Offshore wind holds massive promise for our economy, for home-grown energy and for the planet.
As a Conservation Law Foundation attorney working on clean energy, my work with climate change can sometimes feel so big, so abstract. So when a boat took me out to the recently completed South Fork Wind project off Rhode Island, I was overcome to see this clean energy solution up close, firsthand.
South Fork is now the first fully operational commercial-scale offshore wind project in the United States. To see it is to be overcome by both the immensity of the wind turbines themselves, and the reality that projects like this will change our future, and our children’s lives. Each turbine is twice the height of the Statue of Liberty. One single spin of the turbine generates enough electricity to power a whole house for 24 hours or more.
South Fork’s dozen turbines spinning in the strong Atlantic wind generate enough clean, renewable energy to power 70,000 homes and businesses in New York.
The waters off New England’s coast are some of the best in the United States for the production of reliable clean wind energy. In fact, it is already underway: Under construction is Revolution Wind, which will create 704-megawatts of power for Rhode Island and Connecticut, and replace filthy oil, gas and coal power in more than 350,000 homes. Also underway, Vineyard Wind off Massachusetts, which when complete will power 400,000 homes and remove from our atmosphere pollution equivalent to 325,000 cars.
Two energy companies recently were provisionally awarded federal offshore wind leases and are planning offshore wind projects in the Gulf of Maine – an area including all of the Massachusetts coast between Cape Cod and the New Hampshire border. Moreover, under a tri-state agreement, Massachusetts and Rhode Island have agreed to purchase more than 2,800 MW of offshore wind power from projects being planned in southern New England, with Connecticut potentially adding to that total.
What we stand to gain are thousands of new jobs, and a supply of clean, reliable and affordable energy to drive our electric future.
But, over the past year, we’ve become preoccupied with discussions over costs, over unsupported claims regarding threats to marine life, and over a single construction accident – the fracture of a turbine blade at Vineyard Wind. That incident took no lives, resulted in no known reports of injured marine life, has been cleaned up and – unlike oils spills – has not coated thousands of miles of coast in pollutants for years to come and killed millions of fish and birds. What is driving much of the negativity of the last year is simple: Fossil fuel companies, worried about losing market share, or of dying out completely in the face of green energy, have launched disinformation campaigns to try to stop or delay offshore wind.
As the climate change-driven loss of life and destruction of billions of dollars in property from Helene and Milton have shown, our future cannot be driven by the profit needs of Exxon and Shell. Our waters are warming as fast as any in the world; the damage from climate change is now. We need to get going.
A good start would be completion of the deal that Connecticut has offered Massachusetts: Massachusetts will buy some of the carbon free energy produced by the Millstone nuclear plant, and Connecticut would procure 400 MW of the 1,200 MW Vineyard Offshore wind project now on the drawing board. Vineyard Offshore – also called Vineyard Wind 2 – would deliver enough clean electricity to power 650,000 New England homes while providing 400 jobs and $682 million in direct economic benefits. If that deal does not go through, if no one buys that 400 MW, it is likely that project dies.
Being on the ocean, seeing South Fork Wind Farm’s turbines churning away in person, was a truly inspiring experience – as a CLF attorney and as a New England resident and new father concerned about our warming planet.
The solutions are here. I’ve seen them.
Nick Krakoff is a senior attorney with Conservation Law Foundation.