YIMBY: Yes, In My Back Yard: Block Island Wind Farm Begins Operations

      The five wind turbines south and east of Block Island, Rhode Island, USA, are newly operational as the Block Island Wind Farm, the first such offshore farm in the US.

         I learned about the Block Island Wind Farm from my mom who saw one of my high school friends, Ms. Judith Gray, a Block Island resident and retired meteorologist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, on the national news last week.

        In a 2014 article, Ms. Gray noted she has seen the damage caused by fossil fuels firsthand after visiting the site of the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska and the Deepwater Horizon accident in the Gulf of Mexico. "Renewable energy does not pose the same risks," said Ms. Gray, whose home on Block Island is in view of the location of the wind farm.

       “People often say not in my backyard,” she said. “Well I say please develop the Deepwater Wind project that is in my backyard.”

     We spoke about wind energy about two years ago at  Partial Ellipsis of the Sun. In a gust of very good news for the renewable energy sector, a survey of 163 wind energy experts has found that in the coming decades, the cost of electricity generated by wind should plunge, by between 24 and 30 percent by the year 2030, and even further by the middle of the century.



      One key reason for the lowered costs is that new wind projects are about to get even more massive, in both the offshore and onshore sectors. As turbines get taller and access stronger winds, and as rotors increase in diameter, it becomes possible to generate ever more electricity from a single turbine.

      

     The Block Island Wind Farm will now produce enough electricity to power 19,000 homes or 90 percent of the island's needs, with 30 megawatts.

     Seems like a Wind-Wind to me,

     Steph

Happy Thanksgiving! SCIENCE IS SCIENCE, thankfully.