Floating Windmills

    Although it hasn't been as common this semester, often students like to write about new environmental technology. We've had past posts on everything from technological devices to capture carbon from the air (which I imagine costs significantly more than a tree, which does the same thing) to biotech-based energy solutions such as gas-from-algae. Today the NYT has one I haven't heard of: offshore wind energy from floating windmills. The article does a good job of noting that while of course there are far-flung hopes of salvation for us all, more likely there are going to be unexpected costs and difficulties associated with making these things fully operational. Japan's putting some serious money behind this one, though, so we'll see.