Timely article, Mark.

I'm wondering why the issue of bird strike was not canvassed – it is my understanding that offshore wind farms generally pose a lesser problem in this regard than do wind machines located on the otherwise most favourable wind sites, coastal hills.

And does Bass Strait offer opportunities for offshore wind? The strait is not deep, being a land bridge during the last major ice age. I would have thought that there would be a number of favourable sites offshore of Tasmanian and Victorian coasts.

With regard to 'proximity to electricity users', since land-based wind generators are sited, more often than not, a long way from major cities, provided there is a reasonably short link to the land based power grid or to any township then I would have thought similar distance issues would apply for offshore wind farms?

It's not really true to say that "Germany is also relying on renewable energy" to make up for the crash shutdown of their domestic nuclear capacity. Rather, they are planning 20 GW of new fossil generating capacity (http://www.treehugger.com/files/2011/06/angela-merkel-germany-needs-20gw-fossil-fuel-power-plants.php), and importing nuclear electricity hand over fist (http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/0,1518,786048,00.html).

Mark Duffett's nuclear stance is valid, but needn't be counterpoised against wind energy per se. In terms of energy return on energy investment (EROEI), wind energy stacks up well, certainly better than most other forms of renewables.

At present there is not too much public objection (in Australia) to wind farms, though this may change in time as wind generators begin to dominate almost every landscape around, as has happened in some parts of Europe. When the best land based sites are committed or unavailable then offshore sites become more attractive.

Ironically, despite their open hostility towards each other, both wind and nuclear advocates suffer from the 'not-in-my-backyard' problem – wind at a local level, nuclear at a macro level.

Support for nuclear power may change overnight if ever the nuclear industry manages to commercialize one of its more promising technologies – whether that be thorium based reactors or integrated fast reactors – and clearly demonstrates their ability to overcome safety and waste concerns that have bedevilled that industry to date. We should look forward to such a prospect.

In the meantime wind energy has the commercial advantage of being a safe and viable energy resource and this will guarantee in the short term that more wind farms will be built. The question is: where?

Whether or not we end up with a wind + nuclear mix, we are still going to end up with a fairly significant wind energy industry and in that context it is well worth exploring the advantages of offshore versus onshore generation.

Firstly, since it has been raised, ... what Mark Duffett and Mark Hendrickx said on nuclear power . We wouldn't be building the a 1960s nuclear plant in 2011 or the foreseerable future. Contemporary nuclear plants are built with passive safety systems. Had Fukushima been built with an isolated generator to run the cooling system, there'd have been no issue, but for reasons that have everything to do with the state of governance in Japan and nothing at all to do with nuclear power, this was never done. Indeed, AIUI the Fukushima site was excavated to put it at sea level. Hmmm ... anyhoo ... on the main topic ...

Putting aside nuclear powerr, which for partisan political reasons seems improbable at the moment, it seems to me that a number of other options than offshore wind turbines might be more apt in Australia's case.

There are ongoing experiments in various wave energy harnessing devices. These present fewer objections by landholders worried about the view.

It seems to me that one could also place marine turbines or wave devices under jetties and more conventional turbines on the top of them. One of the advantages of placement near the coast is significant reduction in wind shear, which can be a serious problem for turbines when the ground in their vicinity is undulating. Having the turbines near to the ground also results in a more dense air mass. Given the fairly persistent pattern of onshore winds, one might be able to opt for VWATs which can be lower in maximum elevation and thus less objectionable. These are also better in light breezes.

The key question is capture of the energy from these shoreline devices. IMO, there is little that is as effective as pumped storage, and I'd favour using this technology as the back end and power buffer.

Near Melbourne would include Bass Strait I would have thought. It's ironic that one of the refrains of wind opponents was "they ( Bracks and Brumby) should try putting turbines in Port Phillip Bay " - on the assumption this wouldn't be tried due to city slicker opposition, whereas country cousins were being oppressed as usual. Quite a few farmer country cousins and many other rural residents are of course very happy to have wind turbines on their farms or in their districts but the organised opposition probably hasn't disappeared just yet. Good to know that the Bald Hills windfarm has now released its construction schedule .

"It’s hard to say how long it will be until we see the first offshore wind farms in Australia, but until the costs come down, Europe will continue to lead the way."

It would be more accurate to say "until the costs come down enormously, fossil fuels will continue to lead the way." This is actually evident in Germany, where they're building far more fossil fuel than renewable generating capacity to replace their nuclear reactors - contrary to what is implied in this article. Talk about needing to get priorities straight.