by Craig Miller |
The US has lagged behind European countries in capturing offshore wind for electricity, but a spate of recent studies suggest that a bigger push might be in order.
The latest, from Stanford civil & environmental engineer Mark Jacobson concludes that offshore areas of the East Coast alone have enough moving air to meet a third of the entire nation’s energy needs.
Running out the string quite a bit further, studies from Stanford and Lawrence Livermore National Lab point to a breezy bounty offshore and at higher altitudes that could theoretically power the planet, perhaps as soon as 2030.
The US has lagged behind other developed countries in capturing offshore wind for electricity.
Credit: NC State University.
Credit: NC State University.
Of course, that would take four million powerful turbines.
“If we put half over the ocean and half over land, we’d need about 0.6 percent of the world’s land for turbines,” Jacobson told listeners to KQED’s Forum program this week. “But all of that land, almost, is open space between the turbines, that can be used for multiple purposes, including rangeland, cropland, pasture land or just plain open space. The rest is over the water.”
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