The US government today took a bold step towardperhaps finally getting some offshore wind energy development going with $50 million in investment money and promise of renewed effort to develop the energy source.The Department of the Interior and Department of Energy have teamed on what they call the jointNational Offshore Wind Strategy: Creating an Offshore Wind Industry in the United States. Theplan focuses on overcoming three key challenges that have made offshore wind energy practically non-existent in the US: the relatively high cost of offshore wind energy; technical challenges surrounding installation, operations, and grid interconnection; and the lack of site data and experience with project permitting processes.
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This article that can be found on NetworkWorld talks about how the US is heavily investing in alternative energy sources with this massive campaign for off shore wind energy stations. This will be a great economical boost for the country, by using thousands if not millions more wind turbines our national dependence on coal and when teamed with the rising popularity of electric cars such as the Chevy Volt reduce the overall dependency on foreign oil. This will help to stimulate the national economy because more of our funds as a nation will be spent and used here within the States opposed to being sent to outside nations. In addition to boosting our economy this will also reduce the amount of coal required to burn to produce energy for our energy hungry nation reducing pollution and the demand on coal. This will help conserve a dwindling nonrenewable resource and make the tree huggers out there happy at the same time. I see this also as a change in consumer interest for the country, being more responsible for out actions and repercussion as a nation. Overall this sums up to be an addition to the wind energy use, more economical boosts for the US and a reduced use of the polluting dwindling energy source coal.
6 comments:
The potential impact on the fossil fuel industry is huge. How do you think they would combat this?
I don't believe the fossil fuel industry will be able to combat this. The industry will still exist but even without a greater push toward renewable energy the industry would start shrinking within a few years due to the supply of fossil fuels shrinking at a high rate. The only way a fossil fuel company will be able to survive is to broaden there products from just coal and/or oil to running/selling/renting wind turbines or another form or harnessing natural energy.
Do you think that it is important for initiatives like this to be more efficient or cost effective than the current energy producers? Is the push for alternative, sustainable energy enough to offset some economic disadvantages?
To Kern: I do think that it would be a good thing for wind energy to be less expensive then coal/oil because it would let the wind energy companies easily compete with coal/oil companies. I don't think that the wind energy would have to necessarily be more efficient that coal/oil, but it would definitely have to just as efficient. I think that the push for alternative, sustainable energy could sway some people even if the wind energy happens to be a bit more expensive, but I don't think it would sway enough people to keep the wind companies in business.
In regard to wind energy being more costly: with this large serge in the amount of wind power being produced and the availably of this power to the market increasing I predict the price of wind to drop. It will not get to be as cheap as coal but it will not be more then a penny or a few pennies higher. As the demand for wind power increases and the supply of wind power increases the price should drop to continue to gain consumers.
Volt cars only get a range of around 100 miles of energy, people lets say in RVs or on long distance trips cant use it if after 100 miles a full charge needs 24 hours of plug-in charge. would this keep the Gas Up or would it get cut?
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