Sarah Sloat highlights the work of Stanford’s Mark Jacobson, whose research suggests that offshore wind farms may diminish the destructive force of hurricanes:
[H]e plugged in “tens of thousands” of wind turbines into his models, placing them within 100 kilometers off the coast in water depths ranging from 30 to 200 meters. Then he ran simulations for three different hurricanes: Katrina, Isaac, and Sandy. Not only were the turbines undamaged by the conditions, they also disrupted peak winds by up to 92 percent and storm surge by up to 79 percent. In the case of Katrina, 78,000 wind turbines decreased wind speeds by 80 to 98 miles per hour.
