This post first appeared on FloatingPath
It has been two and half years since the disaster at Fukushima’s power plant and the subsequent litany of follow-up disasters, but new energy production came online this week just 12 miles off the coast of the crippled reactors.
The turbine that was turned on is the first of 143, and will eventually be producing 1 gigawatt of electricity. The project is largely being backed by Japanese trading houses like Marubeni Corp. which is the leader of the bank-rolling consortium of investors. The government, for their part, has just as much on the line in regards to credibility in light of the Tepco/Fukushima incident dragging on with no end in sight.
The uniqueness of the wind turbines themselves lies in the fact that they are in deeper water than typically suited for such a project. Pioneering floating wind turbines, along with the world’s first floating substation, shows how serious Japan is about moving to renewables and away from nuclear.
In theory, Japan has the potential for 1,600 gigawatts of wind power, most of it offshore. About a dozen projects are already in the works, from Kyushu in the south to Hokkaido in the north.
The massive floating turbine being towed out to sea..
