content: What Is The General Consensus On Offshore Wind Farms? Just wondered. Nearly every European country with a coastline is pushing full steam ahead with offshore wind.  Why? Wind turbines built on land have a number of drawbacks. 1.) The wind over land is much more variable in both speed and availability. 2.) Pushback from local inhabitants, some say wind farms are an eyesore or "destroy their majestic views." 3.) Some bird lover whacko liberals freak over wind farms killing a few thousands of birds a year. This last one is a spurious argument in my view since coal power plants kill tens of thousands a year, buildings kill 100s of thousands, and outdoor cats kill over a billion birds each year, not to mention power lines and air pollution killing (???) some large number I'm too lazy right now to look up. Or:  http://instituteforenergyresearch.org/analysis/license-to-kill-wind-and-solar-decimate-birds-and-bats/ -- you be the judge. Offshore, the wind is more steady, by which I mean not fast one minute then slow the next then fast again, etc. Steady wind equals steady (more reliable) energy production. In addition, winds are generally stronger offshore as well so a wind turbine on land will produce less energy than the same kind of wind turbine placed some miles off shore. Capacity factor is the term for the actual energy output of a wind turbine versus the "nameplate" rated output. Last I checked, wind turbines on land have about a 40-45% capacity factor (i.e. a 1 megawatt turbine will actually deliver 400,000 to 450,000 watts actual output). Offshore wind turbines generally have a much higher capacity factor, the newest from GE boasts a 67% capacity factor. One can see the steady improvement in the technology just within the past decade. GE recently announced their new 12 megawatt "HALIADE-X" wind turbine which beats the competition putting out 47% more energy per year than any competitor on the market. Increases CAPEX and ROI over competitors. GE have done away with the gears inside wind turbines, which equals reduced maintenance cost and greater reliability. Most wind turbines in service today, even offshore ones miles out to sea, have a gearbox to transfer the kinetic energy from the spinning blades to a generator. Gears need lubricant and that lubricant breaks down over time so a technician needs to physically go to each wind turbine, drain the old lubricant and refill it. This is costly and if not done regularly will result in damage to or destruction of the wind turbine. Gearless (direct drive) wind turbines like GE's Haliade have a ring of magnets connected directly to the shaft of the spinning rotors acting as the inner half of the generator. So as the blades spin so do the magnets connected to the shaft and fixed magnets inside the nacelle function as the other half of the generator. A much simplified design with no gears and thus no maintenance, no need to change the oil -- there is nothing to change. Really quite ingenious. Siemens has wind turbines of a similar design. As does Vestas and Vensys. Here is a pop-sci article explaining how they work  https://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2010-03/next-gen-wind-turbine Here is a list of the top 10 wind turbines in the world (the largest is currently 10 megawatts) http://www.power-technology.com/features/featurethe-worlds-biggest-wind-turbines-4154395/ GE's Haliade  https://www.gerenewableenergy.com/wind-energy/turbines/haliade-x-offshore-turbine  Nice infographics and size reference -- it's bloody big. GE promotional video  https://hooktube.com/watch?v=ybh7NwZv7c8 And a bit about where and how they're made  https://www.gerenewableenergy.com/stories/saint-nazaire-makes-haliade-turbines GE have started to upgrade the wind farm at Saint-Nazaire, replacing the existing GE 6 megawatt wind turbines with the new 12 megawatt version.  It all sounds so wonderful, doesn't it? But generating energy by wind turbines is only half the story of course. Energy storage is also needed, on a massive scale, in order to better make use of the electrical energy coming off these wind farms. This can be batteries, yes, like the one Elon Musk recently completed in Australia and Hawaii. Pumped hydro energy storage has been in use for decades. Then there are other, more "creative" ideas like filling rail cars with rocks and pulling them uphill using extra energy and then when energy is needed allowing the rail cars to roll slowly back down to generate electricity. Bags of compressed air in underground cavities are being investigated. And one idea involves drilling a shaft into the earth and using a 30 ton weight pulled up and lowered down to store then generate energy.  My money's not on the compressed air scheme, by the way.