| Wind Watch is a registered educational charity, founded in 2005. |
Hurricanes deliver fatal blows to wind turbines
Credit: by Chelsea Whyte, New Scientist, www.newscientist.com 14 February 2012 ~~
Translate: FROM English | TO English
Translate: FROM English | TO English
Gone with the wind? Hurricanes could destroy the offshore wind farms the US is planning to build in the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico.
The US Department of Energy set a goal for the country to generate 20 per cent of its electricity from wind by 2030. One-sixth is to come from shallow offshore turbines that sit in the path of hurricanes.
Stephen Rose and colleagues from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, modelled the risk hurricanes might pose to turbines at four proposed wind farm sites. They found that nearly half of the planned turbines are likely to be destroyed over the 20-year life of the farms. Turbines shut down in high winds, but hurricane-force winds can topple them.
In 2007, Texas granted a multimillion-dollar lease for a wind farm site near Galveston, Texas. Rose found it was “the riskiest location to build a wind farm of the four locations examined”.
Each turbine may cost $175 million. “We want these risks to be known now before we start putting these wind turbines offshore,” says team member Paulina Jaramillo. “We don’t want any backlash when the first one goes down and it costs a lot to replace.”
Journal reference: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1111769109
This article is the work of the source indicated. Any opinions expressed in it are not necessarily those of National Wind Watch.
The copyright of this article resides with the author or publisher indicated. As part of its noncommercial educational effort to present the environmental, social, scientific, and economic issues of large-scale wind power development to a global audience seeking such information, National Wind Watch endeavors to observe “fair use” as provided for in section 107 of U.S. Copyright Law and similar “fair dealing” provisions of the copyright laws of other nations. Send requests to excerpt, general inquiries, and comments via e-mail.
| Wind Watch relies entirely on User Funding |
 (via Stripe) |
 (via Paypal) |
Share:
[ Short URL: https://wind-watch.org/news/?p=19128 ]
