Offshore Wind in Crisis! What Can We Learn? 

The UK imports about £100 billion of energy a year , so any energy produced in house has a large effect on the balance of payments and national debt.

Wow, so refreshing to get detailed explanations from someone who clearly knows her topic.

So basically renewable offshore generation is expensive. The latest auction failed because the companies wanted more minimum payments. In south of England already agreed projects were cut back because of visible farms in the channel

I was told by a offshore gas worker in Taranaki that offshore wind will be good for his company, good for regional and national economy but super bad for the environment. His reason was the crane ship that comes from Norway to do maintenance is polluting. Then he proceeds to tell me the same ship is used by the fossil gas industry in Taranaki. This is otherwise a very smart person that has been programmed by the industry he works in, programmed to believe crazy.

It is actually really amazing when I, here in Perth, explain to people how well Solar and Wind Anti-collorate, you see it click for people that have just not thought about it before.

Cost per kWh should be based upon 'feed in', not 'produced' or 'capacity'. A lot of green energy is sent to ground because it doesn't match need.

Hi Rosie, I worked as a draughtsman dealing primarily with steel ship construction. The monopile and jacketed structure options puzzle me. We can build ships out of steel because we can pull them out of the water/drydock them to paint them every now and then, otherwise corrosion will chew away the structure once the paint system is compromised, which always happens sooner or later. Given all the other difficulties that have to be dealt with at great expense to get offshore wind turbines to work, it would be sensible to seek the longest possible lifespan. I would have thought the mere idea of fixing a steel structure in place like that so that it cannot be maintained, and then parking a very expensive wind turbine on top would be enough to give any seasoned engineer palpitations.

Great video Rosie! Especially happy with your explanation of why offshore wind seems so popular despite its higher LCOE as reported in Lazard. The cute boat-Rosie animation was also great!

LCOE is inferior to total system cost calculations. Solar and wind complementing each other, on average, does not negate reserve requirements (there's still too many times when both are providing low output). Batteries are not sufficient either given that they're typically only able to provide for 4 to 6 hours. Hence LCOE is fine if your renewable penetration is relatively low (< 20% of installed capacity). But once penetration gets really high... 40%+, additional integration costs go exponential, and LCOE doesn't account for that.

One of the most interesting video about windpower - thank you!

So, let me get this straight. Offshore wind will use oilfield tech to deploy massive structures in deeper waters and be serviced by men in helicopters which will cost twice as much as other available sources of energy for similar regions. Sounds like a winner.🏆

Can't wait for the floating offshore one!

According to UN statistics around 40% of the world’s population lives

Being working in OW since 2014 designing farms all over the world, and this is a great video to explain this amazing industry!! Congrats

Hi Rosie, thanks for another interesting and informative video! @11:19 you briefly mention energy storage in connection with offshore wind pg. As a possible solution, this might be achieved with local to offshore wind turbines by having offshore pumped storage hydroelectricity. The way pumped hydro might work offshore is by having an undersea chamber, (or series of chambers) submerged at a certain depth. As power is generated by the wind turbines, water is pumped out of the chambers and replaced with air, creating a storage of gravitational energy potential. When power is required, the chambers could be reflooded, and the transfer of air/water used to drive similar machinery (hydro turbine). The process seems pretty straight forward, combining different elements of existing technologies, making it cheap to implement and convenient to locate. Contrary to expectation, I have not heard or seem much about such an energy storage technology, which could potentially ratchet up to advantages and possibilities for expanded offshore wind prospects. I was wondering if the idea sounds interesting to you and if so, would be willing render some pros and cons?

