Always headwinds

Wind-energy lease areas off Massachusetts and Rhode Island as of October, 2022

The Massachusetts Wind Technology Testing Center, in Boston’s Charlestown section.

— Photo by vArnoldReinhold

Adapted from Robert Whitcomb’s “Digital Diary,’’ in GoLocal24.com

It was good to hear that the U.S. Interior Department has approved Revolution Wind’s big (700 megawatts) project, southwest of Martha’s Vineyard. The project could provide  electricity for 350,000 homes and create about  1,200  construction jobs.

The  department has also approved  the Vineyard Wind 1 project, off Massachusetts, the South Fork Wind project, off Rhode Island and New York, and the Ocean Wind 1 project, off New Jersey.

But the  regulatory approval process moves at glacial speed, and litigation always threatens to stop such projects in their tracks. Big factors are nimbyism by coastal residents (often led by affluent summer people)  who say that they don’t want to look at wind turbines, as well as opposition by some in the fishing sector because of the mostly temporary disruptions in the areas where they’d be installed. Of course, the damage caused by man-made global warming happens everywhere, in varying degrees of severity.

And the supports for offshore turbines act as artificial reefs that draw fish. Wouldn’t fishermen like that?

Installing any energy source creates problems, but let’s  make rational comparisons….

The complaints by offshore-wind foes are outstandingly hypocritical. Consider that the fossil-fuel burning that wind power is meant to partly replace poses an existential risk to fishing interests by dangerously warming and acidifying the water and disrupting major ocean currents such as the Gulf Stream.  Fossil-fuel burning destroys food sources of marine animals, including whales.

Then there are those pesky oil spills and the disruptions to marine animals by speeding oil tankers.

When you look closely at opposition to coastal and offshore wind projects you see money from – you guessed it! – the oil and gas industry.

Take a look at the stuff in these links:

https://electrek.co/2022/04/18/the-first-us-offshore-wind-farm-has-had-no-negative-effect-on-fish-finds-groundbreaking-study/

https://grist.org/politics/republicans-fossil-fuels-the-gop-donors-behind-a-growing-misinformation-campaign-to-stop-offshore-wind/

https://environment-review.yale.edu/support-and-opposition-offshore-wind-power-us-clash-perceptions-and-reality

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jul/17/anti-wind-farm-whale-defenders-fossil-fuel-industry

https://heated.world/p/the-fossil-fuel-industrys-deceptive

Llewellyn King: Rich nations must lead the way on the bumpy road to a green future

Rising seas caused by global warming threaten Greater Boston.

SEDACMaps - Urban-Rural Population and Land Area Estimates, v2, 2010: Greater Boston, U.S.

ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates

I first heard about global warming being attributable to human activity about 50 years ago. Back then, it was just a curiosity, a matter of academic discussion. It didn’t engage the environmental movement, which marshaled opposition to nuclear and firmly advocated coal as an alternative.

Twenty years on, there was concern about global warming. I heard competing arguments about the threat at many locations, from Columbia University to the Aspen Institute. There was conflicting data from NASA and other federal entities. No action was proposed.

The issue might have crystallized earlier if it hadn’t been that between 1973 and 1989, the great concern was energy supply. The threat to humanity wasn’t the abundance of fossil fuels. It was the fear that there weren’t enough of them.

The solar and wind industries grew not as an alternative but rather as a substitution. Today, they are the alternative.

Now, the world faces a more fearsome future: global warming and all of its consequences. These are on view: sea-level rise, droughts, floods, extreme cold, excessive heat, severe out-of-season storms, fires, water shortages, and crop failures.

Sea-level rise affects the very existence of many small island nations, as the prime minister of Tonga, Siaosi Slavonia, made clear here at the annual assembly of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), an intergovernmental group with 167 member nations.

It also affects such densely populated countries as Bangladesh, where large, low-lying areas may be flooded, driving off people and destroying agricultural land. Salt works on food, not on food crops.

Sea-level rise threatens the U.S. coasts — the problem is most acute for such cities as Boston, New York, Miami, Charleston, Galveston and San Mateo. Flooding first, then submergence.

How does human catastrophe begin? Sometimes it is sudden and explosive, like an earthquake. Sometimes it advertises its arrival ahead of time. So it is with the Earth’s warming.

Delegates at the IRENA assembly felt that the bell of climate catastrophe tolls for their countries and their families. There was none of the disputations that normally attend climate discussions. Unity was a feature of this one.

The challenge was framed articulately and succinctly by John Kerry, U.S. special presidential envoy for climate. Kerry’s points:

—Global warming is real, and the evidence is everywhere.

—The world can’t reach its Paris Agreement goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius by 2030 or the ultimate one of net-zero carbon by 2050 unless drastic action is taken.

—Warming won’t be reversed by economically weak countries but rather by rich ones, which are most responsible for it. Kerry said 120 less-developed countries produce only 1 percent of the greenhouse gases while the 20 richest produce 80 percent.

—Kerry, notably, declared that the technologies for climate remediation must come from the private sector. He wants business and private investment mobilized. 

