Children at the shore on Sears Island, Maine. Officials consider Sears Island an ideal site to build and launch wind turbines; local groups oppose the plan. — ©2023 The New York Times Company
IF there is anywhere in the United States 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 tranquillity 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.
Wind turbines near Mart, Texas. Renewables are expected to overtake coal by 2025 as the world’s largest source of electricity. — ©2023 The New York Times Company
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 a 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.” — ©2023 The New York Times Company
