Posted on May 8, 2023
Offshore wind may have strong support in the White House and in the Governor’s Mansion in Raleigh, but it remains clear that support for the “green” power alternative to traditional fossil fuel power sources remains far from unanimous in North Carolina.
With decarbonizing the nation’s energy grid to help fight climate change one of his administration’s goals, President Joe Biden has said he hopes offshore wind farms will power as many as 10 million American homes by 2030. That push has seen a flurry of new projects announced or initiated in recent years, including the auctioning off a pair of ocean sites south of Brunswick County for more than $300 million in May 2022.
A third project, a 2.5-gigawatt farm 27 miles off the Outer Banks in an area that was auctioned off late last decade, is already well into the planning process.
The federal government also has identified two potential sites farther off the Outer Banks in deeper waters, where floating wind turbines would be needed to produce power. Those sites could substantially help meet Gov. Roy Cooper’s goal of North Carolina producing 8 gigawatts of offshore wind power by 2040.
But the idea of turbines rising more than 800 feet from the ocean’s surface has met with resistance from oceanfront property owners worried about the wind farms disrupting their pristine coastal views and local officials scared they could impact the coast’s vital tourism industry. Fishermen also have raised concerns about the wind farms placing rich fishing grounds out of bounds, and from some environmentalists worried about them negatively impacting marine life, especially the highly endangered North Atlantic right whale.
More recently, an increasing number of dead whales in the New York City area has prompted a number of officials there to question if preparations for wind farms in the area has played a role in the animal’s deaths.
CROWDED SEAS For highly endangered North Atlantic right whales, offshore wind brings a lot of unknowns
Protecting coastal resources
Those lingering concerns have resurfaced in a proposed bill in Raleigh. Senate Bill 687, sponsored by Republican Sens. Tim Moffitt from Henderson County and Bobby Hanig from Currituck County, calls for a 10-year moratorium on the issuance of any required state permits for offshore wind-power projects within state waters, which extend 3 nautical miles off the coast. While the wind farms would be built in federal waters, transmission lines to bring the power ashore and likely other infrastructure would need state permitting approval.
“A moratorium on the development of offshore wind power projects will allow the state to undergo a review of applicable state laws and rules to determine whether the existing offshore wind power regulatory framework adequately protects North Carolina’s coastal resources in a manner that avoids or minimizes adverse effects on coastal resources and uses,” the bill states.
Calls and emails to Moffitt and Hanig were not returned.
WHALE WOESMore hungry whales are flocking to ship-infested waters. It’s a tragic vicious cycle near NYC.
Dr. Andrew Read, a marine biologist at Duke University and director of the school’s marine lab, said while researchers were waiting for the results of necropsy reports on the whales that washed up in the Northeast, he wasn’t aware of any new research or recent studies that had fingered offshore wind activity as the culprit for the uptick in marine mammal deaths.
Regarding concerns about the impacts of offshore wind farms on fishing grounds, Read said research gleaned from European offshore wind farms show they can help create habitat for marine life, helping recreational fishermen.
“There probably will be some minor impacts on commercial fishing because it’s hard to trawl around them, but most of the projects proposed for off our coast aren’t in areas considered critical fishery habitats,” he said.
Wind farms in those areas farther offshore in deeper waters could impact long-line fishermen seeking species like tuna and swordfish.
“But we’re a long way from doing anything in those areas,” Read added.
Economic potential for North Carolina
As the bill to slow down the state’s wind farms ruminates in Raleigh, 130 miles down Interstate 40 officials on Thursday were talking up the benefits of offshore wind and other clean energy sources at the Wilmington Sister Cities panel discussion dubbed “Path to Carbon Neutrality.”
Karly Lohan, program and outreach manager with the Southeastern Wind Coalition, a nonprofit that advocates for wind energy development in the Southeastern U.S., said North Carolina has the highest wind resource potential of any state on the East Coast.
MORENC Ports proposes Morehead City site as hub for offshore wind industry
Building on its existing strong manufacturing base, she said that offers the state the potential to become a hub for the still-developing offshore wind industry. Diversifying the power grid by adding renewables, like wind and solar, could also help prevent − or at least lessen − grid failures like North Carolina saw last Christmas.
But Lohan also added a word of caution.
She said networking together all of these diverse power sources will only work if North Carolina and other states step up their efforts to upgrade and expand their transmission systems to help get the power from where it’s produced, often in rural areas, to the more urban areas where the demand exists.