An interesting and informative video by someone who is obviously enthusiastic about wind turbines as a source of electricity. There are, however, some blind spots that result from that enthusiasm and being embedded in the industry. Here are just a few. 1. It is an iron law of electricity generation that the lower the energy density of the source, the greater the material intensity. The quantity of steel, copper, rare earths, etc., is very, very high. In fact, if we generated our energy needs from wind turbines, we would probably cook the earth in the steel and cement construction and poison the planet with the toxic wastes that come from the production and dismantling of wind turbines. There is also the much higher demand for copper. 2. That leads to the second major issue. The absence of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of any of the so-called renewable energy sources. There are ISO Guidelines for LCAs and the reason no LCAs have been done that include environmental, social and economic costs is that the myth of so-called renewable energy sources being a panacea to our ecological overshoot and our carbon and toxicity colonialism will be exposed. 3. Whilst addressing the issue of greenhouse gas emissions from electricity generation is addressed in a small way by wind turbines and solar PVs, many more serious environmental, toxicity and social problems are generated. 4. How do wind turbines help to address the issues raised by earth system scientists (read planetary boundaries, six of nine having now been crossed and all indicators are that things are only getting worse, driven, in part, by the mindless rush to so-called renewables. 5. Renewables is a misnomer. Wind turbines and Solar PVs are replaceable energy harvesting machines. 6. We are already dealing with a massive global plastics problem and the end of life disposal of wind turbine blades is only going to exacerbate that problem. 7. The IPAT identity notes that the environmental impact of humanity, I, is a product of population, P, affluence, A, and technology, T. Until we address issues of affluence (read demand for energy and resources/materials in the form of goods and products) and technology, we are not going to make matters better globally. 8. Earth Overshoot Day is in July this year. For Australia, where I live, it is in a March. We simply can’t keep consuming the planet the way we are doing at the moment. Many have been saying this for decades and things have only gotten worse. Read William R. Catton’s classic 1980 book, OVERSHOOT. then read Christopher Clugston’s latest book, INDUSTIALISM: OUR COMMITMENT TO IMPEMANENCE. And then ask why the neo-classical econ9mic paradigm which is fundamentally flawed still holds sway when better approaches such as ECOLOGICAL ECONOMICS offer a more reality based approach. In summary, it is time to break out of th3 narrow engineering paradigm and produce some videos that are reality based fro every creatures on earth, including the thousands killed every year by wind turbine blades (that creatures include bats, birds, insects). A frustrated and retired electrical engineer and academic.

I can’t help thinking that some of the reason that the offshore projects failed was just because they wanted a slice of the pie of the higher electricity prices.

That's an impressively information-dense 16 minutes. Thanks for a comprehensive summary delivered in a thoroughly balanced manner. You are becoming a national, if not global treasure :-)

...worth pointing out, 50GW's of offshore wind at 32% efficiency factor is about 145TWh's/annum. Current UK domestic electrical consumption is around 98TWh's/annum, but that's relying on around 80-85% gas and oil heating to homes. The only way we'll get 26 million homes (plus a million extra the government is saying they'll build) to run on 145TWh's/annum will be by either leaving all homes running on gas/oil, or by upgrading all existing homes (around 22 million) to current new dwelling building regulations standard with heat pumps running at an average COP of 3... to do this by 2030? That's upgrading 3.6 million homes per year, and installing 3.6 million heat pumps per year (last year we installed 36,000 according to Carbon Brief)... and then also worth pointing out that the electricity will be generated throughout the year whereas the lions share will be needed for winter heating, so you'll be needing to store 72.5TWh of the wind energy generated by the 50GW's generators for up to six months for winter heating. At current storage costs per KWh... that's kind of insane.

Such a thorough job of presenting this important topic, and your graphics make it easier to follow - great job!

Thanks Rosie. I really appreciate such a thorough explanation by someone who really knows what they are talking about, and cites sources of information. As a retired Aerodynamicist, I have a reasonable understanding of the physical generation of power from wind, and with long experience of stability augmentation of flight control, the automatic control of a turbine and generator is also well understood. But the civil engineering, economic, oceanic, and weather spects that you brought out are real eye-openers to me.

Every Kiwi who was around in the 80's knows of the Freemantle Doctor. Even if they have never been to Perth.

There is a system called biorock reefs, basically uses a very low voltage current that causes calcium to precipitate out of the seawater and form a layer of minerals on rebar that is basically food that supercharges the growth of corals and shellfish. I've been obsessed with the idea of that being deployed on the underside of offshore wind turbines so that offshore wind farms also become massive biodiversity hotspots full of coral reefs.

Thank you for clearing that up for me.

So here in Ireland we have the most expensive electricity in Europe....that's what happened when you have to build and maintain two generating systems the so called renewables and the fossil fuel plants..

