Heidi Harmon's pro-offshore wind energy claims fall flat - Cal Coast News
Heidi Harmon's pro-offshore wind energy claims fall flat
Heidi Harmon’s pro-offshore wind energy claims fall flat
February 24, 2024
Heidi Harmon
OPINION by BETTY WINHOLTZ
On Feb. 18, former San Luis Obispo mayor Heidi Harmon wrote an op-ed in the Tribune praising the benefits of offshore wind energy. Nothing could be further from the truth. Without a long, detailed discussion about the nature of her claims, let me just point out a few obvious observations.
Supporting offshore wind energy, Harmon makes questionable claims. For example, “a clean energy economy.” Nothing is “clean” about the oil products required to maintain the machines, diesel to transport workers, and non-recyclable blades dumped in a Texas turbine graveyard. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management says offshore wind energy doesn’t offset climate change.
Offshore wind energy contributes minimally to “energy” supply. Offshore wind farms use energy to get energy to shore. Blades don’t run at capacity or continuously. Great Britain backs up offshore wind with coal and other sources because wind is inconsistent. British citizens’ utility bills soared five times what they paid before offshore wind energy.
The promise to boost our “economy” is unproven. The governor wants a billion dollar bond to pay foreign companies to build offshore wind farms. Several companies, one invested here, withdrew from the East Coast due to overruns, supply issues, and local officials/residents refusing them more taxpayer money.
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management confesses environmental impacts cannot be mitigated; the phrase “robust environmental safeguards” is a farce.
No “collaboration with commercial fishermen” has occurred. Ask the Morro Bay Commercial Fishermen’s Organization.
Finally, “technology has been refined for over 30 years,” is the most telling. Technology to build offshore wind farms off our coast in deep waters hasn’t been invented yet!
Betty Winholtz is a more than 30-year resident of Morro Bay. She served as a councilwoman from 2002 through 2010.
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.