Jim Tankersley, Brad Plumer, Ana Swanson and Ivan Penn
The New York Times
Sat, August 19, 2023
A large crane at Mack Point near Searsport, Maine, another proposed staging ground for offshore wind turbines. (Mason Trinca/The New York Times)
If there is anywhere in the country primed to welcome the clean energy transition, it is Penobscot Bay in Maine. Electricity prices there are high and volatile. The ocean waters are warming fast, threatening the lobster fishery. Miles offshore, winds blow strong enough to heat every home and power every car in the state.
For more than 15 years, researchers at the University of Maine have been honing scale models of floating wind turbines inspired by oil rigs. They are now confident they can mass-produce turbine blades the length of football fields and float them miles into the ocean. It is the kind of breakthrough in clean energy technology that is allowing a much faster transition to renewables than many believed possible, aided by state officials eager to pioneer a floating wind industry.
One key to harnessing that wind lies at the end of a causeway jutting into the bay, on a mostly undeveloped island where eagles fish offshore and people walk in the quiet shade. Many officials see this spot, known as Sears Island, as the ideal site to build and launch a flotilla of turbines that could significantly lessen Maine’s reliance on fossil fuels.
Standing in their way are environmental groups and local residents, all of whom are committed to a clean energy future and worried about the rapid warming of the Earth. Still, they want the state to pick a different site for its so-called wind port, citing the tranquility of Sears Island and its popularity and accessibility as a recreation destination.
On a recent summer morning one conservationist against the plan, Scott Dickerson, sat on a picnic bench and predicted environmental groups would sue to thwart development of the island, as they had many times in the past.
“And that, as you can imagine, is going to run the clock,” he said, costing the state valuable time that could be saved by looking elsewhere.
After years of fits and starts, the transition to renewable energy like wind and solar power is finally shifting into full gear in many parts of the world, including the United States, which has been buoyed by massive new subsidies from the Biden administration. But around the country, the effort is being slowed by a host of logistical, political and economic challenges.
Breaks in supply chains have stalled big projects. Historically low unemployment makes it hard to hire workers to build or install new turbines or solar panels. Shortcomings in the power grid can block newly generated electricity from reaching customers. Federal, state and local regulations, including often byzantine permitting requirements, threaten to delay some construction for years. So do the court battles that almost inevitably follow those permitting decisions.
These problems are not unique to the United States. In Europe, orders for new turbines dropped unexpectedly last year as developers struggled with inflation and sluggish permitting. In parts of China, a growing fraction of electricity from turbines and solar panels is being wasted because the grid lacks capacity. In Australia, clean energy companies have complained about a shortage of skilled workers.
At the same time, it tends to take longer to build solar arrays, wind farms, car chargers and transmission lines in the United States than in China, India and Europe, a recent analysis by the International Energy Agency found.
But no hurdle to a clean energy transition at the speed and scale scientists say is needed to avert catastrophic warming is easier to see than the growing local backlash to large-scale wind and solar projects, like the one roiling Sears Island.
The problem boils down to this: If lawmakers want to ramp up renewables as fast and cheaply as possible, they’ll need to bulldoze or build over some places that people treasure.
While Americans broadly support renewable energy, polls show, they are less enthusiastic about having it in their backyard. One survey from 2021 found that only 24% of Americans were willing to live within 1 mile of a solar farm; the number dropped to 17% for wind farms.
Such resistance is often rooted in anxieties about broader social and economic change in communities where families have lived for generations. But in some cases, like lawsuits trying to stop wind farm development off Massachusetts, groups with funding from fossil fuel interests have stoked fear. Those efforts are their own sort of obstacle to renewables: an attempt by incumbent energy players to protect their market share, even if the economics have turned against them.
A recent analysis found that it would cost less for electric utilities to build new wind and solar farms than to operate most of the existing coal-fired power plants — a stunning shift from 15 years ago, when burning coal was the cheapest way to make electricity.
But after years of rapid growth, installations of wind, solar and batteries slowed by 15% last year, according to the American Clean Power Association, a trade group.
“There’s a lot of capital ready to flow,” said Gregory Wetstone, president of the American Council on Renewable Energy, another trade group. “But to get these projects going, you need to get them permitted, you need to get them connected to the grid, you need workers, you need access to supply chains. All of that can still be quite difficult.”
In Maine, many of those challenges are concentrated at one choke point: where to put a new wind port, which state officials have not decided on.
