For many years people have been interested in renewable resources so we could reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. At the rate in which we consume the limited reserves of fossil fuels we have left, we will indeed run out by the turn of the next century. The only way we can reduce our consumption is to invest and develop new technologies to harvest renewable resources such as wind. The most productive way to harvest wind energy is with offshore wind turbines. The only reasonable place to put these turbines is offshore because space and wind is readily available. The potential for offshore wind farms is far superior to that of producing offshore oil. There are many reasons which make offshore wind better than offshore drilling such as cost, environmental impacts, and availability of the said resource.
The cost of building an offshore wind turbine would be more than that of building an onshore wind turbine because the forces which would be asserted on the turbine offshore are far greater than those of an onshore turbine. It’s not the fact offshore turbines are better, but the fact they are more consistent in power production. Offshore wind is so much more readily available because wind shearing, or the blocking of wind due to obstructing obstacles like trees, is reduced which in turn produces more consistent and steady winds.
The environmental impact of an offshore wind turbine is less than that of an onshore turbine because fertile lands which could be used for farming or a number of other things are left alone. The building of turbines offshore is actually beneficial and does not “render these areas (of seabed) sterile…. evidence suggests offshore structures, likened to artificial reefs, can in fact lead to an increase in the amount of marine life in an area.” By increasing the marine productivity of a region, wind turbines can be rendered beneficial to habitats which otherwise would remain baren wastelands. In conclusion if we were to utilize renewable resources and decrease our dependence on oil we could in fact reverse some of the environmental damage we have caused.
Philosophical Transactions: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences
Vol. 361, No. 1813, Mathematics, Physics and Engineering (Dec. 15, 2003), pp. 2909-2930
