Maine DeepCwind enthusiasts: will they face up to the climate-altering impacts of their energy extraction plans.

Or must they be pushed?

The verdict is in

Extraction of wind energy from the lower atmosphere via large ocean windfarm projects 
does indeed alter the climate.

Read:

Resource Decrease by Large Scale Wind Farming dr.ir. G.P. Corten (corten@ecn.nl), dr.ir. A.J. Brand (brand@ecn.nl) ECN Wind Energy - Wind Farm Design - The Netherlands

On the influence of large wind farms on the upper ocean circulation

Goram Brostrom, senior scientist Nowegian Meteorological Agency

Windmills at sea will affect the climate (autotranslated by Google, so some funny words) Goram Brostrom, senior scientist Nowegian Meteorological Agency

Given the broadness and reasoned  concern that has arisen about wind energy extraction's effect on climate, it was deeply disappointing when earlier this year University of Maine's Dr. Habib Dagher blithely, nay, bluntly brushed aside the Norwegian metrological agency's exhaustive review. Not an issue. 


This  may be mostly true as regards the scale model experimental R&D windmills he will lead work on, somewhere off the coast of Maine,  but since the point of those is to pave the way for utility-scale deepwater offshore windmilling, dismissing the work of Goram Brostrom, senior scientist Nowegian Meteorological agency, and others, as not-credible leaves the American plan for the Gulf of Maine with no consideration  of this important issue at all.

For DeepCwind to fail to include sober examination of the likely climatic impacts of ocean windfarming within their deliberations from the start suggests that those seeking financial gain from the  R&D effort  fear the results of such an examination.

Regrettably, when  prudence and precaution are cast to the winds,  those concerned about the climate changing effects of wind energy extraction have little recourse but to seek  to see such precaution enforced by the gavel of the judiciary.

It is a shame that DeepCwind's effort to pool myriad talents to discover how best to harvest wind offshore must be taken to the judicial woodshed, but doing offshore wind right is much more important than doing it in a needless hurry.