The great dream of America’s energy planners and nightmare of the oil companies and coal producers is that one day the US will have a large scale, economic way to bring electricity to homes across the United States. The Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory claims that day in not far off. In its new “Large-Scale Offshore Wind Power in the United States” study, the agency says: “The United States is fortunate to possess a large and accessible offshore wind energy resource. Wind speeds tend to increase significantly with distance from land, so offshore wind resources can generate more electricity than wind resources at adjacent land-based sites.”

That part of the analysis is obvious. What is not is how quickly the American alternative energy industry can evolved to a period when wind energy has a substantial ability to deliver a large portion of the nation’s energy needs. The government analysis predicts that 20% of all US electrical power could come from wind by 2030.

To make matters even better:

$200 billion in new economic activity and create more than 43,000 permanent, well-paid technical jobs in manufacturing, construction, engineering, operations and maintenance. Extrapolating from European studies, NREL estimates that offshore wind will create more than 20 direct jobs for every megawatt produced in the United States. of added wind capacity could come from offshore wind. Achieving 20% wind would provide significant benefits to the nation, such as increased energy security, reduced air and water pollution, and the stimulation of the domestic economy.

The government document goes so far as to describe the placement and technology behind that turbines that would power the electrical grid.

What the study does not provide in any abundance is a way that the government will raise the money for the one-time cost to upgrade the American energy grid in a fashion that will allow the coastal wind power to reach the rest of the nation. There are also challenges when wind rigs are set up in water that is more than sixty meter deep.

Forecasts that look out two decades are rarely right, particularly when they do not fully address the core issues on which the forecasts are based.

Douglas A. McIntyre

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