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“Right now, it’s fair to say that the Maine project will be the first floating wind turbine in the United States,” said Walter Musial, manager of the offshore energy program at the federal government’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colorado.

That’s from Tux Turkel’s piece today in the Portland Press-Herald, examining how the U.Maine offshore-wind project beat out everybody else to win a $40 million federal grant.

It talks about how the developers are using concrete and composites rather than steel (Maine, as I learned from the story, has New England’s only cement manufacturer, taking advantage of the state’s limestone deposits), and hollowed beams filled with seawater to help stabilize it after being towed to the site. Their decision to make a 1:8 scale test model, as well as the industry standard 1:50, was also important, Turkel says.

 

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