Thank you Rosie, extremely clear and informative but as to your last point for consistency in messaging. Unfortunately when governments et. al. give a diktat and a lie then when the truth sinks in there will obviously be reversals and back pedaling. The UK have been old that we HAVE to be zero carbon and that renewables are UNDENIABLY cheaper and will create masses of UK jobs. That failed bidding process alone should put this in some doubt. These jobs will actually just add to a massively over inflated public sector making our energy industry an immensely costly addition to our civil service paid for by taxes and poverty inducing energy costs (in turn destroying local production and economies). There is a place for these projects in our energy mix but there needs to be more honesty about the challenges and the costs of the unpredictability (helped by offshore), transmission infrastructure, storage, back-ups, environmental impact to birds and sea-life and decommissioning costs and impacts. Then we can talk honesty about the pace and cost of investment. It may well be different elsewhere but in the UK we are being told that we must do this AT ANY COST as apparently the global sustainability of the planet hinges on our 1% (and falling) of Global emissions as once we cripple ourselves economically the rest of the world will apparently follow us into the wilderness. Sorry to unload Rosie you do great work but unfortunately the engineering and many other points you make so well have to be viewed through an unfavorable political lens.

All I have ever read is that, wherever in the world a nation has gone big on wind and solar, the electricity prices have risen steeply as an outcome. 2 prominent examples are Germany, now with the most expensive electricity in Europe and California, with the most expensive electricity in the USA. Despite the theoretical speeches of renewables being cheaper, the reality has proven to be otherwise.

Off shore windfarms are good for fish. Trawlers cannot operate in these areas.

Rosie, that was an exceptionally clear overview of all the issues involved in offshore wind. Thank you! 👏👏I’m looking forward to your episode on floating offshore wind!

This channel is a great find. Thanks for making such informative and well presented videos. Subbed! 👍

Brilliant video, concise, clear, interesting... look forward to more.

You neglect to mention that most equipment, blades, turbines, etc. come from China where they get 70% of their energy from coal. Similarly for solar panels. So, the costs for “clean” energy are much higher.

Great video from an expert in wind. As a commissioner for a small MA light dept, we have 3MW of onshore wind in town, but we need the high capacity factor of offshore wind to meet our requirements for a non-cabon emitting portfolio. There is more than 40GW of offshore wind on the East coast of US in the pipeline and we know costs will fall as we gain experience and build a supply chain.

A question to the Engineer. When calculations of cost/MWh are made. Does that include how long they will last? Today a Nuclear power can very well live on for 80 years, tecnicaly for ever since every components can be swapped out in many cases. And better design is coming all the time. A wind farm live for 25- 35 years. In reality much less. Then it has to be demolished and replaced. So you have to build the wind farm many times as the reactor keep running. Costs of maintenance has to be included. But do they consider cost of grid building is much higher for the wind farms then the nuclear plant. And then you need baseload for the grid. And you need additional power often fossils when the wind or sun is not there. In Sweden we have long cold winters, not much sun or wind the coldest period and then the need for energy is peaking. So you get additional casts for wind and sun. And finally nuclear tend to deliver over 90% of running time. Wind and solar obviously much less. Resulting in energy when no one need it and no energy when needed. Toxic waste in nature from the blades, dead birds and big impact on nature is other wind energy-costs. The wind-solar alternative come with a terrible need for area and material, when a nuclear plant is very much the opposite. My impression is that calculations are maybe not made with realistic data. Politics often sounds very naive when speaking or at least very biased. Making bad investments is just bad, and we see a lot of that. And no atoimc waste is not a big danger, and it is relative very safe. The use of coal is killing so many more, right? We must see things for what they are. If we wan't to do good. .

I'm interested in Japanese offshore wind so I am looking forward to the floating turbine video.

Electricity - and its cost - is at the heart of modern industrial economies, and the backbone of our lives. Whenever you hear 'well, it is more expensive, but ...' , stop and think. We, all of us, have budgets. If we pay more for electricity, we have less available for everything else. It's not just what we pay for electricity in our homes. When businesses pay more for power, they have to raise prices. That includes hospitals, electric train lines, airports, and commercial office space. And of course the government - they have electricity bills too. So every one of us - including the poor and working class - have to do without something to pay the increased price of power. When are we going to hear about what people will sacrifice to pay for wind power?

Much better to go with high density energy production from nuclear fission.

