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Biden plans floating platforms to expand offshore wind power

September 19, 2022 — The Biden administration on Thursday announced plans to develop floating platforms in the deep ocean for wind towers that could power millions of homes and vastly expand offshore wind in the United States.

The plan would target sites in the Pacific Ocean off the California and Oregon coasts, as well as in the Atlantic in the Gulf of Maine.

President Joe Biden hopes to deploy up to 15 gigawatts of electricity through floating sites by 2035, enough to power 5 million homes. The administration has previously set a goal of 30 GW of offshore wind by 2030 using traditional technology that secures wind turbines to the ocean floor.

There are only a handful of floating offshore platforms in the world — all in Europe — but officials said the technology is developing and could soon establish the United States as a global leader in offshore wind.

The push for offshore wind is part of Biden’s effort to promote clean energy and address global warming. Biden has pledged to cut greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030. A climate-and-tax bill he signed last month would spend about $375 billion over 10 years to boost electric vehicles, jump-start renewable energy such as solar and wind power and develop alternative energy sources like hydrogen.

Read the full article at The Associated Press

The Gulf’s first offshore wind energy zones prompt concerns from Texas, shrugs from Louisiana

September 1, 2022 — Federal regulators have heard little from Louisiana about a wind energy zone proposed in the Gulf of Mexico near Lake Charles, part of a push by President Joe Biden’s administration to generate 30 gigawatts of offshore wind power by 2030.

The U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management has been asking the public to weigh in on the Gulf’s first two proposed wind energy zones: the 188,000-acre area south of Lake Charles and a 547,000-acre area near Galveston, Texas.

The Lake Charles zone, which would be located about 38 miles from the coast, could generate power for almost 800,000 homes – about half the households in Louisiana – and spur engineering and construction jobs for a region hit hard by Hurricane Laura and other storms. The Galveston zone could produce enough power for 2.3 million homes, according to BOEM estimates.

BOEM recently extended the comment period from late August to Sept. 2. As of Monday, BOEM had received 60 comments on the proposed zones. Most of the comments were from Texas groups and residents. The most common concerns were over the survival of migratory birds and ensuring that wind farms offer safe, good-paying jobs.

Read the full article at nola.com

Biden moves to expand offshore wind to Gulf of Mexico

July 21, 2022 — The Biden administration on Wednesday said it had identified 700,000 acres for possible offshore wind energy development in the Gulf of Mexico, seeking to expand a growing clean energy industry to a major U.S. oil and gas hub.

It also said President Joe Biden would direct his Interior Department to move ahead with offshore wind development in areas of the Atlantic coast where former President Donald Trump banned oil and gas development.

The expansion of the nascent U.S. offshore wind industry is a cornerstone of Biden’s plan to fight global warming and decarbonize the electricity sector by 2035.

Biden’s Interior Department will seek public input on two areas in the Gulf. One is off the coast of Galveston, Texas, and the other near Lake Charles, Louisiana. If projects are ultimately developed there, they could power more than 3 million homes, the administration said.

The two areas will undergo further review to determine the locations most suitable for leasing.

Read the full article at Reuters

Meet the officials shaping Biden’s offshore energy strategy

July 14, 2022 — A climate activist, mineral economist and former Army Corps regional director are among the officials crafting President Joe Biden’s closely watched strategy for offshore energy, which could shape the direction of renewables and oil drilling for years.

Working in and around the Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, they are helping steer the Biden administration’s approach to offshore oil and gas leasing and its ambitious plans to transition the nation’s oceans toward clean energy at a pivotal moment for both.

Previously focused on managing the oil industry’s access to federal stores of crude and natural gas off the nation’s coasts, BOEM is in the throes of an internal transition to meet this political moment. Its current crew of leaders reflects a unique period in the 11-year-old agency’s history and the varied nature of its growing responsibilities.

Interior and the bureau recently released a draft five-year oil program that could lead to 11 offshore oil auctions in the coming years, potentially jettisoning Biden’s lofty campaign promise to end new leasing. But the Biden administration’s proposal also suggested the possibility of going in a different direction, holding zero new lease sales between 2023 and 2028 in what would be an epic shift for the offshore oil sector.

The new bureau took over the leasing responsibility of offshore energy, while other agencies were crafted to handle the money coming from oil royalties and fees and the day-to-day safety and environmental oversight of offshore drilling.

Last month, BOEM announced that James Bennett, its long-standing chief of the office of renewable programs, has moved to a new, ambiguous role within the renewables arena at BOEM that has led to some speculation in the offshore wind industry that the Interior bureaucrat who built BOEM’s renewables approach may soon leave the agency.

Other relative newcomers to the bureau with critical roles include Marissa Knodel, an adviser in a political liaison position that’s long existed at BOEM and operates out of the public eye. She is one of the BOEM cohorts working directly with the White House to align bureau actions with Biden’s political realities.

Another less visible figure critical in BOEM’s direction is Tommy Beaudreau, the Interior deputy secretary who is second in command at the department under Interior Secretary Deb Haaland.

It was during Beaudreau’s tenure that BOEM first got serious about offshore wind and held its first offshore wind auctions in 2013. But it may be his oil and gas bona fides that matter most as the administration navigates its five-year offshore oil plan. He led BOEM in the years leading up to the last five-year plan and was involved in the consideration of shifting from regionwide oil and gas auctions in the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf-wide sales — a flip often associated with the Trump administration.

Read the full story at E&E News