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Offshore wind farms along the storm-swept coasts of the UK are the premature graveyards of corroding steel and plastic skeletons—bowing to the inevitable. These are the volatile, often freezing seascapes of the windy North Sea, the Baltic Sea and Irish Sea, maritime zones that should provide ideal conditions for large-scale turbine farms - but don't. The wind industry and governments have long based their financial models on a projected 20- to 25-year turbine lifespan. But independent economic analysis reveals a more sobering reality. The soaring power of the elements is starkly shown in a landmark study by energy and environmental economist Professor Gordon Hughes (University of Edinburgh), first published in 2012 by the Renewable Energy Foundation: 'The Performance of Wind Farms in the United Kingdom and Denmark'. Hughes’ data reveals the performance of offshore turbines dropped sharply after just 10 to 15 years due to harsh marine wear and tear. As a consequence, their load factors - the volume of electricity generated as a percentage of capacity - decline much faster than the official narratives admit. Many of these massive marine structures - primarily owned by UK and Danish interests - are hitting the wall after just a decade of buffeting from exposure to relentless Atlantic weather. Soaring maintenance costs make them highly unprofitable. Specifically, the study showed that an offshore wind farm's ability to meet electricity demand plummeted by at least a third after 10 years. This led to the conclusion that many become fully uneconomic by year 12. Rather than keeping these assets spinning for the promised quarter-century, many operators are now forced to 'repower' - replacing old turbines with entirely new hardware long before the 25-year target. Turning the hardware over early is presented as an upgrade to maximise output, but it's really an admission that the original infrastructure simply cannot go the distance. More importantly, it exposes a large PR gap between marketing and engineering reality. Link to the study: epaw.org/documents.php?lang=…

#Capello alla @Gazzetta_it: “La #Juventus ha ricostruito con un ad italiano, Carnevali, dando continuità a un grande allenatore come Spalletti. Al momento li vedo avanti al Milan, già solo per l’arrivo dell’ex Sassuolo, che conosce bene la materia e la Serie A: è un grande acquisto”