Very helpful, thanks

Lots of people in the UK rubbish nuclear for being too expensive, but a strike price of £77/MWh for wind must compare badly with £90/MWh for nuclear once you add in storage?

Thank you for the informative video.

How about building an offshore-ready windfarm near the coast, and wait for sea level rise to take it off shore? That strategy seems consistent with most major govts sense of urgency over climate change. 😮

Offshore wind has the benefit of working as a transition option. Infrastructure, like ports and ships and workers can be repurposed from fossil extraction to building renewables. And the inherent "big project nature" with centralization, large investments, complex legal matters is perfectly tailored for those companies that previously build coal, oil and gas plants.

Interesting stuff. Thanks for the video.

I remember being told that few offshore oil rigs were terrible for the ocean ecosystem. How does having hundreds of times more offshore wind towers have no effect?

Thank you Rosie!

Could it be meaningful to rinse off salt dust periodically to reduce corrosion? I mean, as long as the nacelle is well over 10 meters over the sea level a vacuum pump and a cold trap is all that would be needed to distill water. And when air temperatures up there is well below the ocean water temperature no external energy would be required to power the distillation process.

Love your work and integrity 👏 👍 😊

Fantastic report. Learnt heaps.

Wind power is great as long as you like unpredictable electricity that costs a fortune.

Yes Rosie is clearly impartial and independent and can be relied on to take an unbiased look at the topic. So what that she has made her living from offshore wind for the last 20 years, obviously that has no bearing at all on the position she takes.

Excellent as always

Great video thanks.

Thanks Rosie. Looks like the 'economical unsustainability' of offshore wind is just a commercial glitch. I was thinking recently about when offshore wind blows (largely driven by sunrise/sunset?) and how it aligns well with domestic consumption, which should reduce the demand on storage. Maybe the LCOE should be commuted to the consumer cost to factor in aspects like storage & even energy supplier markups (which home generation doesn't have).

Good thing Denmark has an interconnect with France!

One comment about the USA - they can't use European ships to install wind turbines there as ships have to be built in US (quirky old law) - which also delayed projects.

Rhorough and knowledgeable. Thank you

This all sounds fine. So let’s start by ridding ourselves of the euphemism windfarm. Let’s call it what it is, an offshore wind driven power station. Let’s get assurance that the components from mining to manufacturing are produced with no carbon emissions, slave or child labour. Installation and disposal of components with no damage to the environments we are doing this to protect. Finally, let’s see some politicians, particularly the Australian Teales put their money where their mouth is and advocate installation of these offshore from their own electorates. Given these simple expectations, I’m behind this 100%.

Have you thought of doing a video on the importance of inter country interconnectors?. Here in Northern Europe there is a phenomenon known as "Dunkelflaute" which basically means no wind and no sun. Quite common in winter, lasting typically 3-5 days with a fairly strong correlation over Europe. So, interconnectors in the same time zone don't guarantee black outs. Unless of course we keep dozens of gas plants runnning all over Europe. Our UK government is targeting 40Gw of storage output, which is huge. But they havent said for how long?. (i.e. how many Gwhrs ). The 40Gw of storage output, is about a third of projected winter demand, so to cover a 1/3rd of such demand during a Dunkelflaute would need about 6Twh. On current containerised lithium density that would require 5,000,000 acres or 7,800 square miles. Conveniently about the size of Wales. A countryside littered with 20ft containers. Or will fusion save us all

Slightly odd to put the UK in the category of countries not as blessed as Denmark with offshore wind resource when its coastal waters typically experience 10%-15% higher average wind speeds.

Always a bad idea, the bats and birds suffer the most

Terrific as usual. This stuff is so important as we heat up from carbon burning. Lead time is needed. The little goofy sail boat could be better but we can't have everything. 😀

There was a report out of Sweden that analyzed if their future energy needs out to 2045 (which current production capacity can't meet) were produced solely from wind or nuclear, it was concluded that 40% more CO2 would be released if that future additional energy was met by wind power alone. There was a second paper signed by 8 Swedish professors that stated wind power in Sweden is a guaranteed bankruptcy without national intervention.

Very clear explanation and slick presentation. I would love every village to have a sandbattery and district heating linked to renewables

Outstanding informative video. I’d love another video about floating offshore wind.

