The Daily Populous Monday December 7th, 2020 day edition
Authored by interestingengineering.com and submitted by QuantumThinkology

There is no denying windmills are powerful and clean sources of energy, but there's always the naysayers that will try to convince you they can't produce enough energy to efficiently power our communities. This may all soon change with the development of the Vineyard Wind project off Massachusetts.

RELATED: HOW OFFSHORE WIND TURBINES WORK

The project's developers just recently announced that they will be using a GE (General Electric) wind turbine known as the GE Haliade-X, possibly the largest wind turbine in the world that has a capacity of 13 MW, an impressively high amount.

“The selection of GE as our preferred turbine supplier means that a historic American company will play a vital role in the development of the first commercial scale offshore wind power in the U.S.,” said in a statement Vineyard Wind CEO Lars T. Pedersen. “This is a huge moment not only for the future of our project but also for the future of an industry that is poised for exponential growth in the coming decades.”

The new 13 MW turbine could soon produce 312 MWh in a day, 8% more than the previous 12-MW GE Haliade-X generated at the port of Maasvlakte-Rotterdam in the Netherlands. This turbine already set a global record by becoming the first one to ever produce 262 MWh of power in 24 hours, enough to supply 30,000 homes in the area.

Energy analyst John Rogers writing for the Union of Concerned Scientists did the math regarding the new turbine's energy production and found that it could produce all of a home's energy needs in just seven seconds. Meanwhile, GE claims that a single spin of the GE Haliade-X turbine could power a home for two days.

Finally, since the turbines are so powerful, fewer of them would be required to meet energy quotas which translates to less effort in building them and less space taken up by them. The future of wind is bright indeed!

OzziesFlyingHelmet on December 7th, 2020 at 00:14 UTC »

That's insane.

We've currently been without power for over 36 hours and my generator is consuming about 15 gallons of gasoline every 24 hours.

30 gallons of gasoline = 1 turbine rotation. That's an efficient turbine (and an inefficient generator at my house).

Ozymandias-97 on December 6th, 2020 at 22:15 UTC »

Okay this news is great. Someone play devils advocate here and throw me some counter arguments.

Edit: Serious replies lol

actionbust on December 6th, 2020 at 21:38 UTC »

> This may all soon change with the development of the Vineyard Wind project off Massachusetts

They've been trying to build a wind turbine farm off Cape Cod for at least 15 years. It makes total sense, because it is one of the windiest spots on the East Coast, but it's also the summer home to some very rich, very powerful nimby's who have successfully shut down all previous attempts. At least this latest incarnation is putting the turbines much further offshore and might stand a slim chance of being approved. But "may soon change" is quite the stretch.