Alternative Energy: Offshore windmills - Researchers find substantial wind resource off Mid-Atlantic coast
The wind resource off the Mid-Atlantic coast could supply the energy needs of nine states from Massachusetts to North Carolina, plus the District of Columbia--with enough left over to support a 50 percent increase in future energy demand--according to a study by researchers at the University of Delaware and Stanford University. Willett Kempton, Richard Garvine and Amardeep Dhanju at the University of Delaware and Mark Jacobson and Cristina Archer at Stanford, found that the wind over the Middle Atlantic Bight, the aquatic region from Cape Cod, Mass., to Cape Hatteras, N.C., could produce 330 gigawatts (GW) of average electrical power if thousands of wind turbines were installed off the coast. The estimated power supply from offshore wind substantially exceeds the region's current energy use, which the scientists estimate at 185 gigawatts, from electricity, gasoline, fuel oil and natural gas sources.
With a scientifically reliable estimate of the region's offshore wind power potential now in hand, how likely is the US to actually install more than 100,000 wind turbines off the Mid-Atlantic coast? Kempton, the UD professor of marine policy said, "it's a matter of priority. Today, market forces and incremental technology developments will gradually make offshore wind the least-cost power in more and more East Coast locations. On the other hand, if climate change becomes a much greater priority for the United States, our study shows how we could displace more than half the carbon dioxide emissions of the Mid-Atlantic area quickly, using existing technology.” On the practicality of producing 166,720 wind turbines, co-author Richard Garvine noted, “the United States began producing 2,000 warplanes per year in 1939 for World War II, increased production each year, and, by 1946, had sent 257,000 aircraft into service. “We did that in seven years, using 1940s technology,” he said.
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