more 'Rare Earths' to the USA and Japan. The USA presently produces ZERO 'Rare Earths' and Japan just closed a trade deal with Australia for their needed supplies. But China has the ONLY commercial processing plant for 'Rare Earths'.
China is expecting to stop EXPORTING ALL 'Rare Earths' by 2014. Due to their expanding Domestic needs. The USA will not be producing any 'Rare Earths' until late 2011 and then still needs to build a processing plant. Both of these processes are VERY Enviromentally UN-FRIENDLY.
The Largest World user of 'Rare Earths' is currently the Prius@40+poundsper vehicle. ALL - EVs that have PM motors use 'Rare Earths' and the VOLT has TWO of these. Every Li battery uses 2+pounds per Kwatt capacity.
You are just EXCHANGING 'Peak Oil' for 'Rare Earth' - SHORTAGES...
I like the thinking of placing the wind turbines at sea as marine ecosystems are less endangered of extinction than terrestrial ecosystems. Conversely, the U.S. and Obama are going to kill our southwestern desert ecosystems for dead solar panel fields.
Any agent that disturbs and kills ecosystems is anything but green. Only one green matters, has ever mattered, will ever matter. The salvation and protection of the Earth's ecosystems, in the eco-nomics of climate regulation and moderation and the squesteration of C02. Killing ecosystems kills the life of the Earth, regardless if it is paving, raping and bulldozing for dead solar panels, wind turbines or oil pumpers. Killing ecosystems, heats up and dries out the Earth, and man's constructions and do-dads perform no life giving services for man and the Earth.
For someone so fervently opposed to polluting the ecosystems your assertion that "marine ecosystems are less endangered of extinction" than those on dry land couldn't be further from the truth. First of all it's all tied together, the Earth is one ecosystem made of many. The kind of construction it would take to build the off shore wind turbine field will undoubtedly do untold harm to the marine ecosystem. More research is needed to determine man's specific impact on each ecosystem but it's clear that we are doing damage to all ecosystems on this planet. Nothing is safe. "Man's construction and do-dads perform no life giving services for man and the Earth"?! Hospitals are a good example of "man's construction and do-dads" that perform life-giving services on a daily basis.
As America slips farther behind many nations around the world, stories like this regarding break thru's, records and significant developments will largely all be non-American thanks largely to the endless cycle of foreign wars the Republican lawmakers and the moneychangers in Israel have pushed and steered America into. As America becomes more like a banana republic, it's citizens see these break thru's in much the same way as those people did, wishing those developments were here in America and knowing the funding, help and direction by the Republican lawmakers is not going to let that happen.
I think the U.S. needs to switch to high voltage DC current (millions of volts) when it comes to using ground based electrical pipelines for transmission of large quantities of electrical energy over long distances. This would also facilitate the use of low pressure condensation generation technology, which was close to 70% efficient at the time it was developed back in the mid 1060s. It is that efficient because it uses no moving parts to generate electrical energy. All it requires is a heat source and a cold sink, and the ocean supplies an almost unlimited cold sink in the form of deep ocean water. This low pressure condensation generation technology was originally developed to emulate the way that Mother Nature generates lightning in thunderclouds. It will take less than a foot of dielectric to insulate a high voltage electrical conduit capable of carrying millions of volts. It is fairly easy to transform this high voltage DC electrical current into lower voltage AC current using equipotential voltage splitting systems followed by solid state converter systems. But there are also wind based generation systems which use no moving parts either, by charging up the moving air molecules and then using the wind pressure to pump these charged air molecules uphill, electrically speaking. We should be aggressively developing these future wind systems here in the U.S., too. We also have plenty of desert lands here in the U.S., to generate electrical energy from, too, the way that Europe is hoping to use the Sahara desert to generate theirs. We could also generate electrical energy from many different windy places like the Aleutian island chain, and we should also be harnessing the mighty Mississippi River system using low pressure dam systems which rely upon numerous low pressure turbines which span most of the width of the Mississippi River. We could build dozens of these low pressure dams along the full length of the Mississippi River. - Rick Carter
At the end of 2009, the installed capacity of wind power in the United States was just over 35,000 megawatts (35 GW), making it the world leader ahead of Germany. Wind power accounts for about 2% of the electricity generated in the United States.
Over 9,900 MW of new wind power capacity was brought online in 2009, up from 8,800 in 2008. In 2009 added new capacity was enough to power the equivalent of 2.4 million homes or generate as much electricity as three large nuclear power plants.
These new installations place the U.S. on a trajectory to generate 20% of the nation’s electricity by 2030 from wind energy. Growth in 2008 channeled some $17 billion into the economy, positioning wind power as one of the leading sources of new power generation in the country, along with natural gas. New wind projects completed in 2008 account for about 42% of the entire new power-producing capacity added in the U.S. during the year.
This was accomplished during the Bush II years......
Wind power is now able to deliver 2.5 percent of the US electricity supply, Aug 2010. What is needed for a long-term rebound is for Congress to develop an energy policy that makes sense for renewable energy. Which it has not been accomplished under Obama's rule.
Weak turbine demand has led to a net loss of 1,500 wind turbine manufacturing jobs last year (2009), according to the American Wind Energy Association. Overall wind energy employment held at 85,000 full-time jobs, of which 18,500 are estimated to be turbine and other component manufacturing jobs.
"China's wind energy market is expected to grow around 50 percent this year and India's about 30 percent – but in the US we'll see at least a 20 percent decline," says Jamieson Bender, a senior associate with Ducker Worldwide, a Troy, Mich.-based market research firm. "Companies are not going to put their money into building manufacturing here until we see a rebound. Until then, it's probably going overseas."
This is what has been accomplished during the Obama years......