Offshore turbines need a large slab of land where they can be built and launched to sea. That site must connect to highways, to truck in materials, but also sit beside deep water.
The state’s two main contenders are in Searsport, about 30 miles south of Bangor.
One site is an industrial area, Mack Point, clearly visible from Sears Island. It is the spot many locals and conservationists prefer. The company that owns it says it could be easily converted to build and ship offshore turbines.
But some officials have warned that it could be difficult for Mack Point to secure needed permits from the Environmental Protection Agency, the Army Corps of Engineers and other federal agencies in order to dredge the bay and build new port facilities.
In Searsport, many residents fear that state officials will bypass Mack Point, which sits on private land and would need to be leased for millions of dollars a year — costs that would probably be passed on to utility customers.
Sears Island, in contrast, is owned by the state. Under a previous agreement with conservation groups, two-thirds of its woods and beaches are to be a nature preserve. The other third is zoned for a port.
Supporters of choosing the island site include Habib Dagher, a godfather of Maine’s offshore wind efforts and the founding executive director of the University of Maine’s Advanced Structures and Composites Center. He suggested it was worth trading the existing open space of the island for lower energy prices and reduced greenhouse gas emissions.
“All of us would like to think that we can have renewable energy with zero impact on the environment — as you know, it’s not possible, right?” Dagher said in an interview at his wind lab. “So our goal, and our challenge, is: How do we minimize impact on environment as we embark on this transformational energy system?”
Conservation groups have fought development on Sears Island for decades, beating back a nuclear power plant, a gas import terminal and more. They reject the idea that they must lose that fight now — even as they lament climate change.
Rolf Olsen is a retired marketing executive and an avid day hiker. He kayaks and likes to swim in Penobscot Bay after mowing his lawn. He drives a white plug-in Toyota Prius and is vice president of a group called Friends of Sears Island, and he sat on a state advisory panel over where to locate the wind port, which he says should be at Mack Point.
On a recent hike, he described what a Sears Island port might look like, in place of the oaks and the birches.
“I have a picture in my mind’s eye. You know, it’s huge, flat, towering concrete and steel,” he said. “It saddens me.”
So, he added, does the warming of the planet.
“I have a granddaughter who’s 3. She’s going to have to live in a different world.”
c.2023 The New York Times Company
Sat, August 19, 2023
A large crane at Mack Point near Searsport, Maine, another proposed staging ground for offshore wind turbines. (Mason Trinca/The New York Times)
If there is anywhere in the country primed to welcome the clean energy transition, it is Penobscot Bay in Maine. Electricity prices there are high and volatile. The ocean waters are warming fast, threatening the lobster fishery. Miles offshore, winds blow strong enough to heat every home and power every car in the state.
For more than 15 years, researchers at the University of Maine have been honing scale models of floating wind turbines inspired by oil rigs. They are now confident they can mass-produce turbine blades the length of football fields and float them miles into the ocean. It is the kind of breakthrough in clean energy technology that is allowing a much faster transition to renewables than many believed possible, aided by state officials eager to pioneer a floating wind industry.
One key to harnessing that wind lies at the end of a causeway jutting into the bay, on a mostly undeveloped island where eagles fish offshore and people walk in the quiet shade. Many officials see this spot, known as Sears Island, as the ideal site to build and launch a flotilla of turbines that could significantly lessen Maine’s reliance on fossil fuels.
Standing in their way are environmental groups and local residents, all of whom are committed to a clean energy future and worried about the rapid warming of the Earth. Still, they want the state to pick a different site for its so-called wind port, citing the tranquility of Sears Island and its popularity and accessibility as a recreation destination.
On a recent summer morning one conservationist against the plan, Scott Dickerson, sat on a picnic bench and predicted environmental groups would sue to thwart development of the island, as they had many times in the past.
“And that, as you can imagine, is going to run the clock,” he said, costing the state valuable time that could be saved by looking elsewhere.
After years of fits and starts, the transition to renewable energy like wind and solar power is finally shifting into full gear in many parts of the world, including the United States, which has been buoyed by massive new subsidies from the Biden administration. But around the country, the effort is being slowed by a host of logistical, political and economic challenges.
Breaks in supply chains have stalled big projects. Historically low unemployment makes it hard to hire workers to build or install new turbines or solar panels. Shortcomings in the power grid can block newly generated electricity from reaching customers. Federal, state and local regulations, including often byzantine permitting requirements, threaten to delay some construction for years. So do the court battles that almost inevitably follow those permitting decisions.
