Construction of vast wind farms off the coast of Virginia Beach is realistic and doable, a team of academic and industry researchers has concluded. The study, part of a $1.4 million state study of alternate energy sources in the Old Dominion, is only halfway through but members of the group told the Virginian-Pilot that they saw no major obstacles.
“We’re not seeing any show-stoppers,” said Larry Atkinson, an oceanographer at Old Dominion University in Norfolk.
The team of energy experts has focused on a scenario of installing about 100 wind turbines 12 miles of the shore at an estimated cost of $250 million. The whirling, 300-feet-tall turbines would take advantage of strong, consistent winds — and would not be visible from shore. Modeled after a project in Denmark, the wind farm would produce 1/3 as much electricity as the coal-fired coal plant that Dominion is building in Wise County for an estimated cost of $1.8 billion.
A big advantage of the location is its proximity to a major population center, Hampton Roads. The electricity would have to be transmitted only a short distance, reducing electricity leakage and the capital cost of building a transmission line — in contrast to the giant wind farm in the empty plains of Texas proposed by T. Boone Pickens.
Neil Rondorf, vice president for maritime operations at Science Applications International Corp., told writer Scott Harper, that the area off Virginia Beach was “probably the best place, all-around, of any site on the East Coast.”
Rick Webb, a senior scientist at the University of Virginia who has opposed ridge-line development of wind farms in the Allegheny Mountains, agrees that off-shore wind makes sense. “If wind energy development in the eastern U.S. is going to make a real rather than symbolic contribution to solving our energy and air pollution problems, it will certainly be offshore development,” he told Harper.
Bacon’s bottom line: If the preliminary estimates are anywhere close to accurate, the Virginia Beach wind farms could generate electricity for less than half the up-front capital cost of the Wise coal facility, lower ongoing operating costs, and zero fuel costs — without the environmental problems. This looks like a winner all the way around. Again, assuming the preliminary estimates are remotely on target, the commonwealth should elevate off-shore wind farming to its Number One energy priority. Right now.
(For more detailed information about off-shore wind farms, see the article I wrote nearly two years ago, “Wind Shear.”)
(Hat tip: Rick Webb. Photo cutline: The Horns Rev windfarm in Denmark. Photo credit: Cape Cod Today.)