Floating Wind Madness in Maine
By David Wojick
Published June 18, 2024
First Published at CFACT
The Government of Maine has really big plans for floating wind, a floating net zero fantasy, in fact. Since floating wind power is the next big green thing, it is worth taking a close look at this ruinous vision.
Floating wind is a fad, not an established technology. It has yet to be built at utility scale or tested in a hurricane. The world’s biggest grid-connected system is a tiny 50 MW and just came online off Scotland.
The cost of floating wind is necessarily much greater than fixed wind. A fixed wind tower sits on a simple monopile, while a floating tower sits on a huge complex structure called a floater. We are talking about massive 500-foot towers with 500-ton turbines on top and 300-foot blades catching the wind.
The floater has to be large enough to keep this monster tower from blowing over. Then, it has to be even bigger to contain enough air to be buoyant. It also has to be anchored to the ocean floor in ways that require a lot of different mooring lines.
https://heartland.org/opinion/floating-wind-madness-in-maine/
