This muse is not about merits, pros and cons, benefits and impacts.
This is about scale.
Standing on the New Bedford waterfront, staring at humongous pieces of energy production staged for assembly, the mega-nature of offshore wind becomes mind-boggling.
That humans are capable of this, for good and ill, is stunning, the visuals barely this side of unbelievable.
Stats don’t have as much visceral impact, but they are jaw-dropping as well:
The rotor diameter of one blade is 720 feet, 40 yards longer than two football fields.
From waterline up the monopole to the highest point of each turning tip is 850 feet. That’s about three times the height of the Statue of Liberty, roughly the height of the Eiffel Tower.
A single blade rotation powers a turbine generating enough electricity used in a full day in a “typical” American home.
With 62 turbines installed in this initial phase, set in a grid south of Martha’s Vineyard, each pole a mile apart, enough energy will be created to power 400,000 homes.
Witnessing mass-produced feats of energy-producing technology, giant jigsaw pieces about to interlock, a thought swirls to mind, and again this is not about the merits:
Anyone who thinks offshore wind is not happening ignores how far down this road we have come, and how much money is on the table:
We can try to protect and support historic fisheries.
We can identify and try to reduce environmental impacts at sea, in the air, and on land.
We can argue that there is more than enough decentralized solar energy potential — along highway medians, atop shopping malls, parking lots, and homes — to power this country many times over without gridding the Atlantic.
We can push to make the government more public-spirited, at the very least negotiate lower electric rates in return for allowing for-profits to industrialize the ocean.
We can insist that multinationals reinvest some small fraction of their revenue in nearby communities.
But the momentum has become almost as powerful as offshore gales that spin huge blades.
One thing could stop it:
If these multinationals conclude that the bottom line no longer produces a big enough number, they could abandon years of work and hundreds of millions of dollars already invested.
Highly unlikely.
Oh, there is one more potential brake:
If Trump gets back in office he might try to pull the plug, though his opposition is not based on any of the righteous environmental and social concerns cited above. His impetus is to reward fossil fuel friends. So his opposition easily could shift if big money interests were to create a different economic framework and political tailwind.
Regardless, offshore wind is happening. A visit to the New Bedford waterfront reveals gigantic, genesis chunks of proof-positive that we have arrived at that beginning.
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Thanks for the stats and photos. One comment I have is that when you talk about Trump's fossil fuel friends, don't forget that they also have a friend in President Biden. In Biden's Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 every offshore lease issued is mandated to also offer up 60 million acres of seabed for oil and gas drilling. Some of those oil leases have already been sold in the Gulf. If Trump takes control again, he'll have a perfect reason to "drill baby drill" -- Biden made him do it!
I would love to find somewhere statistics on how much energy could be saved if we simply started more robust yet simple conservation efforts, ie, turning off lights and devices when not in use, keeping thermostats at consistently lower temps in winter (and adding a sweater or two) and higher in the summer, using public transportation more often, etc. why is this tactic to reduce our energy needs almost never mentioned?