Deep-sea wind farm the size of India could provide the worlds energy needs

Posted on 2017-10-16

Two researchers have calculated that the world could be powered by an off-shore wind farm in the North Atlantic Sea.

The deep-sea wind farm would span across the North Atlantic and would provide energy to the entire planet with a continual source of energy. The pair of researchers estimates that the project would need to be the size of India.

Doctors Anna Possner and Ken Caldeira concluded: “On an annual mean basis, the wind power available in the North Atlantic could be sufficient to power the world.”

Off-shore wind farms have a lot more potential to generate energy because wind speeds are on average 70 percent higher over the Earth’s oceans than over the land. The North Atlantic is especially good at generating electricity because it's winds tap into a huge reservoir of energy created by heat pouring into the atmosphere from the ocean surface.

Whats more, off-shore wind farms are not as heavily affected by the turbine drag, as land ones are. The more turbines in a farm, the more drag they create, capping their energy output. Simulations showed that in the North Atlantic energy generated could be 6 watts per square meter, compared to 1.5 watts per square meter if on land.

“We found that giant ocean-based wind farms are able to tap into the energy of the winds throughout much of the atmosphere whereas wind farms onshore remain constrained by the near-surface wind resources,” said Dr Possner.

For the idea to become reality it would need international cooperation and an extremely large investment. However, it would free us from our dependency on a limited resource and stop us from further destroying the planet.

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