The Nov. 10 issue of the Cape Gazette carried two offshore wind letters with overlapping subject matter, but each had significantly different attitudes. The good letter, by Dave Hardin, not only acknowledged my recent letter about the sea-level rise threat to Lewes and Rehoboth, but also gave a balanced essay on the tradeoffs between benefits and costs of such projects for the Lewes and Rehoboth areas, and also offered some good suggestions.
One idea Hardin could have added is more solar panels on rooftops and over commercial parking lots. If commercial parking lots of Lewes and Rehoboth shopping centers had car port roofs made of solar panels connected to EV chargers, then people could shop while their EV was recharging (a few parking lot chargers are already in our area). Actually, some corporations have already started doing this elsewhere. Also, floating solar farms are being installed in lakes elsewhere, but it is an unanswered question for ocean sites because wave wear and tear might be worse. In addition, because of the curvature of the Earth, and because floating solar panels would be just slightly higher than the water surface, they offer the advantage that they would only need to be no more than three miles from the shore to be totally invisible to anyone on the beach or farther in.
The less-good letter, by David Stevenson, had only bad things to say about offshore wind and then offered only four alternatives. But, they all involve only onshore sites, and he didn't explain that they have problems too. Onshore wind anywhere in the Lewes and Rehoboth area, or Sussex County, is DOA (can you guess why?). Solar is nice, but in Sussex County, it also needs land (expensive) and permits and low public opposition (it has recently become an uphill battle against pro-farm politics). Carbon capture? You don't get as much bang for the buck as you easily do if you start with zero-emission power sources. Advanced nuclear power is also now DOA too because NuScale announced Nov. 8 total cancellation of its advanced nuke program because of rising costs. Stevenson said offshore wind is too expensive. Maybe so for sea floor-anchored turbines, but I found internet cost numbers for floating wind turbines and contra-rotating blade tilted floating wind turbines that are half the price. Did Stevenson know about the cheaper systems but just used for his essay the more expensive bottom-anchored turbine cost numbers so he could badmouth that system on cost? Or, was he neither aware nor even looking so he could say – since he was not aware, therefore – anything cheaper doesn't exist? Either way, he didn't do his homework.
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