Offshore Wind is The Future of Energy Production

(Image of Wind Turbines off the coast of New York state.)

Recent studies have shown researchers the new benefits that wind power can give to our increasingly technological society. The focus of the newest research is on offshore wind farms. Researchers from the International Energy Agency (IEA), said in a new study that we could see an incredible increase in power output from offshore wind production within the next few years. According to the story, “The report estimates that based on current policy targets and plummeting technology costs, offshore wind could increase 15-fold by 2040, becoming a $1 trillion industry and eliminating 5 to 7 billion tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually from the power sector.” (Environmental News Network). While offshore wind energy only produces around 0.3 percent of global electricity today, most researchers believe that the future potential for that number to grow are astronomical.

Offshore wind power is being attempted across the globe, with many countries and companies looking to improve their use of renewable energy in the twenty-first century. New York state is looking to add new wind turbines off the shores of Long Island, for instance. While there has been some pushback from local residents, the state says that the implementation of this technology will help with electricity efficiency and costs in the long term. According to the study, “The cost of offshore wind is expected to be cut in half in the next five years, dropping to $60 per megawatt-hour — on par with solar and onshore wind and cheaper than new natural gas-fired capacity in Europe.” (Yale Environment 360). This is definitely exciting news for environmental activists and climate scientists, who have been pushing an increased effort to diversify the energy industry for decades now.

How we fuel our society is one of the biggest questions we are going to need to face as we look to combat the changes being seen in our climate every single year. Our class is focused around the idea of understanding our natural world, and how we as humans fit into that equation. Finding new ways to be efficient with our natural world fits nicely in with the goals and studies of the class itself.

This is great news for the world. Wind power is going to be one of the driving energy producers in the coming decades as the technology hopefully gets cheaper and more efficient. Human innovation has always allowed us to tackle problems head-on, and hopefully, that same human innovation will allow us to address the many facets of climate change. This is definitely a good start, but there is obviously still so much for us to do. There are many ways to move away from fossil fuels and become more energy-efficient, using wind power, solar power, or nuclear energy. We should be open to every new idea, and we should never be afraid to try something new or untested. That is exactly how we became the society we are today, and we shouldn’t look to stop that human progress now.

References:
Leslie, Jacques, et al. “Offshore Wind Has the Potential to Fulfill Global Electricity Demand 18 Times Over.” Yale E360, 25 Oct. 2019, https://e360.yale.edu/digest/offshore-wind-has-the-potential-to-fulfill-global-electricity-demand-18-times-over.

Yale Environment. “Yale Environment 360.” ENN, 25 Oct. 2019, https://www.enn.com/articles/60458-offshore-wind-has-the-potential-to-fulfill-global-electricity-demand-18-times-over.