I can be convinced by quality data.

If vertical wind turbine are in some way superior I would expect to see them being installed.

Verticals might be a better choice if overall wind farm land was expensive. But typically wind farms lease the turbine footprint land, not every square foot.

Vertical is not a new concept, some very large ones were installed at Altamont over 30 years ago. A lot of money has gone into turbine design. Horizontals are the technology in use.

—

Another issue with verticals is tower height. The good, clean wind is seldom close to the surface but tens of meters up higher. Horizontal wind turbines are easy to ‘furl’ in high wind conditions, it could be harder to design a vertical that was easy to park in heavy storm conditions.

As far as solar, yeah, putting it at see is silly at this time. There’s lots of spaces on land were those can be planted and yield the dual benefits of shade and power.

Wind turbines create considerable turbulence. Studies of wind farms have found that in most cases turbines need to be spaced further apart than they have been up to now. Clustering a bunch of turbines together on one small structure could greatly decrease turbine output.

Solar panels at sea? Have we run out of rooftops, landfills, brownfields, parking lots and burned out ag land?

Salt water is really hard on electrics and these panels would be right down close to the water. Salt evaporated on the panel surface could cut performance. (The panels on my sailboat needed to be washed off frequently.)

The idea of harvesting electricity by using the temperature differential between surface and deep water is interesting. Let’s see if someone can make competitively priced electricity that way.

The Energy Island, to me, is an attempt to cram too much stuff into one space.

There is Energy Island concept was proposed by Dominic Michaelis.
The Energy Island would have an OTEC plant at its center, but spread across the 2,000-foot-wide (600-meter-wide) platform will have wind turbines and solar collectors. Additionally, wave energy converters and sea current turbines would capture energy from water moving around the structure.
The principle reason to build an Energy Island is to harvest OTEC. “The advantage of OTEC over other marine energy technologies is that it’s constant, 24 hours a day and all year round,” According to Michaelis.
This is because it is based not on the sun or the wind or the waves, but on the temperature difference between warm water at the sun-heated surface and cold water in the deep, dark ocean.
The biggest temperature differences can be found in tropical seas, where the surface water is around 80 degrees Fahrenheit (25 degrees Celsius).
This warm water is drawn in from around the Energy Island and used to evaporate a working fluid, which might be seawater or ammonia. The resulting vapor pushes a turbine that produces electricity.
To condense the vapor back to fluid, cold water at about 40 degrees Fahrenheit (5 degrees Celsius) is pumped up from a half mile below the surface. This condensation creates a pressure drop that helps suck more vapor through the turbine blades.
The same basic process occurs in a coal-fired or nuclear power plant, but the temperature difference between water boilers and cooling towers is much greater than in an OTEC system.
Dr.A.Jagadeesh Nellore (AP), India
E-mail: anumakonda.jagadeesh@gmail.com