Get wind of this ....

Energy is an essential component of global socio-economic development and economic growth. The demands for energy are therefore not going to disappear at any point, in fact, they are likely to grow and as a result the viability of renewable energy methods in reducing the use of fossil fuels and ultimately reducing anthropogenic climate change is a key consideration.

Wind Energy is another form of solar energy whereby sunlight that hits the ocean, warms sections of the ocean causing the air to warm up and rise which, in turn, generates surface winds. It's potential to supply energy is large and subsequently it is one of the main renewable energy methods. It has also been one of the fastest growing energy technologies of the past decade (AWEA, 2002) and as the industry has grown, so has the size of individual wind turbines and the size of group developments. As wind is significantly affected by topography, weather conditions and land use patterns (Ramachandra and Shruthi, 2005), developers are beginning to look further offshore to harness maximum amounts of energy. In doing so, greater economies of scale will likely push the rating of individual wind turbines into the 3–5 MW range with maximum wind farm capacity potentially reaching 1000 MW (Milborrow, 2003). Wind farms of this scale have the potential to provide a sizeable percentage of local power demand and generation capacity, particularly when their output is fed into small or transmission constrained power grids.

Advantages 
Both onshore and offshore wind have the same benefits with regards to conventional power sources. Most notably, wind power has very low carbon emissions over its lifecycle and it has negligible emisssions of mercury, nitrous oxides and sulfur oxides. Another benefit of wind power is that it does not use fuel and is therefore freed from the price volatility associated with electricity generated from oil, natural gas, biomass, nuclear and coal (Snyder and Kaiser, 2009). Wind power does not rely on large sources of freshwater as conventional sources of power do (DOA, 2008).

In the near term, offshore wind power will be more expensive than onshore wind power, however, there are several benefits of offshore wind power that are not shared by onshore wind; these benefits may or may not justify the additional costs. These benefits include

• Offshore locations can be preferable to onshore locations - in the US, for example, offshore wind power is physically close to the major population centers of the coastal United States, thereby removing the need for expensive high voltage transmission (NREL, 2008)
• Offshore winds are also generally stronger and more constant than onshore winds. As a result, turbines can operate at their maximum capacity for a larger amount of time and the constancy of wind reduces wear on turbines and provides a more constant source of power reducing the need for backup sources (Snyder and Kaiser, 2009). Increases in wind speed can lead to a 150% increase in electricity production for offshore wind turbines and an increase in the capacity factor of the wind farm from about 25 to 40% (Junginger et al., 2004).
• Turbine noise is an oft-cited criticism made by opponents to onshore wind power (Pederson and Wey, 2004). The offshore wind power industry does not have to be as concerned about turbine noise as does the onshore industry.
• As a result, the offshore industry can also use far larger turbines. These larger turbines should make offshore wind power more economically attractive due to scale economies (Snyder and Keiser, 2009).

Disadvantages
One of the most substantive criticisms of wind power is that it is unable to provide constant, predictable power to the grid. Electricity grids are designed to send a constant electricity to consumers and as a result they rely on power plants to produce predictable and steady electricity. Wind energy is not steady and varies on the scale of minutes, hours, days and months and the changes in wind power output are difficult to predict ahead of time (Snyder and Keiser, 2009). As a result, integrating wind power into the electricity grid requires back up systems for when production on wind farm changes and is too low to produce electricity (Lund, 2005). This however increases the total national cost of electricity. The DOE has estimated that the supply up to 20% of the nation's electrical use from wind power would cost up to $5/MW h in integration costs.

Other disadvantages regard the aesthetics of wind farms and the noise that turbines make. In Denmark, Ladeenburg and Dubgaard (2007) examined the willingness of the population to pay to move turbines further from the shoreline. With an 8km baseline, to move turbines a further 12, 18 and 50km away, respondents were willing to pay 46, 96 and 122 Euros per year per household in order to move the farm farther afield.

While with regards to offshore wind turbines the risks and costs associated are assumed to be higher due to the offshore environment being significantly more uncertain and difficult than an onshore one. As such, the offshore environment would increase the maintenance of wind farms - which for onshore farms is quite low- as they would involve personnel traveling to and from offshore turbines; this increases equipment and time costs as well as insurance costs due to increased risks (Snyder and Keiser, 2009).