Do Marylanders favor offshore wind?
Maryland is studying how - and maybe even whether - to encourage development of a wind farm off Ocean City. How do you feel about it?
As reported in The Baltimore Sun a couple days ago, the state is inviting expressions of interest from wind developers while conducting an intensive review of the area of the Atlantic a dozen or so miles offshore, to see where would be most appropriate to place huge wind turbines - and if there are places along the Outer Continental Shelf to avoid. The state is also investigating whether the slowly revolving turbine blades pose hazards to birds and bats - an issue that's been raised with land-based turbines, particularly those placed on mountain ridges. To learn more about the state's action, go here.
Beyond the environmental and economic issues - whether wind can generate enough power cheaply enough to compete with other energy sources - there's the subjective but significant one of aesthetics. Can people live with seeing the turbines, which with their blades stand more than 400 feet high? In Massachusetts, a proposal to place turbines off Cape Cod has generated intense debate, driven in part by people's differences over their visual impact.
Wind energy developers have said that when placed 12 miles offshore, the turbines will appear no taller than half a thumbnail and thin as a toothpick when seen from the boardwalk or beach. They'll be most clearly visible on the horizon in winter, when the air is clearer, they say, but barely more than blips in the hazier days of summer, when the beaches would be most populated.
Of course, that's what the developers say. It's hard to gauge public sentiment until a concrete proposal comes in, of course. But a recent public opinion survey by Monmouth University's Urban Coast Institute found that 70 percent of Marylanders favor placing wind farms offshore, even if they'd be visible from the shoreline. In Delaware, where offshore wind has moved further along, the poll found 82 percent in favor.
Those results came from a broader survey of public attitudes on a variety of mid-Atlantic coastal issues, questioning a total of about 1,000 residents in New York New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland and Virginia. For the Maryland results, about 100 residents of Worcester County were interviewed by phone. To see the full survey, go here.
Comments
The potential wind offshore is amazing. This project and the BlueWater Wind project in Delaware should be doubled in size.
Seriously. We need this now. Anyone worried about birds should consider the alternatives, and their pollution, which will harm habitats. The Delaware Audobon Society fully endorses offshore wind.
Posted by: Jed | September 18, 2009 10:39 AM
Developing offshore wind seems to me to be highly problematic from an environmental point of view .We are proposing to build massive industrial estates at sea. How can this be good for the marine environment. ?
Posted by: Jamie | September 18, 2009 4:50 PM
I fully support offshore wind turbines.
Posted by: NotableM | September 18, 2009 7:23 PM
Whoever is still worrying about bird deaths and wind turbines is a Rip Van Winkle and has been asleep for the last thirty years.
In the 1980’s wind turbines at Altamont Pass in California killed a few birds. It was not the number of birds but the fact that they were golden eagles an endangered species that was the problem. Even in this extraordinary sensitive environment the Center for Biodiversity has called as mitigation replacing old small fast-turning turbines with giant slow turning new ones:
“While the effects of repowering have yet to be confirmed by monitoring
data, repowering is believed to hold great potential for significantly reducing avian mortality while maintaining or increasing existing power capacity.”
http://docs.google.com/gview?a=v&q=cache:VwN9t2Ly-tEJ:www.biologicaldiversity.org/campaigns/protecting_birds_of_prey_at_altamont_pass/pdfs/BOS-letter-1-10-07.pdf+the+center+for+biodiversity+repower&hl=en&gl=us
Center for Biodiversity states that modern wind turbines would “raise turbine blades higher off the ground to get the blades above most observed bird flight zones”
In addition six years of radar data between 2002 and 2008 tracking both big flocks of birds migrating and local seabirds by Nysted, an offshore park in Denmark, have demonstrated that at about 100 to 200 yards approaching birds change direction by day and night and fly over or around wind turbines. The radar sensitive enough to track moths showed that bird strikes are rare events in single digits compared with power plant chimneys that have recorded as many as two thousand bird collisions in forty eight hour periods as migrating birds pile up on the silent obstacle at night. http://windri.org/conference/downloads/sessions_web/Session_7_Impact_On_Wildlife/ChristensenThomasKj%c3%a6r_DanishBirdStudy.pdf
Furthermore tens of thousands of bird lives are spared as averted pollution from displacing air polluting generation of electricity. NOx and SO2 does not only damage human lungs but also causes mortality and morbidity to avian populations.
So while wind turbines are good for birds they are also good for the marine environment.
To the above stated question:
"Developing offshore wind seems to me to be highly problematic from an environmental point of view. We are proposing to build massive industrial estates at sea. How can this be good for the marine environment?"
The answer is is good for the marine environment in the following 6 ways:
1) decrease chance for oil spills as less oil will be need to be transported as fuel for generating electricity. Oil spills are NOT accidents they are statistical certainties.
2) When oil spills do occur wind turbines provide a place to anchor booms that prevent oil spills from reaching shore.
3) In Nysted the wind turbine foundations became artificial riffs that supported fish population and became favored places for fishermen.
4) In Europe (Nysted Denmark) millions of dollars worth of muscles are harvested each year at the turbine foundations and thousands of tourists take boat rides to visit the beautiful turbines.
5) Thermal power plants (oil, coal, natural gas, and nuclear) discharge hot water that destroys marine life because most fish are very sensitive to temperature changes (if you ever you owned an aquarium you would know this). Do not take my word for this. Save the Bay of RI scientific studies show 87% reduction of winder flounder because or Brayton Point’s coal burning power plants hot water discharges into Mt Hope Bay in Rhode Island and MA.
6) Finally air pollutants SO2, mercury, and carcinogens cannot be good for wildlife when they dissolve into the ocean. Wind power averts massive amounts of dangerous poisons from entering our environment by displacing dirty and dangerous electricity.
Posted by: WindPowerIsNowIsLessExpensiveThanOil | September 19, 2009 5:03 PM
Jamie - "How can this be good for the marine environment. ?"
With all due respect, I've never understood this argument. The only part of the windfarm that is in the marine environment are the bases of the turbines. There are plenty of other structures built at sea that form their own local ecosystems that fish, etc. thrive in. I don't see any downside for the marine environment. Wind turbines are completely clean.
Posted by: rumpole | September 19, 2009 10:05 PM
Jamie - "How can this be good for the marine environment. ?"
Ever fished by a bridge? Same thing. Fish love 'em.
Posted by: duh | September 21, 2009 8:26 AM
Airplanes taking off at airports have killed more birds than any array of windmills ever will, yet you don't hear any outcry for ending air transportation. Once again, fear of the unknown takes its ugly grip on the doomsdayers and naysayers. This can only be a net plus for us all. Get 'er done!
Posted by: WindMeUp | September 21, 2009 11:37 AM