In Sweden region 3 and 4 had an average price of 0,64SEK/kWh. In the same period windturbines sold electricity on average for 0,26SEK/kWh. Atleast here too many winturbines produce electricity when demand is low while beeing aunable to produce while demand is high. There were days when price was 8SEK/kWh and windturbines produced 0 electricity. Meanwhile when winturbines produce electricity the national production goes up 20% and price drops to levels where it's not profitable to operate them. Here discussions about windturbines is if any of them are profitable at all (here).

Offshore projects cancelled by a major energy company in the Netherlands last month ( March 2024) because they are too expensive and therefor not profittable anymore...

Rosie, you may forget that the on ground grid may need to be reinforced in the area where the power from the Offshore wind parks arrives on ground, and there is usually also a need for a converter from DC to AC current. it is usually not part of the price for installing a new wind park, and not in the cost by teh company, this lies on the public distribution and will anyway be paid by the end user. Is there really a business case for offshore wind with fondations deeper than 60m ? this was one of the limitations highlighted in a wind farm in south west france, where there was a huge debate to move it further out of a marine protected area. engineering company did not want to go further and agrued with a technical limitation.

Offshore wind farms are being mooted here in NZ. Frankly, I’m very sceptical. You talk about the challenges of scaling up the turbines and mention corrosion. I think you need to consider fatigue on metal or composites. You mention better average wind speeds at sea. But numbers are crucial. I look out my bedroom window and look at the northern Tararua wind farms. These operate on land with average wind speeds of about 9.5 m/s - amongst the highest in the world. But there are reliably issues. You also need to talk about subsidies. Many governments offer incentives that result in crazy decisions being made. (I’ve seen north facing solar panels in far north Scotland.)

A breath of fresh air. Thanks, Rosie.

Rosie, Hope the subsequent Floating Platform Offshore Wind post. Will include a section on the possibility of it also generating electricity from secondary power sources, such as from wave energy, not only from wind? Which would also reduce the correlation of the power output. Increasing its marginal value. And reducing the need for storage for the grid. Seems like a natural synergy. That would also reduce the need for energy storage for the grid. Has a submerged floating island, as a platform for numerous wind turbines, ever been considered or tried? Possibly out of a calcium carbonate CO2 sequestering, air infused material? Seems like it would also have environmental benefits too, in terms of attracting sea life too?

I've scuba dived an oil drilling platform near Los Angeles - eye-opening to see that each is an underwater skyscraper in a hostile environment. Daunting. (Correlation MUST be added to LCOE!)

Also an illustration of how the so called economics of renewable energy is dependent on govt. decisions , not just supposedly objective market conditions. Also raises the question of whether these govts. , the Tories in England for instance are really trying to bring in renewables or just look like they are.

To reduce corrosion, why not use Bell Lab's 'Intercept Technology' to sacrificially remove corrosive ions from trapped airspace?

Thanks Rosie, really informative. It would be very interesting to see the comparison of dollars of energy generated between onshore and offshore wind turbines given the production graphs you showed. Especially given the massive daily price fluctuations.

For onshore wind farms in Europe, the issue is not only the availability of space, but also whether it is possible to get to where the wind is. You can't simply flatten a forest or a village to transport +25m long blades. So the cost of construction in the US is irrelevant to Europe because they have a lot of flat wasteland on the plains. Where the plots have almost no value compared to land in Europe.

Excellent information as always. Thanks!

New York canceling offshore wind projects might have something to do with the success of the city of Montreal just a few hundred km to the north being able to be at 100% renewable for electricity generation with the price that people pay on their bills being about a third of what New Yorkers pay, because of the use of a better form of renewable.

Great video!

Rosie truly wears Rose tinted glasses where the size and profitability of the oil companies is concerned. Her engineering has no hope of addressing the global crisis we are facing in a timely manner. I wonder if she believes the humanity could be facing extinction ?

