Buoyant Behemoths: The Global Race is on to Tap Potent Winds Far Offshore

In a hangar at the University of Edinburgh, a triangular steel contraption sits beside a giant tank of water. Inside the tank, a technician in a yellow dinghy adjusts equipment so that the triangled structure can be hoisted into the water to see how it deals with simulated waves and currents. One day soon, a platform 50 times as large may float in the deep waters of the North Sea, buoying up a massive wind turbine to harvest the steady, strong breezes there. About an hour's ride up the coast, full-scale 3,000-tonne behemoths already float in Aberdeen Bay, capturing enough wind energy to electrify nearly 35,000 Scottish households.