According to the Wall Street Journal, Google, Good Energy, and Mavuben Corporation, have all invested in a ten-year offshore wind energy plan. The starting price of this plan is five billion dollars. This plan is to provide energy to 1.9 million houses along the east coast by placing windmills on the shallow parts of the Atlantic Ocean. A transmission line that runs 350 miles between Virginia and New Jersey caries the energy from the windmills to the houses. Though this is a great innovation for alternative energy, it runs into many problems. One of which the infrastructure is extremely complicated in both economic and technical ways.
I think it is wonderful that Google is investing in eco-friendly projects, it shows that as a big company it also cares about the environment. However, in the article I read that the environmentally friendly groups support this innovation, but do they know what damage goes into the ocean? For such infrastructure to be built, reefs are going to be torn apart and marine habitats are going to be destroyed. This affects the food chain and also the biogeochemical of the environment. In my opinion, this is way more harmful than polluting our air because reefs and marine life is something that cannot be replaced, since it can take up to one million years for an extensive reef to be developed. Also, there is already another alternative energy source that uses the ocean called the Wave Power. It has the same concept as the windmill, but instead of being exposed to the air, it is built under the water and runs on the waves. This infrastructure is proved to be more effective than windmills because waves and tides are much easier and precise to predict than wind. In my opinion, I really do not see the point in investing so much money in this project, but you never know where it can take us.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703440004575547381873787098.html?mod=WSJ_newsreel_technology
These sorts of projects not only run into environmental problems, but many people reject them because they do not want windmills obstructing their views of the ocean. I believe that this is a superficial way of rejecting a legitimate alternative. While the cost is quite high, this could be a nice experiment, if it comes to fruition.
ReplyDeleteIt is also interesting that you brought up the underwater turbines. There is a similar project in the United Kingdom that I read about last year. The specific device is called the Pelamis Wave Energy Converter. In the U.K., they see it as a very cheap, very reliable form of energy. You can see it at this link:
http://www.greenlivinganswers.com/archives/156