May 21, 2010 - offshore energy in Britain and Canada

Friday, May 21, 2010

Following up on my recent posts about Cape Wind and the price ratepayers may pay for its output:

A new report by the Offshore Valuation Group identifies the size of the opportunity for Great Britain to develop its ocean energy resources. The group concluded that harnessing 29% of the practically tappable wind, wave and tidal resources in the UK would displace all of the electricity generated by oil and gas production in the North Sea, and cumulatively over 40 years save 1.1 billion tons of carbon dioxide. OVG identified two possible price tags: £443bn for 29% of the offshore resources, generating £62bn in annual exports; or £993bn for 76% of available resources, generating £164bn. Floating offshore wind turbines have the largest share of the potential, contributing 1,533 terawatt-hours per year.

Meanwhile, BC Hydro has announced that NaiKun Wind's 396 MW offshore wind energy project was no longer under consideration in the province's Clean Power Call. Back in November 2008, NaiKun Wind had submitted a proposal to BC Hydro to buy the power from an offshore wind energy project to be built in the Haida Energy Field in Hecate Strait off British Columbia's northwest coast. NaiKun has an interesting explanation of why it wasn't selected for inclusion in the Clean Power Call: in the end, price.

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