{"id":187,"date":"2013-01-18T08:47:46","date_gmt":"2013-01-18T13:47:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2013\/01\/2-gigawatts-of-wind-power-off-fukushima-plus-solar.html"},"modified":"2013-01-18T08:47:46","modified_gmt":"2013-01-18T13:47:46","slug":"2-gigawatts-of-wind-power-off-fukushima-plus-solar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2013\/01\/2-gigawatts-of-wind-power-off-fukushima-plus-solar.html","title":{"rendered":"2 gigawatts of Wind Power off Fukushima, plus solar"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\n<\/a>\nSouthern Company didn’t\n\ndo the renewable energy study for Georgia<\/a>\nwhen Mark Z. Jacobson’s study showed\n\nAll U.S. east coast electricity could come from offshore wind 3 seasons out of 4<\/a>.\nNow somebody else has, including how to build offshore wind turbines\nto withstand hurricanes.\n<\/p>\n

\nRob Gilhooly wrote for New Scientist 16 January 2013,\n\nJapan to build world’s largest offshore wind farm<\/a>,\n<\/p>\n

\n

\nThe wind farm, which will generate 1 gigawatt of power once\ncompleted, is part of a national plan to increase renewable energy\n\n<\/a>\nresources following the post-tsunami shutdown of the nation’s 54\nnuclear reactors. Only two have since come back online.\n<\/p>\n

\nThe project is part of Fukushima’s plan to become completely energy\nself-sufficient by 2040, using renewable sources alone. The\nprefecture is also set to build the country’s biggest\n\nsolar park.<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

\n\n<\/a>\nThe wind farm will surpass the 504 megawatts generated by the 140\nturbines at the Greater Gabbard farm off the coast of Suffolk, UK\n\u2014 currently the world’s largest farm. This accolade will soon\npass to the London Array in the Thames Estuary, where 175 turbines\nwill produce 630 megawatts of power when it comes online later this\nyear. The Fukushima farm will beat this, too.\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nHow will these wind turbines work?\n<\/p>\n\n\n

\n

\n\n<\/a>\nTo get around the cost of anchoring the turbines to the sea bed,\nthey will be built on buoyant steel frames which will be stabilised\nwith ballast and anchored to the 200-metre-deep continental shelf\nthat surrounds the Japanese coast via mooring lines.\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nBut what about hurricanes?\n<\/p>\n

\n

\nProject manager Takeshi Ishihara of the University of Tokyo insists\nthat the area’s seismic activity won’t be an issue for the turbines.\nHis team have carried out computer simulations and water tank test\nto verify the safety of the turbines not just in the event of an\nearthquake or tsunami but also in other extreme conditions such as\ntyphoons. “All extreme conditions have been taken into consideration\nin the design,” he says.\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n\n<\/a>\nSo U. Tokyo has done the study Georgia Power and Southern Company\ncouldn’t be bothered to do, and have designed wind turbines that\ncan withstand hurricanes.\nHow long until a Japanese company starts building wind turbines off\nthe Georgia coast?\n<\/p>\n

\nIn case the point wasn’t clear enough:\n<\/p>\n

\nOnce the farm is running at full power, the intention is that it will\nsupply electricity to the powerful grid which Fukushima’s two nuclear\npower plants were connected to, reducing transmission costs.\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nThe irony if TEPCO ends up building solar and wind power in Georgia….\n<\/p>\n

\n-jsq\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Southern Company didn’t do the renewable energy study for Georgia when Mark Z. Jacobson’s study showed All U.S. east coast electricity could come from offshore wind 3 seasons out of 4. Now somebody else has, including how to build offshore wind turbines to withstand hurricanes. Rob Gilhooly wrote for New Scientist 16 January 2013, Japan […]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[16,8,18,104,21,22,23,24,53,36],"tags":[8706,167,8701,8708,427,8702,12,8737,855,8711,8712,8713,8714,108,8725,166,854,8716,856],"class_list":["post-187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","category-georgia","category-georgia-power","category-nuclear","category-planning","category-politics","category-renewable-energy","category-solar","category-sustainability","category-wind","tag-environment","tag-fukushima","tag-georgia","tag-georgia-power","tag-japan","tag-lake","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-nuclear","tag-offshore","tag-planning","tag-politics","tag-renewable-energy","tag-solar","tag-southern-company","tag-sustainability","tag-tepco","tag-ukishima","tag-wind","tag-wind-farm"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-31","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=187"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}