Offshore windfarms is a wet dream. The turbines themselves are more expensive but nobody seems to take into consideration the cost of the infrastructure needed to bring this energy ashore. The durability of these turbines are also questionable. A few months ago the German and the Spanish state had to pay 88 billion euros to prevent Siemens Gamesa to go bankrupt. In addition they got state guarantees for an other 165 billion euros. The reason for this was that the turbines did not live up to their expected lifetime. It is easy to take big risks if other pay for the losses. An other thing with wind turbines is that the more of them there are the less profitable they become. Wind systems affects large areas over Europe and when it blows all these turbines produce electricity. That means that there will be too much energy available so the spot price drops and can in fact be negative for the producers. When it is not blowing the producers have to buy their electricity elsewhere to fore fill their obligations. This is what happened in Markbygden One in northern Sweden. They went literally bankrupt due to an optimist deal they made with Hydro Energy back in 2017. The Swedes have done an estimate over the earnings of around 3000 wind turbines in Sweden. This estimate goes from 2010 to 2022. In this period the earnings were 35 billion Swedish kroner while the losses were 47 billion. That is a loss of 37%. I guess that as long as the state subsidies the losses and the taxpayers get the bill it is alright. The Swedes have started realizing the problem and started planning for new nuclear plants. An other problem with wind turbines is that they are asynchrony and that and that you need a big synchronized generator to prevent the electric grid to collapse. Electricity is a commodity that is consumed the moment it is produced. Wind power can maybe produce 15% of the electricity on a grid, the rest have to come from large generators that are either powered by water, hydrocarbons or nuclear. The energy also has to be planned to meet the demands at any time. Big energy hungry industries have to know that the energy they need is available at all times. Shutting down a steelworks takes weeks and getting it up again even more. Think what will happen if a server park has to shut down due to lack of electricity. Will these have priority over ordinary consumers? The environmental consequences are and other issues with the blades killing birds, pollution from micro plastics and leaks of oil and other chemicals, and not to forget how the low frequency noise from these turbines will affect fish , wales and seals. These noises will carry a long distance under water. Just remember that the big wales communicates with each other over extreme long distances.

I am interested in the cost comparisons per megawatt hour that you showed but the resolution was a bit low to see at least of my phone. I wonder if you could add a link to that graph in your description or let us know which one it is of your many references, which are great to have by the way. I'm kind of interested to know how these renewable costs compare to traditional energy. for example, the 70 pounds per megawatt hour from offshore in the UK to coal, hydro, nuclear etc. also, I wonder how these costs translate to what a consumer pays. can you just divide them to get the consumer price in kilowatt hours? finally, are the economics of these projects factoring in subsidies like carbon credits?

We will know how well offshore wind holds up after a couple of hurricanes.

I am not particularly a fan of wind turbines on or off-shore. Nuclear is more energy dense and cleaner. Off-shore turbines still leak oil and require more maintenance. If there are any effects to underwater tonal sonic disruption, it is ignored. Off-shore wind raises residential rates. There is also a call to ban offshore monopiles.

That Perth afternoon wind is very often lacking. There is little certainty around the Fremantle Doctor -- and it can make for a night of wretched stagnant heat.

I wonder about adding gearing to turbines. Perhaps the forces are just too high, but by using a concept of even a 3 speed gearbox, you could significantly increase the safe operational wind speed

I’ve worked in offshore wind since 2008

I appreciate all the nautical puns that surfaced throughout the script!

It seems to me that a quantified way of comparing the demand by time of day, with the production by time of day, is pretty essential to have conversations that are productive. LCOE seems like a nearly useless measure, when talking about renewables (or any source that you can't turn on or off at will...but that's essentially renewables).

I learned a LOT watching your video. Thank you.

An interesting look at on and off shore wind power, the idea of floating arrays is interesting, obviously each one would need it's own pontoon, and for a large generator you would need a suitably large raft, just how big a raft would be good to know, also how the blades react to the "gusting" effect as the mast sways in the wind and waves, engineering problems you never get on a fixed site.

Thank you for a clear presentation Rosie. How will the ever-rising cost of land in Australia affect the choices between offshore wind and all forms of on-shore power production?

The one disadvantage for offshore wind that you didn't mention is that, like Nordstream, it's exposed to attack by the rogue major state.

