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The first offshore wind farm in Rhode Island is being built by Deepwater Wind.
Photo by Mark Harrington/ Newsday.
On Wednesday, the Biden administration announced a number of new moves to transition the US to renewable energy, with a focus on upgrading the power grid and using public lands and waters to harness solar, wind, and geothermal energy. As Democrats struggle to make headway on key legislation needed to tackle the climate crisis, the administration is trying to clean up the nation's electricity grid.
The Department of Energy is going to use federal dollars to improve the grid after the recently passed bipartisan infrastructure law allocated $65 billion for grid improvements. New and improved transmission lines will be crucial for renewable energy from far-flung solar and wind farms to communities. Smart grid technologies aim to make homes more energy efficient and reduce pressure on the grid while balancing the flow of intermittent sources of renewable energy like wind and solar.
More than $10 billion in grants has been given to states, tribes, and utilities to help prevent power outages. In 2020 the average American will go more than eight hours without power, twice as long as was typical when the federal government started keeping track. Things could get worse if greenhouse gas emissions aren't reined in.
Plans to auction off vast swaths of federal waters for offshore wind farms.
New national studies are being commissioned by the administration to inform the deployment of thousands of miles of additional transmission lines. It pledged to convene with tribes, states, and local governments that might have a stake in the build-out of these lines, which often meet fierce opposition from local communities in their path.
Plans to auction off vast swaths of federal waters for offshore wind farms also moved forward today. The final sale notice for six commercial lease areas in the New York Bight was posted by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. There are lease areas across almost 500,000 acres. Up to 7GW of clean energy could be generated by wind farms there, enough to power 2 million homes.
The fishing industry is concerned about how the wind farms will affect the marine and coastal economies. New York Governor Kathy Hochul, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy, and Interior Secretary Deb Haaland have formed a partnership to work on job creation and environmental justice. The National Oceanographic Administration and BOEM are entering a new agreement focused on protecting biodiversity and promoting cooperative ocean use.
A big deal.
Senior administration officials described the lease sale in a call with reporters as a really, really big deal. It is one of the key pillars of the administration's plan to install 30GW of offshore wind capacity across the United States. BOEM plans to keep pushing for wind farms to be built in areas off the Gulf Coast, California, Oregon and central Atlantic.
The permitting process for wind, solar, and geothermal projects could be fast-tracked by the Biden administration. The Departments of the Interior, Agriculture, Defense, Energy, and the Environmental Protection Agency issued a Memorandum of Understanding to prioritize renewable energy proposals on public lands. 25GW of renewable energy projects on public lands are expected to be approved by the year 2025.
Biden is trying to make good on commitments he made to move the power sector entirely to clean energy by 2035 and eliminate planet-warming pollution from fossil fuels by the year 2050. West Virginia senator Joe Manchin drags out Democrats' negotiations on their $1.75 trillion environmental and social spending bill. Biden will have to rely more on the executive branch to meet his goals on climate change because clean energy provisions in the bill have already been removed.
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