True story?

Before I start to look at terawatt-hours, net zero emission goals and global electricity production, I think the following is true:

We are telling the tale over and over again. The core story of the climate crisis started in the 1970’s and it hasn’t changed since. It is one of the key problems to address the crisis, according to physicist and climate expert, Bjørn Samset, author of the book 2070 that was released in 2021 . The story basically goes like this:

Earth is getting warmer. The surface temperature over the last 150 years has increased with one degree celsius and most of the increase has happened the last 50 years. The reason is first and foremost the greenhouse effect that has intensified because there is more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere now than before. And this additional carbon dioxide is more or less exclusively because we have burned oil, coal and gass to get enough energy. The global warming leads to everything from extreme weather to food production shortages and will make it difficult if not impossible in the future to run our societies the way we do today. Therefore we need to stop burning oil, coal and gass and stabilize the climate as fast as possible.

The “climate crisis” was coined in 2019. It appeared in an article in BioScience in November 2019. The authors, with the support of 11,000 scientists the world around declared that “planet Earth is facing a climate emergency”. Before this, global warming was used for many years, followed by climate change.

The new wording didn’t change the core story. That’s why so many are breaking down the big numbers into tangible consequences, action and results. It’s like the first class of a project management training; “how to eat an elephant?”: Piece by piece.

Harnessing offshore wind

The world is getting electrified and will need around 38,700 terawatt-hours in 2050. This is an increase from 27,044 in 2019. The EU share was 2,904 TWh. The total energy consumption in 2019 was 173,340 TWh

An average of 20,000 kilowatt-hours to power a home for one year, means 50,000 homes need 1 terawatt-hours. To run a microwave oven for 1 hour takes approximately 1,000 watts which equals 1 kilowatt-hour.

How does offshore wind fit into these figures?

The International Energy Agency Offshore Wind Outlook 2019 showed that close-to-shore offshore wind sites globally could provide almost 36,000 TWh of electricity per year, which is very close to the global electricity demand projected for 2040. Actually, the potential is much higher if you include the oceans as a whole: 420,000 TWh.

Offshore wind produced 111.6 TWh electricity in 2020 and accounts for only 0.3% of global power generation.

Take a minute to absorb this. If you want to make money on electricity, offshore wind certainly is attractive. The IEA believes it can become a $1 trillion industry over the next two decades.

Offshore wind tracker

If you look at the increase in number of projects globally, many countries are taking this opportunity.

In 2019, China had 45 offshore wind projects, either planned, started or completed. Germany had 28, Japan and the US 1. At the beginning of 2022 these figures were: 347, 179, 129 and 164 respectively. In 2024 this rose to 479, 190, 182, 202, according to 4C Offshore (graphic below).

The wind mills themselves also grow in size. The test windmill that General Electric builds outside Rotterdam in the Netherlands is, for now, the biggest.

GE engineers calculate that just one of the machines located at a typical North Sea site will be able to produce 67 gigawatt-hours per year. This is enough to supply 16,000 European homes.

The turbine has a rotor that measures 220 meters in diameter — twice the length of a football field — and stretches 260 meters from its base to blade tips.

So, there are two tracks I am following with regards to offshore wind. The first is what I outlined in this text above. The second is all the potential damage construction and operating the turbines may cause for life in sea. Changing the soundscape in the oceans for example, can be very harmful. At least from what we know today.