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United States

New White House Partnership Aims To Speed Construction of Offshore Wind Farms (theverge.com) 49

The White House and 11 governors from East Coast states forged a new partnership on Thursday to build up domestic supply chains for offshore wind farms and related infrastructure. From a report: The new Federal-State Offshore Wind Implementation Partnership includes governors from Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island. As part of the announcement, the Biden administration committed to the facilitation of "timely and effective permitting and environmental reviews" for offshore wind projects and lease sales. In the past, permitting has been a significant bottleneck for advancing offshore wind projects. Crucially, President Joe Biden also moved to ease another major bottleneck: securing the specialized ships needed to erect turbines as tall as skyscrapers in the open ocean. Projects compete for time with the few installation vessels available worldwide, which number just over 30. The US faces additional restrictions because of the Jones Act, which stipulates that ships moving between two points in the US need to be built, owned, crewed, and registered in the US.
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New White House Partnership Aims To Speed Construction of Offshore Wind Farms

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  • by oldgraybeard ( 2939809 ) on Thursday June 23, 2022 @04:27PM (#62645872)
    Well! except where the rich have their mansions and beach houses.
    • by geekmux ( 1040042 ) on Thursday June 23, 2022 @04:54PM (#62645956)

      Well! except where the rich have their mansions and beach houses.

      "to build up domestic supply chains for offshore wind farms and related infrastructure"

      (Translation) "We'll sign up for a 'Green' bill and pretend we care by labeling our bolts and nuts 'Green' and charge 3x more while sucking on the Federal teat-of-needs, and pretend you didn't hear that part about 'related infrastructure' as we build another gas-powered plant, and pay out handsome executive bonuses with taxpayer money."

      Yes, I'm sure this will go about as well as that Broadband rollout we taxpayers have funded about 3 times over now.

      Don't worry about their houses. They certainly aren't.

    • by Smidge204 ( 605297 ) on Thursday June 23, 2022 @06:07PM (#62646112) Journal

      https://www.nyserda.ny.gov/All... [ny.gov]

      Close Enough (tm)

      I mean they're just not spoiling anyone's view, being way out there. A 1MW turbine is about 320 feet tall, so anything over ~24 miles off shore will be completely below the horizon. Most of these locations are 30 miles or more off shore.
      =Smidge=

  • He is putting in reserve propane tank(s) to keep his mansion powered up. Just in case he needs to go off grid.
  • by Whateverthisis ( 7004192 ) on Thursday June 23, 2022 @04:41PM (#62645922)
    They need to authoritatively just force the issue, because the problem isn't environmental permitting. It's rich jerks on both sides of the spectrum.

    Cape Wind was a project to put up a 454 MW offshore wind project in Cape Cod. The area had some of the most consistent, strong wind. You know what also is good in that area? Rich people sailing. This project was stalled by everyone from Ted Kennedy to the Koch Family fought to keep their wealthy estates free of clean power that polluted their views and sailing. Even when Obama stepped in and forced the issue, making sure the project would go forward, the wealthy folks there sued the permitting of the projects repeatedly, delaying construction. The project ultimately failed to hit their construction milestones and the customers pulled out of the power purchase agreements, killing the projects.

    It's interesting how NIMBYism is a bipartisan issue, particularly when you're a wealthy politician or donor.

    • The development rights auctions for development of wind power off the cost of NYC and Long Island earlier this year were the most expensive land leases in US history.

      There's 4,300 MW of wind being developed and installed right now off the cost of New York, (half of which is expected to be online by 2025) with a target of 9,000 MW by 2035.

      Cape Cod's 454MW is peanuts. Let the NIMBYs NIMBY, they can afford to buy the stupid expensive nuclear power from Millstone.
      =Smidge=

      • by Whateverthisis ( 7004192 ) on Thursday June 23, 2022 @06:55PM (#62646208)
        No, put that in context.

        There's a potential 4,300 MW in all of Long Island's pipeline of projects. They just "broke ground" on South Fork wind, which is only 130MW, 1/3rd of Cape Wind's project (you can't compare Long Island's potential wind to a single project in Cape Cod). The rest are still in permitting. South Fork Wind was originally Deepwater Wind which started permitting in 2013, and was only finally approved due to the usual lawsuits and permitting issues in 2021, and was renamed because the original company couldn't hold it together and it was bought by a Danish firm and renamed. Orsted has the financial backing to keep a project going because permitting in Europe is way more permissive, and htey don't have Kennedy's and Koch's stalling things.

        fingers crossed that Sunrise Wind gets going. That'll put Long Island on the map at 900+MW of offshore wind. That's slated to go next year.

  • Why one or the other. Having to much energy is good.
  • How about we compare offshore wind to other options on costs?
    https://www.iea.org/reports/pr... [iea.org] (You only need to look at the chart to get the idea, not read the entire article.)
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] (Link is to global studies but poke around for national studies if you like.)

    It bothers some people if I mention Lazard, and bothers others if I don't. This triggers people either way, I just include it for completeness. If you believe it is crap then ignore it. If you grab on to something out of

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by vivian ( 156520 )

      The interesting thing to note in that wikipedia article and specifically the chart you referenced, is that
      over the period, 2010 to 2019 it shows the installed capacity for all power sources has increased, but both onshore wind and solar have each individually increase to now exceed total nuclear capacity, while greatly decreasing in price per MW greatly, while nuclear has also grown but increased greatly in price per MWh.

      it's hardly a ringing endorsement for nuclear power.

  • > 1/4 of the land area of US can provide 60% capacity factor with sufficient hub height. Why invest money on wind deployments that cost 3x more?

  • I have never seen a full-scale analysis of offshore wind. Yes, there is a lot of wind, but: the installation is a massive project. Pouring the footings, building the towers, laying the cables. How much energy will one of these generators produce in its lifetime? How much energy does the installation require?

    I'm actually pretty skeptical...

    • The bigger the cheaper they are to run. It makes money; you go look. The foundation can be used longer than the blades which need replacing. The next gen can be floating and anchored which allows for cheaper placement in deep water - it's basically the same tech oil rigs used.

      How about you apply that skepticism to nuclear power because as far as I've read they never made any money without heavy subsidies including ridiculous massive subsidies for waste and insurance. It's just further proof you don't actu

  • If you run a business that needs the same parts as those wind farms, you are going to be SOL trying to find them. That might include car makers or Abrams tank builders.

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