Great video

I think there is some overlooked science that can envelope what I consider very valid points you have made. The whole approach to renewables has been from an engineering perspective and demanded irrationally by society. More the subject of a paper and is multi discipline in nature but in essence all life on earth GAINS energy. This is how plants work. They burn some of the energy they transduce from sunlight which has a max energy density a day variable by weather by photo synthesis for their own internal operation. Thus we have a simple equation total energy transduced /energy used. That is set by the DNA of the plant. That cycle is started in a seed which has three components A packet of building material, mitochondria with the DNA package and a packet of energy. All in herited from the old plant. A bio version of the starting system on internal combustion engine. The seed produces a root and shoot and the building of a new plant begins. Plants are the enetgy source for animals, bacteria and fungi including humans. Our agricultural society exploits this natural energy feedback circuit (it is not a cycle) to power by industrilised monoculture useing mainly grain crops eight billion people. So a field of wheat can be considered as solar collector to supply human energy. Some of that energy will have power the farmer and industrial workers who supply equipment and chemical products to agriculture. So we have the basic equation which powers our society. Total useful energy out of agriculture/total amount of energy used for humans for farming. The energy GAIN factor of our agriculture. This must be greater than one, otherwise the system is not self sustaining. We now have a new way to analyse our full industrial society based on science principles of energy conservation and not the misleading monetary economic system. When the agricultural gain of energy is sufficiently high it can support more people. If GAIN gets sufficiently high then we can for simp,icity divide people into two groups one is the farmers with energy feedback and the other everybody else. Eventually forming a duel society farmers and every body else. With the invention of energy technology starting with where wheels and wind mills plus animal power we now have third group of people producing energy from technology, electrical oil gas ect. Some of that tech energy is fed back to keep the tech energy sector running and some to assist with increaseing the GAIN of the agricultural sector. So our society has a triple energy feedback circuit. The rub is just as the agricultural output is dependent on the plant DNA our industrial energy is dependent on the efficiency of our energy transducers and the high density of the energy sources, fossil fuels and nuclear available 24 hr. Electricity generation is a special case as there is a huge multiplier effect from this energy source. The big problem with renewable energy technology is the source energy density is low and inconsistent and conversion efficiency low and inconcosistent. So the GAIN factor is lower than for fossil and nuclear. If you look at human population the increases in population correspond to the increasing GAIN of our bio and energy technology. In other words by a natural selection process humans have always adopted energy technology with a higher GAIN factor. For the first time in human history we are selecting an energy technology with an inferior ENERGY GAIN CHARACTERISTIC. The major energy technology impacted is electricity with big mu.ltiplier effect. If the GAIN drop is sufficient then the implications for society could be far worse than climate change. The writer intially qualified and was trained in heavy electrical power engineering manufacturing and career in power electronics. Later life degree studies in computer science and multi disciplinary science. The above is later derived from those studies.

Your parting comment regards supply chain, training and port facilities has a huge bearing on the proposed offshore deep-water Hunter 5GW project. The ability for Australia to manufacture the bases/towers and assemble these units in (say) Newcastle would be staggering in terms of: Steel needed ( e.g. 4000 tonnes per unit (Up to 350 units needed for 5GW). Supply chain vessels simply don't exist in Australia - so we'd need to compete in a 'hot' Asian market, the lay down space needed in Port to construct these things ( each one needs a football stadium size to construct a unit) - further complicated by the fact that Newcastle Port is privately leased (coordinated effort?). The reality - is likely that they will be built internationally (Indonesia/Korea/Singapore and simply towed into place with international crews and commissioned by these same crews). Note may of the Scottish floating units were towed, fully assembled, from Portugal. Lastly - going from 0-to-5GW in one project makes no sense - you need a staged and planned sequence of steps - as opposed to the many 'Captain calls' we seem to experience. Hunter offshore wind is Technically doable - and transformational for the local industry if carried out by a smart country (Luck only goes so far). Alternatively it may be a cheque book exercise to sail them in from O/S. I too, look forward to more episodes.

The new definition of sustainable seems to be: lasts for a decade or 2 before replacement or significant maintenance required. Replacement assumes unlimited raw materials over the long term. Short term thinking. LCOE is not accurate, FCOE should be used in future (Full, not Levelised)

They should install small tidal generators as part of the wind turbine structure.

Everything we do, negatively affects the environment, EVERYTHING!!!!!!

Awesome! Rosie for PM!

Hi Rosie, you make great videos, I hope your consultancy does well. You deserve it. Just one thought I had. I have heard the Fremantle Doctor was actually the Fremantle Docker as it was useful to dock ships that had sails and no engines. Obviously from a time when engines were not available. I don't live in WA and have no history on this but being 65, I know the English language can change. Anyway, well done with your RU-vid channel.