A way and route for Oil and Gas companies to repurpose their people expertise and physical assets in other ways away from fossil fuels is an understated piece of the sustainable jigsaw on our journey to clean almost free non polluting energy.
Eastman Kodac, one time market leader did not move with the times and went bust over a period of a decade or so. Essentially due to trying to hang on to old technology and outdated market expectations and not moving with or embracing the ´´new´´. Nokia, Motorola & Blackberry of mobile phone fame fell victim in a similar fashion to not moving with the latest technology or market demands.
Oil and gas are, to most it would seem, generically good at drilling holes, creating big structures and carrying out operations in difficult, harsh or even extreme environments,. This includes marine where the deep water wind turbines are situated.
What better fit? An oil rig platform is similar in many fundamental ways to the requirements of a wind turbine.
So how about ourselves, our governments, newspaper owners and social media giving them a big push towards volume deep water off shore wind, (and geothermal energy). It would help them to avoid their impending Kodac moment and help our kids breath cleaner air, (and not get hit by flood, heat wave, hurricane or tornado).
Many cities face on to deep water coasts, (more than 60 meters). Power generated here does not need expensive controversial transmission pylons, long lead time connections, it can drive a local community grid and therefor not be at the behest of monopolistic power companies pricing and government tax and subsidy policies. Wind Power is in many coastal areas essentially continuous with help from minimal storage back up.
Here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eoew6u_zoh0 is really concise view of the latest in deep water wind turbines from the excellent channel Engineering with Rosie.
So please global oil and gas, for your own good, your financial bottom line or even your survival in your present form, get on and do it.
Regarding Geothermal. Another great potential repurpose of Big Oil and Gas assets is geothermal. Drilling 10 to 20 km down next to existing power stations using steam turbines, then inserting a sealed closed loop to create steam to drive the generating turbines, instead of burning coal or gas to create steam, is a good fit. Not quite as advance as deep water turbines but I feel will get traction quickly.
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