It’s a milestone many years in the making and at the same time a modest advance in what experts say needs to be a major buildout of this type of clean electricity to address climate change.

This is the first commercial-scale offshore wind power in the US. (There is a small not-commercial-scale wind farm near Block Island)

  • @jonne
    5•7 months ago

    I’m actually amazed their first project is now, in 2023. Offshore wind has been a thing for decades. Was this illegal to do in the US before now or something? Or was it not worth doing due to the availability of free land?

    • @MrMakabar@slrpnk.net
      6•7 months ago

      For a long time offshore wind was just more expensive then onshore and the US had the space. It was only in the last decade that large scale offhsore projects started in Europe and China. That brought down costs and offshore wind turbines have become much bigger and more efficent, which makes them competitive.

      The US also has the Jones Act, which only allows ships build in the US, own by Americans and staffed by Americans to transport freight between US ports. That makes building offshore wind farms very difficult as the US does not build those ships and lacks qualified personal.