NorCal county could be home to hundreds of wind turbines as tall as the Eiffel Tower and the project would cost billions
Green energy activists have set their sights on a small county in Northern California for the construction of a massive offshore wind farm that is estimated to cost billions.The 10-year construction project is currently planned for Humboldt Bay in Humboldt County, about 300 miles north of San Francisco.Officials are hoping to transform Humboldt Bay’s once massive logging port into a hub for floating offshore wind power, helping the state reach its clean energy goal by 2045.And if it works, they are estimating it could make up somewhere between 10%-15% of the state’s clean energy.The project is expected to last more than a decade as the area will have to construct hundreds of wind towers as tall as the Eiffel Tower that will then be sent out to float in the bay, the Los Angeles Times reported.Giant cranes will also help to assemble the towers, changing the look of the harbor for years to come.The technology for the project is only in the early stages, as no one has ever tried to build a floating wind turbine farm in the deep waters of the Pacific Ocean.While the wind turbine towers will be on a floating platform, they still must be secured to the ocean floor.In the waters 20-60 miles offshore in Humboldt Bay, that means securing wires between 1,600 to 4,200 feet down in the ocean.According to the report, that is more than 10 times deeper in the water than it’s been successfully tried in places such as Scotland and Norway.
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By clicking above you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.Never miss a story Those wires then will send the electricity to the ground which will be transmitted back to the shore through some 400 hundreds miles of transmission lines.The engineering aspects of the project, must also account for those lines to be loose and strong enough to withstand the ocean’s strong curre...