Offshore wind makes sense.
Results from established offshore wind farms and research completed specific to The Great Lakes both confirm that offshore wind is a more powerful and more reliable source of energy than onshore wind. Trillium Power Wind Corporation is ready to take action on the significant offshore wind opportunities in Ontario and The Great Lakes region.
Offshore vs. on-land wind farms.
While the construction cost of onshore wind farms may in some cases be initially lower, the economic and environmental benefits of offshore wind farms over time are clear.
Offshore wind, particularly that in The Great Lakes, blows more consistently, stronger and with greater density than on-land winds. The result is more reliable and more economical electricity generation.
Further, offshore wind farms do not raise the same concerns as on-land wind farms. Trillium Power's first site, Trillium Power Wind 1 (TPW1), will be located 17km to 28km from shore. It won’t be heard and will be virtually unseen from land thereby avoiding any possible concerns regarding visual aesthetics and potential property values. It will also be efficiently formatted to minimize any avian impact. TPW1 satisfies the social, environmental and economic concerns of local communities.
Offshore wind vs. coal and gas generation
Offshore wind is clearly preferable to coal or gas electricity generation which are quickly becoming technologies of the past as both rely on polluting, nonrenewable resources. They emit toxins (such as carbon dioxide, nitrous oxides, sulphur dioxide, mercury, particulate matter and volatile organic compounds) into the air and place unnecessary demands on other resources such as water.
Coal, which has been a major source of electricity in North America for many years and is the worst of the carbon polluting options. The high level of carbon pollution from coal helped it become the baseline against which carbon reduction is measured. Coal generation creates 0.9 kg of carbon per KW hour of electricity produced. This is just one reason that the Ontario Government is wisely phasing out coal as a source of electricity in Ontario by 2014.
Offshore wind vs. nuclear generation
According to the Rocky Mountain Institute, Wall Street (and Bay Street) are no longer interested in investing in nuclear energy. It points to the high cost of nuclear as the reason. Their data shows that nuclear is the most costly of all forms of carbon creating and low/no-carbon creating energy production options.
The Province of Ontario recently made a similar announcement to shelve its plans to develop new nuclear facilities. They stated that the cost of two 1,200 MW reactors (yet untested) had ballooned from $6 Billion to $26 Billion.
In 2008, prior to recent announcements regarding an explosion in costs to develop nuclear energy facilities, Tyler Hamilton, of the Toronto Star, conducted a direct comparison of nuclear and wind energy costs. Using Moody's Investor Services information, he concludes that the cost of building 750 megawatts of capacity in wind is slightly more than building the same in nuclear capacity. But, when one also considers the escalating cost of uranium to generate nuclear energy, the fact that nuclear produces toxic waste requiring long-term storage and that it has higher staff and maintenance costs, Wind is clearly the more viable option. Based on recently released figures (May/June 2009) wind costs would be considerably lower than nuclear.
And, unlike nuclear, wind offers a decentralized energy source. One nuclear plant requiring unscheduled maintenance can take 1,200 MW from the grid - an unlikely scenario in the offshore wind model where each turbine only generates no more than 5 MW of energy.
Also, since wind farms take less time to build, they can replace carbon spewing coal burning and nuclear plants sooner.
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| from U.S. EPA Clean Energy - Air Emissions |
The energy produced by Trillium Power Wind 1 would offset the annual CO2 emissions produced by: 299,755 passenger vehicles; or the consumption of 3,806,185 barrels of oil; or, the burning 8,547 railcars worth of coal.
Trillium Power Wind Corporation believes in good environmental stewardship. Through its renewable energy activities Trillium Power Wind Corporation is providing practical solutions to protecting the environment while at the same time acting as a catalyst for long-term sustainable economic development and green-collar jobs.