Over the past two years I have found that there are a lot more wind farms being built around the world. Off shore wind in Europe is being seen as the true answer to harness huge amounts of electricity from wind. The reason that off shore wind is capable of producing mega watts and in the future giga watts of power is because the wind coming off the ocean is not only faster but far more consistent than on land. Some might argue that the turbines are ugly from shore but the nearest turbine to land on this farm is 7 miles.
The largest off shore wind farm in the World today began operating off
the coast of southern England. The farm has 100 turbines and is capable of generating enough electricity to power 200,000 homes.
What are the effect of these turbine farms on birds and sea life? I was at a house in rural Wyoming and they were worried that the wind farms were changing / destroying the deer, antelope, and other game in the area.
Sea life actually thrives from off shore wind turbines. The turbines which are secured to the sea bed serve as a safe haven for the sea life. Artificial reefs will form on the underwater structure making an ideal home for many sea life. That argument could use for the thousands of oil rigs off shore around the world as well. Although it is important that we steer away from oil at this point oil runs the world and needs to continue to be drilled until our infrastructure is more heavily based on renewable energy and not fossil fuels. Birds although are in some way effected the amount of deaths due to turbines is minimal. Many turbines use the same technologies that are used at airports which steers birds away from the area.