A quest to harness wind for offshore power generation in Japan

Hope Ohsawa is also studying what impact wind farms can have on bird mortality!

Wind turbines kill birds that fly into their spinning blades. They’re not environmentally friendly at all,

Kind of late to the party, but oh well. They should be putting a lot more time, effort, money into sea energy/generators.

Japan is an ISLAND nation after all (Japanese people LUV LUV LUV to say this... LOL)!!!!!

Japanese gov needs to do better on renewable energy and nuclear power safety/regulations instead of just telling people to 'save energy'.

Mortality rate of all living species on the planet going to skyrocket in a handful of decades if humans to adjust/adapt to alternate energy sources.

Humans are the cockroaches of the universe.... we are willing killing our own planet and may end up knowingly drive our own species to extinction.

A thousand year old technology that was dropped for the steam engine is now our future? Jesus wept.

250m tall wind turbines were around before the steam engine? School teachers wept.

A thousand year old technology that was dropped for the steam engine is now our future? Jesus wept.

Use wind above the water and currents underwater.

Wind turbines kill birds that fly into their spinning blades. They’re not environmentally friendly at all,

I thought only trump said this stupid thing.

Would it not be possible in the meantime to install blades and turbines on bridge uprights, such as the bridge over the Akashi Strait, the Seto Ōhashi and Kanmon Kyō?

While they string out the process of going ahead and actually installing dedicated turbine towers. Easier to maintain, too, surely.

The comments here remind me of the Fukushima water release, everyone complains and moans about it but not one of the moaners will post a solution. All the greenies say "Wind farms no good, Solar Energy no good, Hydro dams no good, Nuclear no good" They all moan but never give a solution.

Nuclear is a far better option for Japan.

Would it not be possible in the meantime to install blades and turbines on bridge uprights

My uneducated guess is no, the bridge was not build to host any turbines.

Actually, it's usually the climate change deniers saying these things.

All the greenies say "Wind farms no good, Solar Energy no good, Hydro dams no good, Nuclear no good" They all moan but never give a solution.

Here is an excellent quantitative study of bird mortality from wind turbines. Two sites in India were studied. One site recorded 0.20 birds dead per turbine per year. The other site recorded 0.26 dead birds per turbine per year. So figure one dead bird per year for every four wind turbines. It is not the mortality rate I think some expect. A single tall building in a city will cause more bird deaths.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-05159-1

One thing the study mentioned above noted is that birds develop avoidance behaviors and learn to stay away from wind turbines.

They are good and necessary I suppose, but they are such an eyesore.

Hell, what happens when the wind stops blowing, eh? Nobody ever thought about that but me. You'll have to give up eating bacon.

When the wind stops blowing another energy source is used. The UK generates one-third of its power from wind and zero from coal.

Welcome to the 21st century Japan. Literally 20 years later than most other developed countries with long coast lines and now well developed offshore wind expertise, infrastructure, jobs, and clean energy.

250m tall wind turbines were around before the steam engine? School teachers wept.

School teachers are last people you should be learning from.

How much energy does it take to make the concrete and steel to construct these monstrositites? How much electricity do they produce when the wind doesn't blow? How about when typhoons hit and they have to be locked lest they tear themselves apart? How much lubricating oil is used? How often is it changed? How many rare earth minerals are used? How often do the turbine blades need replacing? What is the toll in dead birds of prey? Can you answer even one of these questions?

Literally 20 years later than most other developed countries with long coast lines and now well developed offshore wind expertise, infrastructure, jobs, and clean energy.

It is not as prevalent or as mature an industry as you suggest. The great bulk of the worlds offshore wind power are in China, UK, Germany and Netherlands. Those four nations produce around 75% of the global total. The US has very little offshore wind power, and Canada has none despite having coastal regions with high average winds ideal for wind power. US projects get delayed and cancelled due to local opposition from coastal residents and fishing interests. Japan has more than three times the offshore wind generating capacity of the US. The tech for floating offshore wind power needed to exploit areas that are deeper than the North Sea or Baltic is still in the demonstration phase and places like North America don't have the construction, service and crew accommodation vessels required of the industry nor to they have the onshore sites needed to support offshore wind power construction projects. It is a work in progress, not a mature technology.