These problems are not unique to the United States. In Europe, orders for new turbines dropped unexpectedly last year as developers struggled with inflation and sluggish permitting. In parts of China, a growing fraction of electricity from turbines and solar panels is being wasted because the grid lacks capacity. In Australia, clean energy companies have complained about a shortage of skilled workers.
At the same time, it tends to take longer to build solar arrays, wind farms, car chargers and transmission lines in the United States than in China, India and Europe, a recent analysis by the International Energy Agency found.
But no hurdle to a clean energy transition at the speed and scale scientists say is needed to avert catastrophic warming is easier to see than the growing local backlash to large-scale wind and solar projects, like the one roiling Sears Island.
The problem boils down to this: If lawmakers want to ramp up renewables as fast and cheaply as possible, they’ll need to bulldoze or build over some places that people treasure.
While Americans broadly support renewable energy, polls show, they are less enthusiastic about having it in their backyard. One survey from 2021 found that only 24% of Americans were willing to live within 1 mile of a solar farm; the number dropped to 17% for wind farms.
Such resistance is often rooted in anxieties about broader social and economic change in communities where families have lived for generations. But in some cases, like lawsuits trying to stop wind farm development off Massachusetts, groups with funding from fossil fuel interests have stoked fear. Those efforts are their own sort of obstacle to renewables: an attempt by incumbent energy players to protect their market share, even if the economics have turned against them.
A recent analysis found that it would cost less for electric utilities to build new wind and solar farms than to operate most of the existing coal-fired power plants — a stunning shift from 15 years ago, when burning coal was the cheapest way to make electricity.
But after years of rapid growth, installations of wind, solar and batteries slowed by 15% last year, according to the American Clean Power Association, a trade group.
“There’s a lot of capital ready to flow,” said Gregory Wetstone, president of the American Council on Renewable Energy, another trade group. “But to get these projects going, you need to get them permitted, you need to get them connected to the grid, you need workers, you need access to supply chains. All of that can still be quite difficult.”
In Maine, many of those challenges are concentrated at one choke point: where to put a new wind port, which state officials have not decided on.
Offshore turbines need a large slab of land where they can be built and launched to sea. That site must connect to highways, to truck in materials, but also sit beside deep water.
The state’s two main contenders are in Searsport, about 30 miles south of Bangor.
One site is an industrial area, Mack Point, clearly visible from Sears Island. It is the spot many locals and conservationists prefer. The company that owns it says it could be easily converted to build and ship offshore turbines.
But some officials have warned that it could be difficult for Mack Point to secure needed permits from the Environmental Protection Agency, the Army Corps of Engineers and other federal agencies in order to dredge the bay and build new port facilities.
In Searsport, many residents fear that state officials will bypass Mack Point, which sits on private land and would need to be leased for millions of dollars a year — costs that would probably be passed on to utility customers.
Sears Island, in contrast, is owned by the state. Under a previous agreement with conservation groups, two-thirds of its woods and beaches are to be a nature preserve. The other third is zoned for a port.
Supporters of choosing the island site include Habib Dagher, a godfather of Maine’s offshore wind efforts and the founding executive director of the University of Maine’s Advanced Structures and Composites Center. He suggested it was worth trading the existing open space of the island for lower energy prices and reduced greenhouse gas emissions.
“All of us would like to think that we can have renewable energy with zero impact on the environment — as you know, it’s not possible, right?” Dagher said in an interview at his wind lab. “So our goal, and our challenge, is: How do we minimize impact on environment as we embark on this transformational energy system?”
Conservation groups have fought development on Sears Island for decades, beating back a nuclear power plant, a gas import terminal and more. They reject the idea that they must lose that fight now — even as they lament climate change.
Rolf Olsen is a retired marketing executive and an avid day hiker. He kayaks and likes to swim in Penobscot Bay after mowing his lawn. He drives a white plug-in Toyota Prius and is vice president of a group called Friends of Sears Island, and he sat on a state advisory panel over where to locate the wind port, which he says should be at Mack Point.
On a recent hike, he described what a Sears Island port might look like, in place of the oaks and the birches.
“I have a picture in my mind’s eye. You know, it’s huge, flat, towering concrete and steel,” he said. “It saddens me.”
So, he added, does the warming of the planet.
“I have a granddaughter who’s 3. She’s going to have to live in a different world.”
c.2023 The New York Times Company
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