The Biden administration wants to fast-track the expansion of America’s wind-power, announcing on Monday that it plans to green-light offshore projects that could power ten million homes.
Wind farms off the coasts of New Jersey and Long Island, New York are the immediate centerpiece of the plan, which features new federal funding to upgrade U.S. ports and provide loans to wind-power companies. The administration also pledged to create concrete deadlines for reviewing and approving permit applications. Delays in permitting had stifled several wind projects under President Trump.
Monday’s announcement set “a goal for 30,000 megawatts of offshore wind by 2030, more than triple what the country is on pace for by 2026,” according to The Wall Street Journal.
Biden’s national climate adviser, Gina McCarthy, said the emphasis on wind-power dovetails with the administration’s job creation efforts. “This is all about creating great jobs in the ocean and in our port cities and in our heartland.”
“We’re talking about massive turbines that are actually manufactured in the United States,” McCarthy said at a White House event. “We’re talking about steel and cement that’s made right here. We’re talking about these special ships that need to install these huge structures that are U.S. flagged and built in U.S. ports.”
Bloomberg notes that the U.S. lags behind many European nations when it comes to wind power and outlines the challenges ahead:
The target of deploying 30 gigawatts of offshore wind power generation capacity in nine years would require developers to install thousands of turbines capable of generating hundreds of times more power than the two small existing installations in state and federal waters today.
To satisfy the goal, Biden’s administration will have to navigate oft-competing interests — including those of project developers, environmentalists, organized labor and fishermen — while dedicating more Interior Department resources to vetting multibillion-dollar wind projects.
Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm called the Biden plan “clean-energy patriotism.” She said it “reflect[s] this whole-of-government embrace. We all have a role to play.”
Biden championed wind energy on the campaign trail, even as his opponent, Donald Trump, falsely claimed it was dirtier and more expensive than natural gas.
“You want to see a bird graveyard? … Go under a windmill someday. You’ll see more birds than you’ve ever seen, ever, in your life,” Trump once said, facts notwithstanding.
Then again, Trump also declared, “I never understood wind.“
