Current event 8

There's a new wind farm coming to the Northwest coast. A Seattle company named Principle Power has just recently been approved to move forward on a lease of 15 square miles of federal waters off the coast of Oregon. Their formal plan is just waiting on final approval. 

The WindFloat Project is a series of wind turbines that will float offshore to capture the latent energy of strong winds off the coast. Principle Power already operates a prototype of their "Windfloat Project" off the coast of Portugal, which has been successful in delivering 8.4 gigawatt-hours of wind energy to the grid since its construction in 2011. 

Of course questions arise as to how these turbines could affect coastal ecosystems. I am optimistic though that they won't cause any major impacts, and will be a great source of renewable energy in the future.

Quote from the US Department of Interior 

"The West Coast holds an offshore capability of more than 800 gigawatts of wind energy potential, according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, which is equivalent to more than three quarters of the nation’s entire power generation capacity. Total U.S. deepwater wind energy resource potential is estimated to be nearly 2,000 gigawatts."