the answer is blowing in the wind (or not)

Again, from the WSJ, Guy Chazan on Scottish attempts to harness wind power...

Rising high above the water, the two gleaming white structures look like an outsize art installation. But they have a more practical purpose: Each is a giant wind turbine, part of a British project that could prove a breakthrough for wind power around the globe.

Among the dwindling oil and gas fields of the North Sea, Britain has built the world's biggest wind turbines -- each has blades longer than a football field -- in the Moray Firth, a large inlet off the rugged east coast of Scotland. What's unusual about the effort is its dimensions: While existing offshore wind projects tend to be in shallow waters close to the coast, the Moray Firth venture is expected to culminate in the first offshore wind farm in deep water (150 feet) far from land (15 miles).

Talisman Energy Inc., the Canadian oil and gas company running the project in a joint venture with utility Scottish & Southern Energy PLC, plans to ramp it up into a spectacular 200-turbine wind farm that would turn North Sea gales into enough electricity for a million people -- a fifth of Scotland's population. Completion is probably at least seven years away, the company says...the effort is being closely watched in the U.S., where not-in-my-backyard pressure groups have led noisy campaigns against near-shore wind farms that they say blot the coastal landscape....

Deepwater wind-farm technology also has its critics, who say the turbines can encroach on shipping lanes and harm seabird sanctuaries. They can also be prohibitively expensive, because they require long undersea transmission lines to hook turbines up to the grid system....

Scotland has around 25% of Europe's wind-energy resource and some of the continent's best potential wind, wave and tidal sites. Mr. O'Brien calls Pentland Firth, a strait between North Scotland and the Orkney Islands, the "Saudi Arabia of tidal power."

Locating a wind farm so far out to sea presented Talisman with technical challenges. Most offshore wind turbines are built on tripods or monopiles drilled into the seabed. But you can't use them in water deeper than about 65 feet. So Talisman used a jacket structure with four legs and a lattice frame -- a design borrowed from oil rigs. Such a structure uses less steel so it's lighter and more flexible, says Allan McAskill, Beatrice's project director....