Editorial: Farming for wind won’t solve it all

The waves crash. The sun beams. The horizon beckons ahead. The grandeur of endless, pristine… The waves crash. The sun beams. The horizon beckons ahead. The grandeur of endless, pristine ocean calms the worried soul … Oh yeah, just forget about that row of gigantic stainless-steel rotating turbines.

The above scenario wouldn’t exactly strike students as an ideal beach-going adventure. As Cape Cod residents would surely tell you, there’s something aesthetically different about a beach utilizing off-shore wind farms. Adding a vertical axis to a typically horizontal ocean can be unsettling for those resistant to equate scenic beauty with 90-degree angles.

But given our destructive addiction to foreign oil and the now very realized ecological danger associated with off-shore drilling — oh come on, don’t forget about the Gulf oil spill already — perhaps we should redefine what makes beach scenery beautiful. Blow, blow thou nautical wind, but please do so carefully.

The fact is, off-shore wind farms offer an exciting, though limited, potential as an energy alternative, especially for states bordering the Atlantic Ocean. A report released yesterday by the conservation advocacy group Oceana suggests the East Coast could reap enormous benefit from taking advantage of the strong winds of the Atlantic. Using methods derived from environmental researchers at the University of Delaware, Oceana calculates that once fully implemented, a comprehensive system of wind turbines could generate 48 percent of the electricity needs of the top 11 coastal states with the best wind.

For those who now stop at fewer BP gas stations after the Deepwater Horizon fiasco or those who cringe at the human rights abuses of major U.S. oil providers, this new study might feel like a call to action. If you happen to be one of these people, cool down. As exciting as harnessing maritime winds sounds, more information must be gathered before the state or federal governments commit billions of American tax dollars to it.

In light of a second report released yesterday on the topic of wind farms, we just don’t want to waste what’s sure to become a national effort. The report, published by the UK’s Energy Research Center, found that the massive offshore wind project already underway in the seas surrounding the British Isles is burning lots of cash — and you thought green alternatives didn’t emit CO2 — according to the Daily Mail. And it gets worse, the cost of maintaining the off-shore wind farms currently installed is nearly twice that of maintaining more traditional gas power plants. In terms of cents per kilowatt produced, that’s 24 cents instead of 13 cents. Talk about inefficiency.

When combined with the fact that wind is not constant — i.e. you inevitably would need back-up plants for especially stagnant days — it’s clear that wind power, particularly in its off-shore form, is only one part of a much larger energy solution.

But who’s to say more efficient turbines won’t be built by future civil and mechanical engineers — Pitt’s Swanson School of Engineering has graduated more than 10,000 of them so far, according to its website. Although it might be hard to imagine off-shore wind’s benefits outweighing its costs with current technology and construction methods, innovation might change that.

So the next time you find yourself near some great body of water, see if you can mentally insert a couple rotating blades among the waves without losing appreciation for the scene. Because the wind farms will come anyway.