Your Daily Dose of Climate Hope: September 26, 2024
The Biden-Harris Administration has supercharged the U.S. offshore wind industry!
The Biden-Harris Administration has supercharged the American offshore wind industry. Starting from zero in 2021, we’re now at 15 GW of federally permitted offshore wind across 10 projects, many already under construction.
Tell Congress to insist on continued strong support for U.S. offshore wind!
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Reasons For Hope
The Biden-Harris Administration has permitted the 10th offshore wind farm project in U.S. federal waters (a 2.2 GW project set to be built off Maryland), bringing the total up to 15 GW of offshore wind projects now federally approved. America is finally getting giant biodiversity-boosting, clean electron-generating artificial reefs!
“When I came into office, the United States had zero approved offshore wind projects in federal waters, and the industry was struggling to gain a foothold.
But now, following my Administration’s investments in our clean energy future, the private sector has mobilized and the federal government has approved ten offshore wind projects – enough to power more than five million homes and equivalent to half of the capacity needed to achieve our goal of 30 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2030.
From manufacturing and shipbuilding to port operations and construction, this industry will support tens of thousands of good-paying and union jobs, provide reliable clean power to homes and businesses, strengthen our power grid against outages, and help reduce pollution – all while protecting biodiversity and marine ecosystems.”
-President Joe Biden
This U.S. offshore wind boom has already led to $6.9 billion in new offshore wind-focused investments across 15 ports and 19 manufacturing sites, with 25 new offshore wind ships currently being built across 8 states. Stories of incredible economic and cultural revitalization are already springing up in the wake of offshore wind.
New Bedford, Massachusetts has become a major energy port for the first time since the whaling era.
Sparrows Point Steel in Baltimore, once the world’s largest steel mill before closing in 2012, has reindustrialized with a new facility set to produce offshore wind turbine foundations.
The ECO Edison was just completed at a shipyard in Louisiana to become the first American-built offshore wind service vessel, and it’s set to be joined by the massive, stilt-legged Charybdis, currently under construction, which plans to sail straight from its origin shipyard in Texas to help out at the giant offshore wind farm currently under construction off Virginia.
For context, there were zero projects and zero GW of federal offshore wind under the previous administration. The Biden-Harris Administration has stood up an entire new American industry. This is spectacular work, and it’s just getting started.
Congress needs to know that their constituents care about this. They need to safeguard the IRA cleantech tax credits supporting offshore wind, and they need to absolutely insist that any future Interior Department nominees must continue to support offshore wind to receive Senate confirmation.