Last Wednesday on February 4th i went and saw a lecture presented by David Blazer who was working with Blue Water Wind on building a 200 wind turbine farm off of the coast of Ocean City, MD. Before this i was aware of other offshore projects in Delaware and New Jersey but not of plans for a offshore wind farm in Maryland. This interested me a great deal because i am a resident of the Eastern Shore of Maryland. This project could be a great success for the environment and could create alot of jobs to boost the economy, but also has the potential to create problems.
Mr. Blazer explained to us that one of the main expences for this project is bringing materials over from Europe and If we could start factories that build ships and materials for this project locally it would cut costs on the projects and supply many jobs. This is would be great for many families.
But He also explained some environmental problems that went along with this project. These turbines are only made to withstand category 3 hurricanes which is why lower East Coast states do not have offshore wind farm projects. We haven't experienced over a category 3 hurricane here yet, but could environmental changes from global warming generate stronger storms for our region in the future and lead to the distruction of such an expensive project?
Also little is known about the environmental impacts this project might have on the Atlantic Ocean. It was just recently found out that these turbines are right in the way of a whale migratory path. Its hard to say what other marine life these turbines will effect.
So even though these turbines will reduce carbon, provide jobs and generate stable electric prices, will the costs out weigh the benefits?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Bat fatalities are not widely discussed, but are apparently severe especially for land-based wind farms.
ReplyDelete