IEEE Spectrum July, 2012 - 51

This has become a problem even for some
offshore projects. For example, a vast
project off Martha's Vineyard island, in
Massachusetts, which was supposed
to be the first offshore wind farm in the
United States, has been stalled for years
because of local opposition. The intermittence of the wind makes it hard to estimate
how much electricity can be generated in a
few days' time, and the shortage of operating experience with large turbines introduces even greater uncertainty over the
long term. We'll just have to wait to see
how reliable they'll be over their supposed
lifetimes of 20 to 30 years and how much
repair and maintenance they will require.
And, of course, you can't use wind
turbines unless you're prepared to hook
them to the grid by building lots of additional high-voltage transmission lines,
an expensive and typically legally challenging undertaking.
Assuming that any major wind farms
in the United States would be built on
the Great Plains, where there is sufficient wind and land, developers would
need to construct many thousands of
kilometers of transmission lines to connect those farms to the main markets for
electricity on the coasts. Of course, the
connection challenge is easier for small
countries (particularly if they can rely on
their neighbors), which is one reason why
Denmark became a leader in wind power.
In the United States, the problem
goes beyond building new lines; it is
also necessary to add them to an existing
grid that is already stressed and inadequate. The most recent Report Card for
American Infrastructure, prepared with
2009 data by the American Society of
Civil Engineers, gives the country's
energy system a D+, largely because the
grid is relatively old and its operations
are repeatedly challenged by spikes
of high summer demand. Raising that
grade is more than a technical challenge,
because improvements in infrastructure
often face entrenched political opposition-the not-in-my-backyard syndrome.
As for Europe, there may be better interconnections, but it faces other
problems in converting to wind and
solar power. Its economic prospects are
bleak, and that will limit its ability to
invest massively in new technologies.
Even Germany, the strongest European
Union economy and a great proponent of
new energies, has a difficult road ahead;
it must find a replacement for its nuclear
plants after having decided, following
Japan's nuclear disaster in Fukushima,
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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Spectrum July, 2012