You're right, #26, I meant to say New York City is unsuitable for mass windpower. The shallow bays and seasides off Long Island and N. New Jersey are indeed ideal for wind farms. I think Bloomberg is proposing something farther offshore, south of NY Harbor. That proposal seems unnecessarily expensive: CNN likened them to offshore oil rigs. Another option, which is total NIMBY bait, is to revisit Shoreham. Nuclear power has got to be a part of this conversation because these plants have much more generating capacity in a relatively smaller footprint than wind...but that's another argument.

Well said, Jerky. It's good to see a comment on the issue that's not loaded with ignorance.

Its too bad Bloomberg wasn't more specific, as there is obviously a lot of misinformation out there about these things.

Frist, offshore wind farms are perfectly suited for the coast of LI and NJ...shallow offshore waters, relatively infrequent hurricanes, steady winds, easy access to the power grid, etc...the only real limit to the amount of power we could supply to NYC is the amount of money that is available to spend. Having wind farms in the Midwest is also important, but until several $100 billion dollars is poured into the grid to retrofit the power grid with HVDC or UHVDC transmission lines, there is no way power from the midwest can make it to the east coast without massive losses. Our only problem are the NIMBY idiots who think it'll screw up their view of the horizon from their crappy beach house. F*ck them, they should have no say in the matter, frankly. In any case, as sea levels rise and the long period of New England hurricane dormancy ends, hopefully there houses will be erased in the tide. Offshore wind turbines are NOT new technology, Siemens and Vestas have been making them for years.

And in terms of putting wind power on buildings or bridges, its entirely doable, and it DOES NOT INVOLVE STANDARD WIND TURBINES. There will be no blades or windmill-looking things,

e.g. check out www.aerotecture.com

There are several other companies with slightly different designs.

No. New York is just poorly suited for windmill farms or huge solar plants. The green enthusiasm here is laudable, but NY's contribution should be as a recycling behemoth. Build the wind farms out in the Midwest and let those communities, especially the small towns hit hardest by rising energy costs, get off the grid. That frees up a lot of remaining juice to be wheeled into NYC. Think about it, for a small town, a windmill can mean energy independence; for New York, a windmill is nary a drop in the well-intentioned bucket.

Wow. So much ignorance around here, so little time.

Not just birds, but noise too. What happens if one of these windmills crashes?

I believe it's better to create energy from the movement of water. Can the movement of water moving within the plumbing of a building be a good source of energy?

ides of march, you're a moron.

just don't talk for a while, because crap like that makes it sound as if you don't think up original, individual thoughts.

Of course the same environuts who want windmills now will be crying when migrating birds start geting sliced and diced in mid-air.

There is simply no pleasing the environmentalists until America returns to the stone age.

Bloomberg definitely has some money invested in green technology companies. Otherwise he wouldn't trying so hard to implement these technologies. Bloomberg has very close relations to Silicon Valley. And clean energy technology companies are very sexy to the Valley types to invest in at the moment. It would be interesting to perform an investigation of Mayor Bloomberg and his investment activities and how it relates to his green initiatives.

Pull My Finger,

I wonder if you know that you sound like a douche.

I'm intrigued by the idea of offshore wind farms, but I'm not sure how practical they are.

what the hell is wrong with some of you? seriously?

As much as I like the idea, it's not going to happen. The biggest wind turbines to date generate about 6 megawatts. NYC eats about 12,000 megawatts at any given time. That would take 200 of those very expensive turbines to generate 10% of NYC's electric power. It would cost at least $40 billion to do that, since T. Boone Pickens' energy farm will only generate 4000 MW, is expected to cost $10 billion (assuming no cost overruns) and is much easier and cheaper to build than an offshore wind farm with thousands of miles of submerged power cables.

Yes lets take classic NY buidings and stick windmills on them.

Bloomberg go back to Boston you shit for brains asshole.

I have much more hope for the success of the tide power turbines being tested in the East River right now

http://www.verdantpower.com/what-initiative

I would be in favor of electric generation by incineration of garbage.

I would like this as well but imagine the legal fight to get an incinerator sited anywhere practical.

Let's replace the torch on Lady Liberty with a giant pinwheel!!

Seriously the Governor's Island park redo could also include a wind farm and solar farm.

The Belt Parkway along Jamaica Bay would be perfect. It's windy, not near where anyone lives, and a place that used to be city landfills. (Which by the way, I would be in favor of electric generation by incineration of garbage. Solve 2 problems at once.)

It's a small step but NY is in the beginning to generate some power. Right now they are testing tidal turbines in the east river. I think it powers a Gristede’s Supermarket out on Roosevelt Island.

http://www.verdantpower.com/what-initiative

I wonder what New York's peregrine falcons have to say about this.