Wind Farms – Not Just Green Energy?

UPDATES: Stanford engineers develop state-by-state plan to convert U.S. to 100% clean, renewable energy by 2050; Energy Department Offers Conditional Commitment to Cape Wind Offshore Wind Generation Project (Jul. 1, 2014); Energy Department Announces $10 million for Wave Energy Demonstration at Navy’s Hawaii Test Site (Apr. 28, 2014)

On December 12, 2013, in its article titled For Major Cities, Offshore Wind Farms Could Provide Both Electricity And Hurricane Protection, The Huffington Post reported on Stanford University’s recent presentation at the American Geophysical Union fall meeting on the feasibility of building “tens of thousands of wind power turbines off the shores of some of America’s cities most vulnerable to extreme weather to reduce wind speeds and lessening sever storm surges.” Reportedly, Stanford civil and environmental engineering professor Mark Z. Jacobson and his research team “concluded that the wind turbines could have sapped Katrina of so much energy that wind speeds would have been reduced by up to 50 percent at landfall and the hurricane’s storm surge could have been reduced by about 72 percent.” In addition, it “would have generated 0.45 terawatts of wind power.”

Jacobson isn’t just garnering the media attention of the likes of The Huffington Post for his and Stanford’s ambitious wind, water and solar-related renewable energy initiative. Just months earlier, on October 9, 2013, Jacobson talked about this ambitious renewable energy initiative with David Letterman (part 1) and (part 2). Stanford’s website confirms that “Jacobson and his co-authors have published studies on how to switch to all solar, wind and water energy sources for the world, the United States and New York state. They will soon publish a study for California, and they have plans to do studies for all 50 U.S. states.” It further confirms that there is “confidence in U.S. ability to attain all-renewable energy by 2050.”

Additional Sources: Wind Energy Symposium, University of Delaware, Taming Hurricanes With Arrays of Offshore Wind Turbines, Mark Z. Jacobson, Cristina Archer, Willet Kempton (Feb. 27, 2013); Stanford University; Scientific American, A Path To Sustainable Energy By 2030, Mark Z. Jacobson and Mark A. Delucchi (Nov. 2009); The Huffington Post, For Major Cities, Offshore Wind Farms Could Provide Both Electricity And Hurricane Protection (Dec. 12, 2013); RenewEconomy, Offshore wind farms could protect against hurricanes (Dec. 11, 2013); Climate Central, Offshore Wind Farms Could Protect Cities from Hurricanes (Dec. 9, 2013); Wikipedia; Pillsbury, The Yin and Yang of offshore wind power
(Mar. 21, 2012)

Photo: CGP Grey, Taken Jul. 12, 2009 – Creative Commons