The emphasis at this assembly has been on wind, solar and green hydrogen. Wave power and geothermal have been mentioned mostly in passing. Nuclear got no hearing. This may be because it isn’t renewable technically. But it does offer the possibility for vast amounts of carbon-free electricity. It is classed as a “green” source by many government institutions and is now embraced by many environmentalists.

The fact that this conference has been held here is of more than passing interest. Prima facie, Abu Dhabi is striving to go green. It has made a huge solar commitment to the Al Dhafra project. When finished, it will be the world’s largest single solar facility. Abu Dhabi is also installing a few wind turbines.

Abu Dhabi has a four-unit nuclear power-plant at Barakah, with two 1,400-megawatt units online, one in testing and one under construction. Yet, the emirate is a major oil producer and is planning to expand its production from more than 3 million barrels daily to 5 million barrels.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has made oil more valuable, and even states preparing for a day when oil demand will drop are responding. Abu Dhabi isn’t alone in this seeming contradiction between purpose and practice. Green-conscious Britain is opening a new coal mine.

The energy transition has its challenges — even in the face of commitment and palpable need. The delegates who attended this all-round excellent conference will find that when they get home.

In the United States, utilities are grappling with the challenge of not destabilizing the grid while pressing ahead with renewables. Lights on, carbon out, is tricky.

On Twitter: @llewellynking2
Llewellyn King is executive producer and host of White House Chronicle, on PBS. And he’s based in Rhode Island and Washington, D.C.
White House Chronicle
InsideSources

Emily Schwartz Greco: Slow solons won't stop wind-energy growth

The gaggle of workers in Montana’s Carbon County hacking at the barely thawed ground in late December were on a mission: Secure Mud Springs Wind Ranch’s eligibility for a green-energy incentive.

Why were they racing to catch a tax credit in that sparsely inhabited land? Congress.

While ambling across its latest do-nothing finish line, lawmakers approved a bill that extended five-dozen tax breaks. The last-minute move retroactively restored the Production Tax Credit, the wind industry’s primary source for federal support, with a catch: Only projects underway by the year’s end would qualify.

When President  Obama signed the legislation on Dec.  19, Washington had officially extended the wind incentive for the 10th time since 1992 in the least helpful way possible.

In this industrial Cinderella fairytale, Washington fleetingly granted some wind entrepreneurs their wish. Flipping the switch on for two weeks barely gave Mud Springs crews enough time to cut the 1,500 feet of access road and do the turbine prep work required to meet Washington’s evolving definition of getting started, the Billings Gazette reported.

Yet extinguishing this tax credit won’t stop the wind business. Thanks mainly to the increasingly cheap power it generates, it’s flourishing.

Wind generates over 4.5 percent of the nation’s electricity today, enough to power 18 million homes. By 2020, this energy source’s share of the total power market could more than double to 10 percent. By 2030, wind may fuel one out of every five kilowatts consumed in America, the Obama administration predicts.

In contrast to the main federal tax credit supporting solar power and offshore wind, which gives people and companies a break based on the quantity of money they spend, the Production Tax Credit ties tax breaks for wind farm operators to how much power they generate. Uncle Sam issues a 2.3-cent tax credit for each kilowatt-hour produced for 10 years once qualifying energy projects go live.

As you might expect, plenty of conservatives favor this arrangement because it rewards performance. With the wind energy credit dead once again, will the Republican-led Congress revive it for the 11th time in 2015?

That’s up in the air.

Lawmakers have rebuffed Obama’s efforts to make this energy incentive permanent. A bid to renew the tax credit failed by a slim margin earlier this year in the Senate. Votes fell largely along party lines, with some notable exceptions: Democrat Joe Manchin, of West Virginia, rejected it, while Republicans Mark Kirk, of Illinois, Chuck Grassley, of Iowa, and Susan Collins, of Maine, supported the measure.

Several Republicans who hail from America’s wind-belt states voted no, including Steve Daines of Montana.

Yet with the arrival of GOP rising stars like freshmen Joni Ernst, of Iowa, and Cory Gardner, of Colorado, who have supported an extension in the past, the industry hasn’t lost hope.

“We are optimistic that Congress will extend the tax credit this year,” said David Ward, the American Wind Energy Association’s spokesman.

Building wind farms takes about two years, so lapses like the one the industry now faces trigger delayed reactions. The pace of wind capacity growth will plunge to 6.5 percent in 2016 from a projected 16 percent this year, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Congress, not market forces, fuels this boom-and-bust cycle.

That 16 percent growth is a big deal in today’s electricity market. It represents nearly half of the more than 20 gigawatts of power being added in 2015 to the nation’s collective grid. Wind is currently the leading source of the national grid’s new capacity, sailing past natural gas.

Meanwhile, coal-fired power plant shutdowns will unplug 13 gigawatts.

The wind industry now employs more than 50,000 American workers. It’s reducing pollution that causes cancer, seeds climate chaos, and increases asthma. How can there be any debate over whether Congress should sustain this successful tax credit?

Maybe those Montana construction workers should come to Washington to talk sense to Senator Daines. When it comes to renewing the tax credit for wind energy, he’s blowing it.

Emily Schwartz Greco is the managing editor of OtherWords, a non-profit national editorial service run by the Institute for Policy Studies. OtherWords.org.