Column: Bullish on offshore wind
OK, I’ll admit it, I’ve always been intrigued with offshore energy, whether it be offshore oil or offshore wind. Such projects are massive, complex and futuristic. The risks daunting, the rewards immense.
During the 1950s, offshore oil kept the United States in the petroleum game. In the 2020s, offshore wind stands to keep the world in the existence game.
Finding oil is both an art and a science. During the early ‘60s, young geologists in blue jeans would crowd into Exxon Mobil’s “Hive” scrutinizing a three-story high, 3D monitor depicting in real time acoustic signals of the immense salt dome that lies beneath the Gulf of Mexico.
Just out of grad school, they would be making billion-dollar bets about where to drill to find the precious pockets of planktonic petroleum. If they won, they had a job. If they lost, they could end up teaching geology at Texas A&M.
In the mid-’60s, I was fortunate to work with offshore technology aboard an oceanographic vessel.
The U.S. Navy had provided us with a classified, room-sized computer. It was the first to ever go to sea. Nobody knew how it worked and nobody was allowed to touch it, but we knew it was somehow communicating with three Defense Department satellites to give us our precise location.
Frankly, we were a little bit frightened and in awe of the complex contraption. Today, 12-year-old kids think nothing about using their handheld iPhones to figure out where they are.
In the ‘70s, I took a Mexican petroleum helicopter out to the Ixtoc oil field off the Yucatan Peninsula. From the air, every drill ship looked like a small, well-lit city.
Roustabouts worked around the clock to keep the vessels in position so they could thread a milelong drill string down through a 6-inch borehole. then guide it through the salt dome to find the oil below.
Often, they came up empty, sometimes they had a fatal blowout, occasionally they discovered a billion-dollar sweet spot of liquid gold.
The food was excellent aboard the ships and the roustabouts earned big bucks. They were able to fly home every two weeks for vacation. Several of them had nice vacation homes in the Rockies.
In 2024, the new kids on the block are the wind turbine installer vessels. They tower four stories tall and bristle with cranes, satellite dishes and helicopter pads.
They are in the midst of a heroic endeavor to provide new clean energy to the homes and businesses of New England. It is a Herculean effort fraught with potential mishaps but necessary to the future of a region that lacks the space for large solar arrays and onshore wind farms.
Even more so than offshore oil, offshore wind’s potential to supply energy and good jobs is unlimited.
Bill Sargent is a “Nova” consultant and author of at least 28 award-winning books about science and the environment. He also conducts walking tours of Plum Island.
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