Offshore wind projects the 'linchpin' of Biden's clean energy plan
WASHINGTON, DC — The Biden administration unveiled an offshore wind plan Monday that many called ambitious, but achievable.
For the first time, the federal government set goals for offshore wind development for 2030 and 2050. The plan promises a transparent and logical review process to clear up the permitting logjam. It also expands existing loan and grant programs to develop infrastructure and supply chains and boost research and development.
“We recognize that over the past few years, the federal approach has seemed like a chicken with its head cut off, but this is a new day,” Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said.
The administration also addressed conflicts between the industry and other maritime users such as fisheries and shipping, and pushed for a data sharing agreement between the wind industry and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which would improve siting of wind farms, and $1 million in research grants to support community based research on the impacts of wind farms on the ocean and fishing and coastal communities.
“I have seen this opportunity coming, and coming, and coming for a lot longer than I thought, and now we’re finally here and we’re ready to rock and roll,” White House National Climate Advisor Gina McCarthy said.
McCarthy, the former president and CEO of the Natural Resources Defense Council and a former professor at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health, advised five Massachusetts governors on climate change impacts. She saw firsthand the long road to permitting in both the Cape Wind and Vineyard Wind offshore wind farm proposals.
On Monday, the Biden administration promised that the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management would open new areas for lease and complete the review necessary for permitting and construction of 16 projects along the Atlantic coastline that represents 19 gigawatts of capacity. That’s nearly two-thirds of the way to the 2030 benchmark of 30 gigawatts announced Monday.
The administration wants 110 gigawatts of offshore wind power by 2050, the date for the nation to achieve net zero carbon emissions.
“We think that 30 gigawatts by 2030 is achievable,” said Laura Morton, senior director for policy and regulatory affairs with the American Clean Power Association. “It’s an ambitious target, but it sets the trajectory for the Department of the Interior to continue issuing the Notice of Intent (a crucial step in the permitting process that starts preparation for an Environmental Impact Statement) for impending projects."
The 'clean energy future'
“It shows that offshore wind is the linchpin for achieving (President Biden’s) clean energy future,” she added.
Achieving those benchmarks could create 44,000 offshore jobs by 2030 and 33,000 jobs onshore, Granholm said. Thirty gigawatts of renewable energy would power 10 million homes and eliminate 78 million metric tons of CO2 emissions annually, according to the Biden administration.
Biden cabinet members touted this as a union jobs proposal as well as a significant step on the road to confronting climate change. Front and center was the unveiling of a new wind energy area in the New York Bight, 800,000 acres of the continental shelf between Long Island and New Jersey with relatively shallow depths, that they said could support 25,000 jobs during development and construction, 4,000 annual support and maintenance jobs and 7,000 jobs in associated industries in nearby communities.
“It is crucial that we treat the dual crisis of climate change and income inequality at the same time so that we create good jobs with standards as we transition to renewable energy,” Massachusetts AFL-CIO President Steven Tolman said in an email. “We are thrilled that the Biden Administration is committed to doing just that — by ensuring that wind jobs are union jobs … and come with family sustaining wages and benefits.”
Wind energprojects and job creation
Administration officials also stressed that the offshore wind industry was important to the American economy, and that the proposal also includes $230 million in Port Infrastructure Development Grants to modernize port infrastructure and support shoreside needs of wind farm projects, and $3 billion to expand the Department of Energy Innovated Energy Loan Guarantee Program.
Department of Interior Secretary Deb Haaland pointed to the construction of four to six specialized wind turbine installation vessels as an example of the impacts on the supply chain. One is currently under construction in a Texas shipyard. Each one is expected to cost between $250 million and $500 million.
Biden officials projected that the supply chain would require one to two new factories for each major wind farm component, such as blades, towers, foundations and cables.
Offshore wind advocates saw the announcement as jump-starting an industry that had been much talked about but moribund.
“I think it is a big step in the right direction,” said Nick Krakoff, a staff attorney for the Conservation Law Foundation working on offshore wind. He was encouraged that the announced goal of permitting 16 wind farms by 2030 signaled an intention to accelerate the planning phase.
“I think it is ambitious but achievable, if we start now and permit the ones that have been backlogged with Trump Administration delays,” Krakoff said.
On Monday, the Department of Interior announced it had issued a Notice of Intent for the Ocean Wind wind farm project off the New Jersey coast, with 1,000 megawatts of capacity, enough to power a half-million homes.
But there’s a long way to go in a relatively short period of time. It would take 30 wind farms the size of Ocean Wind to reach the 2030 goal, and 110 to reach the 2050 goal outlined by the Biden administration.
Vineyard Wind on track to become the first utility-scale offshore wind farm
Right now, utility companies have contracted with offshore wind companies for 11 gigawatts of capacity, Morton said. At the moment there is just one offshore wind farm in the U.S. — five turbines off Block Island, Rhode Island, with a capacity of just 30 megawatts.
But Vineyard Wind, located 14 miles southwest of Martha’s Vineyard, is now on track to become the first utility-scale offshore wind farm, with 800 megawatts of capacity, requiring only final approval from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.
Located 20 miles south of Nantucket, Mayflower Wind, also with 800 megawatts of contracted power capacity, appears to be next in line in the federal permitting process.
“We’re particularly interested in the aggressive, but reachable, goals for building out offshore wind he announced,” Mayflower Wind spokesman Seth Kaplan said in an email. “The businesses, workforce and ports that will support offshore wind will need a huge boost upwards if we are going to reach the aggressive, and necessary, state and federal clean energy goals.”
The Biden administration expressed support for research and development, which will be crucial to fully exploiting the energy potential of offshore wind. Habib Dagher, the founding executive director of the Advanced Structures & Composites Center at the University of Maine, said that floating wind turbine technology would be needed to access approximately 60% of total wind energy in the U.S. that is located in water too deep for platforms that are driven into the sea floor.
Krakoff said that initiatives such as data sharing and Sea Grant programs researching wind farm impacts to marine species, fisheries and other user groups sounded good but needed to be fleshed out to determine whether they do address those problems.
“All along we’ve been in favor of responsible offshore development while mitigating damage to species like the North Atlantic right whale and fisheries,” Krakoff said.
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