Support for wind energy drops in New Jersey: survey - The Hill
Support for wind energy drops in New Jersey: survey | The Hill
Support for wind energy drops in New Jersey: survey
Support for offshore wind development in New Jersey has dropped dramatically in recent years as projects near construction, according to polling released Monday.
Just over half of residents — around 54 percent — approve of offshore wind farm construction, according to the Monmouth University survey, a decrease from 76 percent in 2019 and 84 percent in 2011.
The state has approved three offshore wind projects, and the first, 15 miles off the coast of Atlantic City, is expected to begin construction this fall. Four additional projects have been proposed to state regulators.
The opinion change has almost entirely been partisan, according to the poll, with Democrats’ opinion mostly unchanged, while a majority of Republicans no longer support the concept.
In 2019, 69 percent of Republican respondents supported offshore wind. That has now dropped to just 28 percent. Support from independents dropped from 77 percent to 52 percent, the survey found.
“There was a time when wind energy was not really a political issue. It consistently received widespread bipartisan support for more than a decade,” Monmouth University Polling Institute director Patrick Murray said. “That is no longer the case.”
Wind development opponents have pointed to potential negative impacts on Jersey Shore tourism and the local sealife as reasons to go against the projects. In the poll, 40 percent of respondents said it would likely hurt tourism and 45 percent said the projects are possibly or definitely responsible for a rise in whale beachings in the state.
At least 60 whales have died on the East Coast since preparations for the first project near Atlantic City began in December, but multiple studies from federal and state agencies have not found evidence linking the deaths with wind farms.
The wind turbine projects have been celebrated by the state government and the Biden administration as ways to encourage green energy production in well-developed areas.
Gov. Phil Murphy (D) called the federal approval of the first project this summer “a pivotal inflection point not just for Orsted, but for New Jersey’s nation-leading offshore wind industry as a whole.”
There are two operating offshore wind farms in the U.S., one off the coast of Rhode Island and the other off the coast of Virginia. Both are operated by the same Danish firm, Orsted, which is constructing the Atlantic City project.
atlantic city clean energy Climate change jersey shore Joe Biden New Jersey offshore wind energy Patrick Murray Phil Murphy wind energy
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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.