Via gCaptain, 1.7 million acres off the Central Atlantic coast are up for potential wind turbine sites.
The U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) has identified approximately 1.7 million acres offshore the U.S. central Atlantic coast for possible offshore wind development.
The agency this week has announced eight draft Wind Energy Areas covering waters offshore North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware as part of a comprehensive process to identify the potential locations that appear most suitable for renewable energy. The areas’ closest points range from approximately 19 to 77 nautical miles offshore.
The draft areas are now open for public review and comment.
“As BOEM moves forward to identify wind energy areas in the central Atlantic, we continue to prioritize a robust and transparent process, including early engagement with Tribal governments, state and federal agencies and ocean users,” said BOEM Director Amanda Lefton. “We want to gather as much information and traditional knowledge as possible to help us identify Wind Energy Areas — the offshore areas that are most suitable for commercial wind energy activities while having the fewest apparent environmental and user conflicts.”
Several points to note. With sites ranging from 19 to 77 nautical miles offshore, this does NOT mean beach views are going to be cluttered with wind turbine farms.
While this is down from the original 3.9 million acres first announced, this is to be expected as the comment and review process refines decisions over where to site them. Further trimming is likely.
This has implications for onshore development as well. Building wind farms offshore means bringing that energy to land, and the onshore grid is going to need to be upgraded to handle it.
Also this:
The draft WEAs are the latest development in the Biden Administration’s push to install 30 gigawatts of offshore wind energy capacity by 2030.
Over the next two years heading into the 2024 election cycle, programs like this are going to be making the news as the Inflation Reduction Act and other achievements by the Biden Administration begin to move from legislation into actual nuts and bolts projects taking shape. Investment, jobs, economic potential — all of this will begin to take on momentum. But… a Republican president could still cancel those leases or otherwise block these developments. The future is still on the line.
Much more information here about BOEM plans, including links and maps of the areas under consideration and a history of this current effort.
ELSEWHERE
Meanwhile in the United Kingdom, there’s a certain amount of WTF over the government’s plans to impose windfall (no pun intended) profits taxes across the energy sector that send mixed messages.
On the one hand the U.K. oil and gas industry is complaining that such taxes will make it difficult for them to invest in developing more fossil fuel resources— even as North Sea oil production is in decline. If getting off fossil fuels is the point, that’s kind of the idea. Never mind that those companies have been price-gouging consumers.
On the other hand, the government is also proposing windfall profits taxes on renewables, which exacerbates the advantages enjoyed by the fossil fuel sector.
The renewables industry is particularly aggrieved by a perception that a better deal is being offered to oil and gas companies, which can benefit from an investment allowance that encourages new production in the North Sea. In the first three years of the windfall tax, the Treasury forecasts it will raise over 20% more revenue from low-carbon power producers than from the oil and gas sector, though fossil-fuel companies could end up paying more over the full lifetime of the measure depending on market prices.
“I do not understand why renewables are being taxed at similar levels to oil and gas and those businesses are being given added incentives to invest in even more fossil fuels,” Keith Anderson, chief executive officer of Iberdrola SA’s ScottishPower unit, said in a statement. “It seems it’s a recession made by gas, but a recovery to be paid for by renewables.”
The measure will place a 45% tax on any income from lower-carbon power sold for more than £75 per megawatt hour. That’s less than half the average wholesale price this year, but far above levels that were normal before the current energy crisis.
What’s the underlying rationale?
The reasoning behind the measure is that low-carbon generators can sell electricity at market prices set by natural gas plants without having to pay higher costs for fuel.
To put it another way, the U.K. government is telling the renewables sector “We’re going to make you protect fossil fuels by forcing you to charge consumers the same amount fossil fuel costs them, while we siphon off the difference with a tax on your profits instead of letting you put the difference back into building more clean power.”
Good luck with that.
Here from 1981 is Thomas Dolby’s song Windpower.