Several countries have turned oil drilling platforms into highly productive and diverse reefs. Now the idea is going around of replacing the above-water structures with wind turbines on 5,000 such rigs. California is hosting a conference on it.
Many environmentalists want oil drilling platforms in the ocean totally removed, but it is much cheaper and more productive to leave the steel pillars. They become reefs supporting a vast diversity of ocean life, including fish and sea lions.
Repurposing oil platforms Wonkette
In Long Beach, California, this weekend, the Aquarium of the Pacific hosted a conference to explore how California's 27 offshore oil platforms might be used for good, not evil and oil slicks. A dozen of the things are likely to be retired in the coming decade, and since their underwater pilings have already created artificial reefs, there might be opportunities to repurpose the platforms for wind power, or as hotels for divers.
When Oil Rig Met Wind Turbine
The turbines from SeaEnergy Renewables have the legs of an oil platform and the head of a wind turbine. In a few years, it claims the idea will be dominant.
This is only one of many videos of ocean life on drilling platform supports.
Reefs
Malaysia and Brunei have been doing these conversions to massively productive reefs, I just now learned, and there are a number in the Gulf of Mexico. Adding wind turbines is a new wrinkle.
There are said to be about 5,000 such drilling rigs worldwide. Or maybe 7,500. I certainly don't know which it is.
More Videos
Links
Rigs-to-Reefs - Wikipedia
Rigs to Reefs. Over the years, studies have documented a connection among fish and other marine life, fishing, and the oil and gas structures in the marine ...
Rigs-to-Reefs — Blue Latitudes
Feb 1, 2019 - New research digs into the history, ecology, and pragmatics of efforts to turn oil rigs into human-made reefs. Offshore oil platforms have an ...
Viewpoints: Rigs to Reefs - Mission Blue
Jan 25, 2019 - Researchers lay out the science and history behind transitioning old oil rigs into permanent reefs.
Wind Power for Working Oil Rigs
Feb 11, 2009 - ABERDEEN, Scotland -- What do you get when you crossbreed an offshore drilling platform with a wind turbine? A cheaper way to get wind …
Jan 11, 2018 - Analysts forecast a sixfold increase in offshore wind power capacity by ... to offshore fossil fuel platforms are seeing a new market rising in their ...
88-MW floating offshore wind farm to power offshore oil rigs in Norway
Renewable Wind Power for Offshore Platforms | Eniday
Sandberg was looking at the enormous amount of energy required to operate an offshore drilling platform, the size constraints, the cost and complexity of ...
Also
Wonkette: Suck It, Trump: Switch From Coal To Renewable Energy Could Save Billions A Year
A December report by analysts at Morgan Stanley predicts that the "surprisingly low cost of renewables" will lead most utilities to shutter virtually all the US's remaining coal plants within the next ten years. The analysts expect that a lot of utilities heavily invested in fossil fuels now could actually boost profits by switching to solar and wind, becoming "Second Wave Utilities" that achieve higher valuations, and therefore happier investors.
Yes, why aren't shareholders storming the gates?
Even money management giant BlackRock has announced it will no longer invest in coal, resulting in a brief boost in pun futures.
Ah, yes, Christmas presents for naughty and nice investors.
One thing's for sure: both the Moody's and Morgan Stanley reports say it's curtains for coal, with a likely decline to between eight and 10 percent of total US electric generation by 2030. The Moody's report says efforts by Trump and some red states to prop up coal "are not significant enough to halt the decline in thermal coal consumption."
When did all of these Capitalist Tools turn into knee-jerk, tree-hugging Librulz?
It's the new economy, stupid.