Offshore Wind Could Power the World (MAP)

May 18th, 2012 by Zachary Shahan

Of course, the political practicality of using all the coastline in the map below for offshore wind power is a limiting factor, but it would certainly be better than oil spills and global warming swallowing our coastal cities (where more than half the world’s population now live), wouldn’t it?

Wouldn’t it be nice if we powered at least a significant portion of the world with the offshore wind power potential depicted in this map:

Source: LAGI (via a kind reader)

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Tags: offshore wind potential, offshore wind power map, offshore wind power potential, quickies

About the Author

Zachary Shahan spends most of his time here on CleanTechnica as the director/chief editor. Otherwise, he's probably enthusiastically fulfilling his duties as the director/editor of Solar Love, EV Obsession, Planetsave, or Bikocity. Zach is recognized globally as a solar energy, electric car, and wind energy expert. If you would like him to speak at a related conference or event, connect with him via social media. You can connect with Zach on any popular social networking site you like. Links to all of his main social media profiles are on ZacharyShahan.com.

http://ronaldbrak.blogspot.com.au/ Ronald Brak

I’ll note that the sites marked on the map aren’t necessarily the best sites for offshore wind, it just shows the area required. The turbines don’t actually have to be in those locations.
- http://cleantechnica.com/ Zachary Shahan
  
  definitely, just an exercise in mind-opening i think
Luke

That’s amazing… to think that to power all the worlds’ economies… all the computers, machines, gadgets, etc., all we need is wind.

I’d be a little hesitant to install the section off the coast of Australia because of the Great Barrier Reef (a world heritage site), but instead, we could complement all this with squares of solar in Mexico, the lower U.S., India, Australia – and most importantly, the Sahara.
- http://cleantechnica.com/ Zachary Shahan
  
  yeah, we could drop a huge portion of those sites and add solar, onshore wind, geothermal, etc.
Dcard88

Amazing what the potential is compared to what the deniers say we CAN NOT do. 20%, off-shore, 20% on-shore, 20% Solar, 10% Geo, 10% hydro, 10% bio
We can do this by 2040…IF we decide to.
- http://cleantechnica.com/ Zachary Shahan
  
  exactly.