Offshore Wind Turbines

Check out the Department of Energy’s wind resource map.  It shows by color coding the strongest areas of wind resources in the Unites States.  There is an impressive band of "outstanding" wind potential (just one notch below "superb") along the East Coast from the Carolinas to Maine.  We think of the windy great plains as being the best place to harvest wind, and while a majority of that area shows up on the map, its potential for the most part rates only "fair" to "good".  But unobstructed by terrain, flora and man-made obstacles, the winds blow steady and strong across the ocean.  All we need is the technology and the collective will to harness it.

The technology is getting there.  Building wind turbines on land has its obvious advantages.  Dig a hole, set the footings, pour a concrete foundation, bolt on a tower and there you go. It’s a little more challenging on the open water.  But if we can drill for oil down miles below the seabed, certainly we should be able to stick our necks up and catch the breeze.

The project that has gotten the most press in recent years is Cape Wind: an area in between Cape Code, Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard.  Since 2001, the plan to put 130 wind turbine towers in the Nantucket Sound has been under design and permit review by Massachusetts and the Federal Government.  The environmental review has addressed a variety of subjects including the effect on birds, marine mammals, fish habitat, noise, air and water quality.

Some of the loudest objections came from the well-healed families with beachfront property who feared desecration of their view of the horizon.  More recently, the desecration objection has been raised by the Aquinnah and Mashpee Wampanoag tribes, who claim that the turbines would be an offensive intrusion on their spiritual sun greetings and submerged ancestral burying grounds and are seeking to have the entire Nantucket Sound listed as traditional cultural property on the National Register of Historic Places.  Supporters of the project regard this move as unlikely to succeed, but it may cause a delay.  Under the Energy Policy Act of 2005, the Minerals Management Service of the Department of the Interior, the body authorized to grant off-shore easements for wind energy projects, is obliged to rule on the request.

To be sure, there is not any construction project, whether an oil well or an array of solar panels, that does not have some environmental impact.  It’s a question of balancing.  If the Cape Wind project would stop one mountain top removal coal mine, most would say that’s a good bargain.  Of course, suggesting that particular trade off is an exercise in sophistry.  But generally renewable energy projects, whatever the legitimate objections, should be viewed with a favorable bias.

This is coming south in our direction.  Representatives of the mid-Atlantic and New England states have engaged in on-going discussions on how to coordinate the infrastructure for the harvesting of offshore winds.  The motivation is both green sensitivity as well as economic development.  The East Coast could become its own hub of clean energy, selling power to, rather than relying on coal from, the west.  But that progress can be retarded if the approval process is mired in overlapping state and federal bureaucracies.

One interesting technology might help cut through some of this.  In Norway, the StatoilHydro company has built the world’s first full-scale floating wind turbine.  Rather than standing on the ocean floor, this device floats, but more like an iceberg than a boat.  The entire structure is over 500 feet tall, with 300 of those feet below the surface filled with a ballast of rocks and water. It is anchored to keep it more or less in the same position.  This would not quell the objections of the sunrise worshippers, and the array of tether lines and electricity transmission cables need to be regulated to avoid fouling up shipping and fishing areas, but the relative simplicity of installation is appealing.

Perhaps there will come a time when our power comes from windmills bobbing on the horizon pumping electrons through undersea cables.  But first, let’s see how these things hold up in a hurricane.

John P. (Jack) Machen is a real estate attorney in the Baltimore office of DLA Piper LLP (US), a global law firm with over 3,500 lawyers in 28 countries.  In addition to his law practice, Mr. Machen is certified by the U.S. Green Building Council as a LEED Accredited Professional and provides advice to his firm and to clients on green building, green building codes, sustainability and resource conservation.