So many comments... and unfortunately some are very worng or unaducated....

First.. bird boys/gals... you just talk gibberish go to your corner and try to color your books within the lines

Why haven't Japan introduce win power farms (specially offshore ones)... there is the money issue and "land (sea)" usage issue but a big reason that offshore wind farms has taken so much time to be established in Japan are becasue of Geological and climate conditions.

Climete: those pesky little storms with high wind speeds, typhoons are kind of a danger to the wind generators.

Geological: The sea bed in Pacific side of Japan goes very deep very fast.. when you go to the areas (distance) where offshore wind generators usually are installed (in other coutries), the sea floor is very deep, so the technology to anchor the wind generators are costly and need a lot of work to set it up.

Having those two points in mind, the mantainance cost and risk prevention procedures differ a lot from those wind farms set in Europe.

So is not as simple as to... take a wind generator and put in on the sea and voila!!! wind generation!!!...

Having studied the impact of these horrible things on birds over the years I really hope Japan doesn’t build even one more of them. Larger birds like eagles just get sliced in half while flying past….

Having studied the impact of these horrible things on birds over the years

Show us your study!

Hell, what happens when the wind stops blowing, eh? Nobody ever thought about that but me. 

trump, is it you?

Geothermal? Nah, even though Japan is extremely rich in that energy source.

Got to secure those votes of the elderly that run money losing onsens all over the countryside eh.

Having said that, if we really were in some kind of ,global warming induced environmental crisis, they would switch to geothermal in an instant.

"Why haven't Japan introduce win power farms (specially offshore ones)... there is the money issue and "land (sea)" usage issue but a big reason that offshore wind farms has taken so much time to be established in Japan are because of Geological and climate conditions.

Climate: those pesky little storms with high wind speeds, typhoons are kind of a danger to the wind generators.

Geological: The sea bed in Pacific side of Japan goes very deep very fast.. when you go to the areas (distance) where offshore wind generators usually are installed (in other countries), the sea floor is very deep, so the technology to anchor the wind generators are costly and need a lot of work to set it up.

Having those two points in mind, the maintenance cost and risk prevention procedures differ a lot from those wind farms set in Europe.

So is not as simple as to... take a wind generator and put in on the sea and voila!!! wind generation!!!...@Daniel

Excellent, well thought observations.

"Why haven't Japan introduce win power farms (specially offshore ones)...

But Japan does have offshore wind power. They produce more than three times as much power from offshore wind power than the US.

Mike_Oxlong

Sep. 11 01:10 pm JST

It's being done successfully in Japan already and around the world. UK generates 1/3 of it's power from wind.

All your questions have been answered many times over the years.

Your conspiracy theory nonsense is just that. Nonsense.

All your questions have been answered many times over the years.

Maybe he's a Trump supporter. Apparently wind farms cause cancer and ruin bacon or something. It was hard to figure out what exactly Trump was saying with his word salad. But it was enough for his people to jump on and decide wind farms are "a disgrace".

TEPCO tell us we have to use less power as not all their nuclear power stations are on line but we learned the other day that the company uses all the solar power that is being produced to mine Bitcoins, not to power people's homes. I daresay that is what they want the wind turbines for too.

Maybe he's a Trump supporter. Apparently wind farms cause cancer and ruin bacon or something. 

More importantly, they spoil the view from one of his golf courses.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_International_Golf_Club_Scotland_Ltd_v_The_Scottish_Ministers

Just installing propellers for wind power generation on the sea does not mean that everything will work out smoothly.

Some people have mentioned that Japan is prone to typhoons and earthquakes, but that's not all. In addition, maintenance takes a huge amount of time and money, far more than the recoverable electricity.

Moreover, the wind does not blow forever, so we are truly dependent on nature. If we are to generate electricity using natural energy, we must choose a method that is lower cost and easier to maintain.

Just installing propellers for wind power generation on the sea does not mean that everything will work out smoothly.

The Faroe Islands produces a significant quantities of tidal power and does so efficiently. They recently installed the world's first megawatt class tidal "kite" made by Minesto of Sweden. It is rated at 1.5 MW, enough to power a small town.

https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/faroe-islands-looks-to-tidal-power-with-tis-underwater-kites/