Japan is an island nation with plenty of wind and a whole lot of ocean, but building wind turbines out at sea has never been simple for the country. Most coastal waters around Japan drop off steeply into deep water within just a few kilometres of shore, which rules out the fixed, seabed-mounted turbines used in shallower parts of Europe. So instead, Japan has been developing turbines that float on the surface, held in place by mooring lines rather than concrete foundations sunk into the seabed. This year marked the country's first real step into commercial floating wind, and Tokyo has already announced plans for something ten times bigger, a project that would eventually place the equivalent of a nuclear power plant out in the open ocean. What makes this shift compelling isn't the scale of ambition alone, but the willingness to turn a longstanding geographic constraint into the very foundation of a new energy strategy.
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