Windpower extraction industry - the intellectual leap they still won't make.
Oh that slacker wind! Would that Goggin would look into the wind's role in everything from, in the ocean, the direction and speed of ocean currents great and small, (and thus the fate of those ichthyoplankton migrating from hatching place to their distant settling place, from young striped bass to lobsters and blue crabs, all of whom flow up and down the myriad of coastal currents off our Atlantic shores)
Doubtless the
"The kinetic energy of moving air molecules above the surface of the Gulf of Maine is either dissipated as friction with other air molecules, or enters the water column as kinetic energy in the form of friction with the water surface. This is visible as ripple in lighter winds and waves in more powerful winds."
And according to UMaine's Peter Jumars, when it comes to coastal surface currents, those wind-generated ripples matter, for they either speed up, slow down and/or modify the direction of, prevailing surface currents of the Gulf of Maine.
When those moving air molecules are instead used to turn the blades of a wind turbine, the energy that would have been added to the water column is now converted to electricity and diverted to shore.
While the amount extracted would only be only a small percent of the total amount of wind energy available within the Gulf of Maine, it would be intensively extracted from a relatively small anchored location of the floating windpark.
So. when offshore wind power supporters talk about the gigawatts of energy that their floating turbines could send ashore, what has been left unspoken is the fact that those gigawatts would be taken from the Gulf of Maine's surface waters energy budget, within the localized "wind shadow" or energy footprint of a floating turbine and cumulatively by an offshore windpark.
A second issue is whether the water current disruptions predicted to occur as described by the UMaine and others, see below, will interrupt or redirect any of the flow of lobster larvae that normally head down the Maine coast from as far away as the Bay of Fundy. Will the UMaine's proposed offshore windpark deflect lobster larvae offshore away from Penobscot Bay and points south? This is a little tougher to understand - a matter of persistent "wind shadow" affecting surface water movement in the "energy footprint" of each floating windturbine - but very important, so check out the below for details.
A simulation on youtube of what could happen to lobster larvae if the large floating turbines proposed by DeepCwind get installed off the mouth of Penobscot Bay - where they propose setting them up.
For info on how full scale floating windmills affect the water column and interrupt current flow, see these reports by UMaine oceanographer Professor Pete Jumars. Pete told me that four full-size floating windturbines should be enough to start affecting the stability of the watercolumn beneath them, especially in summer when the water is naturally stratified. The legislator should contact him directly, after reading through the below. He'll be very conservative about it, but will indeed admit it is an issue that needs more review.
* DeepCwind Offshore wind report University of Maine Febuary 23, 2011
http://deepcwind.org/docs/
See pages 5-49; 5-76; 9-6
* Anticipated environmental effects of offshore wind development in the Gulf of Maine
http://www.islandinstitute.
(See page 13)
* Goran Brostrom 2009 powerpoint: Can Ocean Windmills affect the Climate?
http://penbay.org/wind/ocean/
* Measuring and Calulating offshore wind shadow http://docs.wind-watch.
http://deepcwind.org/docs/
See pages 5-49; 5-76; 9-6
* Anticipated environmental effects of offshore wind development in the Gulf of Maine
http://www.islandinstitute.
(See page 13)
* Goran Brostrom 2009 powerpoint: Can Ocean Windmills affect the Climate?
http://penbay.org/wind/ocean/
* Measuring and Calulating offshore wind shadow http://docs.wind-watch.
Oh that slacker wind! Would that Goggin would look into the wind's role in everything from, in the ocean, the direction and speed of ocean currents great and small, (and thus the fate of those ichthyoplankton migrating from hatching place to their distant settling place, from young striped bass to lobsters and blue crabs, all of whom flow up and down the myriad of coastal currents off our Atlantic shores)
Doubtless the
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