California’s largest Native American tribe votes to oppose offshore wind
California’s largest Native American tribe votes to oppose offshore wind | Windpower Monthly
California’s largest Native American tribe, the Yurok, has voted to formally oppose offshore wind off the state’s northern coast.
The Yurok’s tribal council said the expected generation of 900-foot-tall offshore wind turbines would “indelibly tarnish sacred cultural sites” from the coast to the high country and that there was also insufficient scientific research about the adverse environmental impacts of floating wind turbines and platforms.
The tribe said it was “gravely concerned” about potential risks to the ecosystem extending from the deep ocean to the headwaters of the Klamath River and noted that the federal government had not recognised its sovereign authority to determine how “unceded” ocean territory is developed.
In 2022, the US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management auctioned two sites off the Humboldt County - in bids won by Germany utility RWE and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners to develop 2.6GW of wind capacity - as well as sites off the central coast.
Related Knowledge Center: Offshore wind energy
Over the next decade, U.S. offshore wind power is expected to grow from a single 30-megawatt wind farm off Rhode Island to more than 2,000 MW of capacity along the Atlantic Seaboard. There are contracts for wind power off the coasts of Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Maryland, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Virginia.
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory has estimated the United States has over 4,000 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind potential, enough to power the country four times over.
The growth in part being spurred by state solicitations, including in New York, where then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) set a commitment of 9,000 MW of offshore wind by 2035, and in Connecticut, where in June 2021, Gov. Ned Lamont (D) signed legislation authorizing the construction of 2,000 MW of offshore wind by 2030.
The offshore development is also being driven by an investment tax credit set to end in December 2019 and is equal to 12 percent of expenditures. U.S. Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Tom Carper (D-Del.) have introduced a bill to extend the tax credit for up to eight years.
The Interior Department has held eight competitive lease sales that resulted in 15 offshore wind leases over 1.7 million acres that has the potential for 21 GW of capacity. In February 2022, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management completed a bidding process that realized $4.37 billion for 488,000 acres across six lease areas in federal waters off New York and New Jersey.
Projects have also been proposed off the Southeast coast, off California and Hawaii, and for the Great Lakes.