Energy Musings contains articles and analyses dealing with important issues and developments within the energy industry, including historical perspective, with potentially significant implications for executives planning their companies’ future.
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August 12, 2023
The Unlevel Offshore Regulatory Playing Field
Offshore wind has been adopted as the high-value way for America to cut its carbon emissions and stop climate change. The Biden-Harris administration has established a goal of installing 30 GW of offshore wind generating capacity by 2030. This goal has motivated offshore energy regulators to move aggressively to approve new wind projects. They have gone from impartial regulators to offshore wind cheerleaders. As they administer the regulatory process, they often ignore the laws and rules that should be governing the offshore wind program. Those laws and rules govern offshore oil and gas. Why are oil and gas treated differently than offshore wind?
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The Unlevel Offshore Regulatory Playing Field
“As part of the Biden-Harris administration’s goal of deploying 30 gigawatts of offshore wind energy capacity by 2030, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) today announced it will initiate the environmental review of a proposed 2,430-megawatt wind energy project offshore Massachusetts.” That was the opening line of BOEM’s June 29th press release announcing the publication of its Notice of Intent (NOI) to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the Construction and Operations Plan (COP) submitted by the wind project’s developer, Beacon Wind, LLC. One more offshore wind (OSW) project is moving forward.
The announcement signaled the opening of the review process for Beacon Wind, whose highlights were described in the press release:
“Construction and operation of two wind energy facilities (Beacon Wind 1 and Beacon Wind 2) offshore Massachusetts with a total capacity of at least 2,430 megawatts of clean, renewable wind energy, which could power over 850,000 homes each year.
“Installation of up to 155 turbines, up to two offshore substation platforms, and up to two offshore export cables, which are planned to make landfall in Astoria, New York, and Waterford, Connecticut.”
Those 155 wind turbines represent roughly 5% of the total expected to be approved by BOEM in support of the Biden-Harris administration’s OSW program. The program calls for building 30 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind generating capacity by 2030. This will require 3,000 offshore wind turbines pounded into the seabed between Massachusetts and Virginia over the next seven years. Their approvals are being “streamlined” by BOEM, and that sea of turbines will be bolstered by another 5,000 turbines thereafter. Critics have described Biden’s OSW program as the “industrialization” of the Atlantic Ocean, suggesting it will dramatically change our offshore waters with the possibility of creating multiple environmental issues and potentially putting a meaningful portion of our fishing industry out of business.