STUDY:

MARYLAND'S PROPOSED

OFFSHORE WIND FARM

VULNERABLE TO

HURRICANES

Maryland media missed an important study on offshore wind farms and hurricanes released this week.

The study - by engineers at Pittsburgh's Carnegie Mellon University - posits that offshore turbines, like those proposed to be built off the coast of Ocean City, are vulnerable to hurricanes of Category 3 and higher.

Computer simulations showed that high, sustained winds would tear off the massive turbine blades, and send them spinning through the air like massive shuriken. The towers supporting the propellers would be damaged and potentially collapse.

Ocean City lies between two of the "riskiest" areas to build offshore wind farms, according to the report - Atlantic City and the Outer Banks of North Carolina.

I cannot recall state officials discussing the issue of hurricanes in public debates about the turbines. So I'm surprised that local and state media have not pursued this story.

Skeptics have already noted the threat to wildlife posed by the turbines, as well as the incredibly-inefficient power they generate.

I have opposed them for those reasons, and for the fact that - until these towers are built - the offshore view from Ocean City is the same today as it was when Native Americans ruled the land. Also, wind power creates fewer jobs than it destroys in fossil fuel industries (however, the effect is naturally-limited by the fact that wind can only create a small amount of electricity).

Finally, the sheer inefficiency of wind is a clue that it is not the energy source of the future. That source, I believe, has yet to be discovered.

Money going to wind power would be better spent on the search for that new energy, and on NASA. If America doesn't get to the vast resources surely available on other moons and planets, China and Russia will be glad to help themselves.

Just as we should not spend tax money on biofuels that raise the price of food on the world's poorest inhabitants, we should not jump to spend scarce revenue on power sources simply because they are the only ones immediately available.

The fuel of the future will be highly efficient, potentially infinite, and have little impact on the environment and the cost of living.

Why do we want to postpone the future for empty "achievements" today?