It's a cool idea but it's got a long way to go before it is ready for commercialization. This isn't either/or - we need both! Check out this extract from a recent article in the Vineyard Gazette on the Blue H proposal: For a dispassionate analysis of whether such floating generators are a real, current alternative to anchored inshore structures like Cape Wind, the Gazette consulted Walt Musial, principal engineer at the National Wind Technology Center, part of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. Mr. Musial said he personally hoped Blue H did succeed in developing “this new technology of floating turbines... “But they’re the first group in the world ever to have tried this. “Blue H appears very serious about this, but it cannot yet be viewed as an alternative to the kind of reliable energy Cape Wind would be able to produce,” Mr. Musial said. “It hasn’t been proven yet,” he said of the floating turbine technology. “It’s very important people’s expectations don’t get beyond the demonstration project level.”

Norsk Hydro has an even better design I think, check it out.

They are in testing right about now too. my latest wrinkle on floating wind/wave/ocean current is floating platforms that qualify as ships. That way all the paperwork is avoided.

A crew of two rotates traveling out to the anchor site maybe 20 miles offshore. but it is basically a saucer shaped ferro/fiber/cement float, built like a cement barge. Donut shaped with an edge over which the waves break, then the water drains through a center hole powering a rotor.

The wind system extends upward, and an underwater rotor extends into the ocean current (Gulf Stream for instance). Electric thrusters are used when the ship is moved.

A 1500 foot diameter wave generator float, with a 1000 foot tall vertical rotor wind machine, and 200 foot diameter rotor extending underneath should produce as much power as 20 mw coal plant.

With this much power, the labor cost for the crew is financially insignifigant. Why waste years as they have done with Cape wind? Just build these as energy ships, plug em into the shore grid with underwater cables, deployed from a reel on deck.

Do we need wind toweers affixed to the seabed? not really. the northern deserted prairies ought to be used for fixed tower installations. We need this:

The Teddy Roosevelt Prarie National Park and wind farm. On the same scale as the Hoover Dam, a New Deal type project. 1000s of square miles of restored prarie for wildlife, natural carbon sequestration (prarie soil sequesters 1.8 tons of CO2 per year per acre), and thousands of huge wind machines.

The latest from the Norsk Hydro project.