LOCATION/TYPE

NEWS HOME

[ exact phrase in "" • results by date ]

[ Google-powered • results by relevance ]


Archive
RSS

Add NWW headlines to your site (click here)

Get weekly updates

WHAT TO DO
when your community is targeted

RSS

RSS feeds and more

Keep Wind Watch online and independent!

Donate via Paypal

Donate via Stripe

Selected Documents

All Documents

Research Links

Alerts

Press Releases

FAQs

Campaign Material

Photos & Graphics

Videos

Allied Groups

Wind Watch is a registered educational charity, founded in 2005.

News Watch Home

Interior eyes 300K acres off North Carolina for future leasing 

Credit:  Interior eyes 300K acres off N.C. for future leasing | Phil Taylor, E&E reporter | Posted: Friday, January 23, 2015 via www.governorswindenergycoalition.org ~~

The Interior Department today announced the release of an environmental assessment of a plan to lease up to 300,000 acres off the coast of North Carolina for the construction of offshore wind farms.

The plan calls for leasing a 122,000-acre wind energy area about 28 miles off the coast of Kitty Hawk and two additional areas of 52,000 acres and 134,000 acres beginning about 12 miles off Cape Fear.

North Carolina is the latest of several East Coast states Interior has eyed for commercial wind development.

Interior Secretary Sally Jewell called the environmental assessment “another milestone” in the Obama administration’s fight against global climate change.

“In close coordination with our partners in North Carolina, we are moving forward to determine what places make sense to harness the enormous wind energy potential off the Atlantic Seaboard,” Jewell said.

The final wind energy areas (WEAs) have been reduced significantly from areas Interior preliminarily identified in late 2012, in response to concerns from the National Park Service, Coast Guard and coastal residents, including in Kitty Hawk.

Kitty Hawk had passed a resolution requesting that turbines be located at least 20 miles from shore, while the Park Service had asked that turbines stay roughly 40 miles from the 19th-century Bodie Island Lighthouse.

The Wilmington West WEA was modified to keep turbines at least 10 miles from shore to reduce visual impacts, and the Wilmington East WEA was modified to accommodate vessels using the Port of Wilmington, among other steps.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s environmental assessment will examine the impacts of issuing wind energy leases and allowing industry to survey the areas with devices like meteorological towers and buoys.

If a lease is issued and a winning bidder wants to build a wind farm, a separate National Environmental Policy Act review will need to be performed.

The public will have until late February to comment on the draft environmental assessment. BOEM will also hold three public meetings in February in the northern Outer Banks, Wilmington and Carolina Shores, or Sunset Beach.

So far, the Obama administration has awarded seven commercial Atlantic coast wind energy leases off Delaware, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Maryland and Virginia, raising more than $14 million in high bids for over 357,000 acres of federal waters.

So far, no companies have commissioned a commercial-scale facility in the United States, despite more than 7,000 megawatts of projects having been installed around the world, according to the Energy Department.

The 130-turbine Cape Wind project off Nantucket Sound, Mass., which many believed would be the nation’s first-ever offshore wind farm, suffered a major setback this month when two utilities opted to terminate agreements to purchase its power (Greenwire, Jan. 7).

With a critical 30 percent investment tax credit now expired – and a Republican-controlled Congress that has resisted proposals to prop up clean energy – the industry faces major struggles in standing up projects in U.S. waters.

The Offshore Wind Development Coalition, a trade group based in Washington, D.C., that advocated for offshore wind, in mid-2014 merged into the American Wind Energy Association.

Source:  Interior eyes 300K acres off N.C. for future leasing | Phil Taylor, E&E reporter | Posted: Friday, January 23, 2015 via www.governorswindenergycoalition.org

This article is the work of the source indicated. Any opinions expressed in it are not necessarily those of National Wind Watch.

The copyright of this article resides with the author or publisher indicated. As part of its noncommercial educational effort to present the environmental, social, scientific, and economic issues of large-scale wind power development to a global audience seeking such information, National Wind Watch endeavors to observe “fair use” as provided for in section 107 of U.S. Copyright Law and similar “fair dealing” provisions of the copyright laws of other nations. Send requests to excerpt, general inquiries, and comments via e-mail.

Wind Watch relies entirely
on User Funding
   Donate via Paypal
(via Paypal)
Donate via Stripe
(via Stripe)

Share:

e-mail X FB LI TG TG Share


News Watch Home

Get the Facts
CONTACT DONATE PRIVACY ABOUT SEARCH
© National Wind Watch, Inc.
Use of copyrighted material adheres to Fair Use.
"Wind Watch" is a registered trademark.

 Follow:

Wind Watch on X Wind Watch on Facebook

Wind Watch on Linked In Wind Watch on Mastodon