Re: theWatt Podcast 75

The land area requirements are also quite large. Roughly 0.1 sq km per MW of nameplate capacity, so, for an 800MW farm, you'd need 80 sq km. I think that's another reason for putting them offshore though. Offshore also has higher capacity factors as well.

Interesting. I did a podcast interview with an wind power expert who didn't see a need of putting turbines offshore though: http://www.thewatt.com/node/96 (I also have a transcript for that):

Ben Kenney: What are your thoughts for things like offshore wind farms in North America? I mean the Cape Wind Project is having a lot of problems lately. Well, they have had a lot of problems since they have started, since they have proposed the Cape Wind Project. Do you think offshore will be a big player?

Paul Gipe: No, we do not need offshore in North America. Sure, we should not exclude offshore where offshore makes sense, we should not exclude it. Offshore Toronto, for example, certainly should not exclude it. Offshore Rochester, New York, offshore Detroit should not exclude, offshore Kingston should not exclude that, offshore of Queens University certainly should not exclude that, but we are land rich in North America and it is simply a lot easier to put the wind turbines on land and offshore. I have argued for many years, they are on record in my books and in my articles that offshore is not a panacea for what ails wind energy. The big issue with wind energy is will the people accept it? Will the public accept it? Some will, some will not, of course, unlike nuclear power, which can be shoved down people’s throat by some central decision making by some government whether it is in Toronto or Washington, DC. Wind energy has to be accepted by the people who live nearby and if it is not we will not do it and the early push for going offshore was the belief that going offshore was a panacea. They are out at sea, they cannot see them, nobody is going to care. Of course, that was bogus at the very beginning and you see in the Cape Wind case of course it is bogus because you do not want Canadiens and the mansions there they do not want to look at windmills. Even if they cannot see them, they know they are out there and well I mean would you want to go to [20:45 unintelligible] if you think there is a windmill offshore. Of course, you would, but maybe the Canadiens do not want to live with it. Those kinds of people have a lot of political influence.