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More Offshore Wind Proposed For New Jersey | Earth Wise

September 13, 2023 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

There have been three offshore wind projects previously approved by utility regulators in New Jersey. New Jersey is vying to become an East Coast leader in the fast-growing offshore wind industry and now developers have proposed four new projects off the New Jersey Shore.

Two of the projects would be located far out to sea where they would not be visible at all from the shore. One of them, called Community Offshore Wind, would be built 37 miles offshore from Long Beach Island. It aims to generate enough electricity to power 500,000 homes.

A second project, called Leading Light Wind, would be located 40 miles off Long Beach Island and would consist of up to 100 turbines that would generate enough electricity to power 1 million homes.

The two companies that are building the already-approved Atlantic Shores Wind Farm have submitted a bid for a new project located 10 to 20 miles offshore. In addition, a fourth application to the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities has also been submitted, but there is yet no public information about it.

Existing offshore projects have drawn intense opposition from homeowners in part because they are close enough to the Atlantic City and Ocean City shorelines to be seen by beachgoers, albeit as tiny objects on the horizon. The new proposed projects located far offshore would not have this problem.

The new projects can take advantage of existing federal tax credits, but the bidders say they will not seek the tax breaks from New Jersey that the earlier project received as they have also been the subject of legal challenges by opponents of offshore wind.

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4 new offshore wind power projects proposed for New Jersey Shore; 2 would be far out to sea

Photo, posted March 25, 2016, courtesy of TEIA via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

New York And Renewables | Earth Wise

January 7, 2021 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

In 2019, New York generated more electricity from renewable sources than all but three other states. The 39.4 million MWh of renewable electricity generated in New York was the largest of any state east of the Mississippi.

New York has been a leader in renewable power long before it became a topic of great interest because of its hydroelectric power. In 2019, 78% of the state’s renewable electricity came from hydropower. The Robert Moses Niagara hydroelectric plant is the second-largest capacity conventional hydroelectric power plant in the country.

The three states that generated more renewable electricity than New York are California, Texas, and Washington. Washington gets 69% of all its electricity generation from its multiple hydroelectric plants which together produce a quarter of all hydroelectric power in the nation. Texas leads the nation in wind-powered generation and gets over 17% of its in-state generation from wind. California gets 14% of its power from solar generation, 7% from wind, and over 16% from its own hydroelectric resources.

Wind is the second-largest source of renewable power in New York, accounting for 11% of renewable generation in the state and 3% of total electricity generation. Solar power is expanding in New York, but the great majority of it is still in the form of small-scale installations on residential and commercial rooftops.

New York’s renewable generation grew from 19% in 2005 to 30% at present. New York’s Clean Energy Standard adopted in 2015 requires the state to generate 100% carbon-free electricity by 2040.

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New York generated fourth most electricity from renewables of any state in 2019

Photo, posted October 15, 2010, courtesy of michael-swan via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Amazon And Climate Change

October 30, 2019 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Online shopping giant Amazon has unveiled a Climate Pledge, committing to meet the goals of the Paris climate agreement ten years ahead of schedule, and to be carbon neutral by 2040. This is the company’s most ambitious push yet to reduce its carbon footprint, which currently rivals that of a small country. In fact, Amazon is responsible for 48.9 million tons of carbon dioxide last year, which is about 85% of what Switzerland typically emits in a year.

Amazon, which ships more than 10 billion items a year on fossil fuel-intensive planes and trucks, has ordered a fleet of 100,000 electric vans that will start delivering packages to doorsteps in 2021. The vans will be made by Rivian, a Michigan-based company that Amazon invested in earlier this year.

Amazon plans to get 100% of its energy from solar and other renewable sources by 2030. Currently, it gets about 40% of its energy from renewables.

Amazon is also investing $100 million in nature-based climate solutions and reforestation projects around the world in order to remove carbon from the atmosphere.

While announcing these initiatives recently at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said the company needs to be a leader on the climate change issue:

We want to say look, if a company of Amazon’s complexity, scale, scope, physical infrastructure, delivering 10 billion items can do this, so can you.

After revealing Amazon’s Climate Pledge, Bezos said he would talk with CEOs of other large companies to try to get them to also sign it. You can find a link to Amazon’s progress on its commitments by visiting this website.

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‘Middle of the herd’ no more: Amazon tackles climate change

Amazon: Committed to a sustainable future (track progress here)

Photo courtesy of Amazon.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

China As Climate Leader

December 30, 2016 By EarthWise

China and the United States today produce nearly half of the world’s carbon emissions, so the fight against global climate change depends greatly upon what actions the two countries take. China has undergone a dramatic transformation over the past twenty years from a largely rural society to one that is far more urbanized and far more energy intensive. In 1997, when the Kyoto Protocol on climate was negotiated, China was only responsible for 14% of global CO2 emissions. It then surpassed the US on that front in less than 10 years and now accounts for nearly 30% of the world’s emissions.