Stanford eyes offshore wind farms for Calif.
SAN FRANCISCO--A Stanford research team has concluded that the ocean not far off the Northern California coastline is the most promising spot for an offshore wind farm to generate power.
Specifically, the researchers concluded that the sea off Cape Mendocino, roughly 150 miles northwest of San Francisco, was their top pick. Wind turbines there could supply 5 percent of California's electrical power needs, they projected.
The researchers plan to present their findings Thursday at the American Geophysical Union conference here Thursday.
There are a number of offshore wind farms--one to the west of Denmark springs to mind--but most of the attention on wind power in the U.S. has focused on terrestrial installations. The Stanford team, though, evaluated several locations in the Pacific Ocean to the west of California.
The researchers compared three spots on the basis of sea depth as well as wind speed and consistency. Ocean winds are stiffer farther offshore, where seas are deeper, but it's prohibitively expensive to build there. Thus was the ocean off the San Francisco Bay Area ruled out.
Most of the Southern California coast isn't windy in the summer, so it, too, was scratched from the list. That left the sea off Cape Mendocino, north of San Francisco. Actually building such a farm would require environmental and other reviews and probably would take at least seven years, said Michael Dvorak, a doctoral student who worked on the study.
No doubt that wouldn't sit well with some folks who appreciate their pristine Pacific views today, the researchers acknowledged in a statement.
But even in the case of a controversial 130-turbine Cape Cod power project, opposition came from a vocal minority. An Opinion Research Corp. study earlier this year found 58 percent of those who live on or near Cape Cod support the wind farm project, the Stanford researchers said.
Other researchers involved in the study are Mark Jacobson, a professor, and Cristina Archer, an assistant professor.
Jacobson and Archer also are presenting separate research at AGU that found linking multiple regional wind farm projects together can even out supply gaps caused by inconstant winds.
Stephen Shankland writes about a wide range of technology and products, but has a particular focus on browsers and digital photography. He joined CNET News in 1998 and since then also has covered Google, Yahoo, servers, supercomputing, Linux and open-source software, and science. E-mail Stephen, or follow him on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/stshank. 
Tidal energy, geothermal energy, fusion reactors - these are the way forward to a more sustainable-energy economy. We need more research funding on these...
> space-intensive wind farms are,
> especially in this age of
> exploding global population!
Um... isn't this why the study is proposing putting the wind farms in the ocean, where nobody lives? Offshore turbines can be located near large urban centers without taking up space. Further, they wouldn't need transmission lines on land, because the transmission lines are in the ocean. Less space.
I wouldn't bet the bank on fusion or tidal. Geothermal is good through when you have it but most people don't have it under them.