New wind farms would dot US coastlines under Biden plan

By Matthew Daly | Associated Press

WASHINGTON — Seven large offshore upwind farms would beryllium developed connected the East and West coasts and successful the Gulf of Mexico nether a program announced Wednesday by the Biden administration.

The projects are portion of President Joe Biden’s program to deploy 30 gigawatts of offshore upwind vigor by 2030, generating capable energy to powerfulness much than 10 cardinal homes.

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said her section hopes to clasp lease income by 2025 disconnected the coasts of Maine, New York and the mid-Atlantic, arsenic good arsenic the Carolinas, California, Oregon and the Gulf of Mexico. The projects are portion of Biden’s program to code planetary warming and could debar astir 78 cardinal metric tons of planet-warming c dioxide emissions, portion creating up to 77,000 jobs, officials said.

“The Interior Department is laying retired an ambitious roadworthy representation arsenic we beforehand the administration’s plans to face clime change, make good-paying jobs and accelerate the nation’s modulation to a cleaner vigor future,” Haaland said. “We person large goals to execute a cleanable vigor system and Interior is gathering the moment.”

In summation to offshore wind, the Interior Department is moving with different national agencies to summation renewable vigor accumulation connected nationalist lands, Haaland said, with a extremity of astatine slightest 25 gigawatts of onshore renewable vigor from upwind and star powerfulness by 2025.

Haaland and Amanda Lefton, manager of department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, said officials anticipation to trim imaginable conflicts with sportfishing groups and different water users arsenic overmuch arsenic possible. “This means we volition prosecute aboriginal and often with each stakeholders anterior to identifying immoderate caller upwind vigor areas,” Lefton said successful a statement.

Commercial sportfishing businesses person said planned offshore upwind projects disconnected the East Coast would marque it hard to harvest invaluable seafood taxon specified arsenic scallops and lobsters. Some conservation groups besides fearfulness that large turbines volition termination thousands of birds.

Biden has acceptable a extremity to deploy 30 gigawatts, oregon 30,000 megawatts, of offshore upwind powerfulness successful the United States by 2030. Meeting the people could mean jobs for much than 44,000 workers and for 33,000 others successful related employment, the White House said.

The bureau completed its reappraisal of a operation and operations program for the Vineyard Wind task 15 miles disconnected the Massachusetts seashore earlier this year. The bureau is reviewing 9 further projects, including the South Fork upwind workplace adjacent New York’s Long Island and the Ocean Wind task disconnected New Jersey.

Vineyard Wind is expected to nutrient astir 800 megawatts of powerfulness and South Fork astir 132 megawatts. Ocean Wind, the largest project, has a full capableness of 1,100 megawatts, capable vigor to powerfulness 500,000 homes crossed New Jersey.

The medication has committed to processing the 13 different projects presently nether national reappraisal by 2025.

The water vigor bureau has said it is targeting offshore upwind projects successful shallow waters adjacent Long Island and New Jersey. A caller survey shows the country tin enactment up to 25,000 improvement and operation jobs by 2030, the Interior Department said.

Heather Zichal, a erstwhile clime advisor to President Barack Obama who present leads the American Clean Power Association, a renewable vigor group, said Biden’s extremity for offshore upwind was “ambitious but achievable.” Wind powerfulness is an indispensable portion of the extremity to scope 100 percent c pollution-free energy by 2035, she said.

In a related announcement, the Energy Department said it is spending $11.5 cardinal to survey risks that offshore upwind improvement whitethorn airs to birds, bats and marine mammals, and survey changes successful commercialized food and marine invertebrate populations astatine an offshore upwind tract connected the East Coast.

The section volition walk $2 cardinal connected ocular surveys and acoustic monitoring of marine mammals and seabirds astatine imaginable upwind sites connected the West Coast.

“In bid for Americans surviving successful coastal areas to spot the benefits of offshore wind, we indispensable guarantee that it’s done with attraction for the surrounding ecosystem by coexisting with fisheries and marine beingness – and that’s precisely what this concern volition do,” Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said successful a quality release.