The Norwegian state oil company StatoilHydro is about to build “Hywind”, the world’s first functional floating wind turbine, and to test it for two years offshore Karmi¸y. They have developed HyWind based on familiar concrete constructions floating from North Sea oil installations. The rotor blades on their floating wind turbine will be enormous: 80 meters in diameter, and the nacelle will will be raised to about 65 meters above the sea level. The floating construction of the wind turbine will be about 100 meters below sea level, and will be anchored to the seabed using three solid anchor points. The wind turbine can be located in waters with depths ranging from 120 to 700 metres.
The pilot project will be assembled in i…mi¸yfjorden near Stavanger. Its final floating location will be at about 10 kilometres offshore Karmi¸y in the Rogaland county. Siemens has taken the initiative to build this wind turbine. The floating element will be built by Technip, who will also have the responsibility to install it in the middle of the sea. Nexans will lay cables to shore, and Haugaland Kraft will be responsible for the landfall.
A three meter high wind turbine model has already been tested with good results in SINTEF Marintek’s wave simulator from Trondheim. The goal of the pilot is to qualify the technology and reduce costs to a level that will mean that floating wind turbines can compete with other energy sources.
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Norway already processes sewage and offal in biogas reactors? Is there a lesson in fuel economy here for the American folks who damn near poisoned the world with a flu epidemic because they spread valuable bio-gasable resource flows on the ground in in the streams and ponds, just to save a buck or to and make fast money? The world is watching you in disgust over this one, American vulture capitalist fast buck artists, and we will not tolerate it forever. Even China was frightened, and you think North Korea is a gangster? As long as the Yankee Doodle can extract a fast buck by dishonest means he will, and we doubt if we will ever see a real effort to “clean up the act” of these rip-off artists so don’t expect Americans to do as well as Norway in wind either.