It seems like the best place for gigantic wind turbines would be on any number of the hundreds of offshore oil platforms that dot the Gulf of Mexico.

I'm also interested in how the "egg beater" design will fare when it's scaled up.

http://www.mnn.com/green-tech/research-innovations/blogs/eggbeater-technology-to-double-wind-farm-output

Something like that was tested with much smaller turbines, but big ones like this would likely be limited to one per platform (and would require "creative" designs to mate them together.

Then add to this the fact that the turbine needs to be connected to the grid, so you would need to move all of those ugly platforms close to each other and comparatively close to land.

Somehow, people managed to lay pipelines in the gulf…
http://www.eia.gov/special/gulf_of_mexico/map.cfm

It isn't that it isn't possible... just that it isn't justified.

Back-of-the-napkin, there are in the neighborhood of 4,000 oil platforms in the gulf, producing something around 1.75 million bpd. So let's ballpark it at 425 bpd/platform. One barrel of oil carries the equivalent of somewhere between 1.5 and 2.0 MWh... so that's close to 750 MW/h. Compare that to the largest wind turbine at, say, 6MW * 24hrs * 50% capacity factor.

So the question could start with asking whether you would run a connection for (very roughly) 1/10th of the energy flow? There are some offsets we haven't considered (it's just got to be cheaper to run a cable than a pipe, and there will be wind at that location for longer than there will be oil)... But that isn't really the question. The real question is why you would do it when you could instead run cable to a hub that serves 100 turbines close to each other?

So it might make sense to construct turbine supports that are essentially modified oil rig jackets, but it's unlikely that thousands upon thousands of existing (abandoned) oil rigs in the gulf will become turbine platforms unless there's an easy way to move them together and someone is willing to accept the eyesore.

There may be problems with putting windmills in the gulf, but visual impacts are totally not a thing out there.

You mean as opposed to the beauty of the oil platforms?

Here’s an idea… use the electricity to create a liquid or gaseous fuel of some sort which could be transported using the existing pipelines…

... is a hundred of them of differing ages and designs right next to each other to facilitate an efficient wind farm.

Here’s an idea… use the electricity to create a liquid or gaseous fuel of some sort

Hmm... like seawater electrolysis to produce hydrogen. A clever notion (though I have no idea whether it makes sense).

You almost completely do away with variability concerns.

I doubt that this would make economic sense. Get CO2 out there (or take it from the atmosphere), crack the hydrogen from sea water (with the attendent losses and most of it ends up as water again), then get the resulting fuel back onshore... etc. But it's the kind of thinking we need.

The losses in for hydrogen storage are extremely large.

There is little advantage in using the oil platforms as a base for wind turbines. However if winds happened to justify it, an oil platform might serve as the location for the transformer hub linking a wind farm.

As previously noted the winds of the Gulf are not particularly good. Texas opened that area to wind development long ago, but it has attracted no investors because the onshore winds in the region are nearly as good.

Makes sense, thanks!

Still... it's always a good idea to encourage lateral thinking on repurposing some of those ugly beasts

Care to quantify that?

I know you feel that it’s true, but others do not.

The Atlantic Wind Connection will be 350 miles of HVDC cable. Plus IIRC wind potential in the Gulf is not great, the east coast is much better.

In fact oil platform construction companies are now getting into offshore platforms for HVDC components, 5-20 miles offshore.

Wikipedia says 3,858 as of 2006. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_platform

for potential wind power.

Utilities are climbing over each other for east coast leases, the Gulf... not so much.

Build a metal chimney with an impeller inside.
The Sun heats the tube causing an updraft which would pull the rising air across the impeller blades causing rotation which would drive a generator.

Then the idea was revisited with modern technology and on a grander scale.
Sadly the project was scaled backed due to budget shortfalls.
A smaller package may still be in the works in Australia,i have not heard in several years what progress if any has been made.

The project was to rise over 3000 feet in height and employ 32 turbines at the base generating 200 Mega Watts of power.
Here(hopefully)is a link to a short video of the project:
[link: