This week, the Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) approved an 800-megawatt, $2.8 billion wind energy project in Massachusetts waters south of Martha’s Vineyard. The project, named Vineyard Wind, is the first utility-scale offshore proposal to clear federal regulatory hurdles. While it’s a big step in the direction of the 30 gigawatts of installed wind power that President Biden wants to see up and running by 2030, its long-in-coming approval is a stark reminder of the consequences of delays and missed opportunities in America’s race against climate change.
Vineyard Wind can’t quite escape the shadow of Cape Wind, the first and so far the longest-running drama in the travails of the offshore wind industry. In 2001, Boston-based energy project developer James Gordon unveiled plans for a 130-turbine wind farm that was projected to generate 1,500 gigawatt hours of electricity. If its turbines had ever started up, Cape Wind would have been the world’s largest wind farm. (Hornsea 1 in British waters is currently the world’s largest, the Europeans having left the United States behind in wind power development beginning in the 1990s.)
Read Full Article »