I enjoyed both your articles that involved offshore wind (“East Coast needs wind farms, underwater grid” and “Sussex officials resist offshore wind substation”). The shared element in these articles is a public mistrust of clean energy and a willingness to support it only when we benefit financially from it.
It frustrates me that we could be making this easier. Offshore wind has the potential to help us meet the rapidly increasing electrical demand from data centers. It also has the potential to provide many new jobs, to sharply reduce our carbon emissions and air pollution, and to build economic activity.
There are congressional bills that could help with all this. The Reinvesting in Shoreline Economies and Ecosystems Act would provide profit sharing to state governments from offshore wind. The bipartisan Energy Permitting Reform Act, just introduced, would speed up the construction of electrical transmission lines to harness the power from offshore wind and land-based solar farms. But, with or without new legislation, we have to accept that the fossil fuel path does not provide a strong future for our families. So, we need to let go, to trust and to move on. Too often, we look at what we can lose from change, when we need to look first at what we can gain. Then, we need to enter a voting booth in November and choose the future, not the past.
Chris Wiegard
Chester, Virginia
Reader reactions, pro or con, are welcomed at civiltalk@iniusa.org.
