The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) manages the federal waters off of America’s coast. They are responsible for the decisions of where offshore wind farms, or oil and gas platforms can be placed.
To hold back the devastating impacts of the climate crisis, improve health outcomes and become energy independent from fossil fuels, plans are underway to harness electricity from offshore wind. In the process of reaching the federal government’s goal of 30 gigawatts (GW) of electric energy powered by U.S. offshore wind by 2030 — 83,000 new American offshore wind union jobs will be created with the ripple effect in the economy adding thousands more. Additionally, the Biden Administration set a goal of 15GW of floating deep water offshore wind by 2035.
The scale of the opportunity is huge.
The U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory report concludes that offshore U.S. wind energy production has the potential to produce 2.8 terawatts of electricity, enough energy to power an estimated 350 million homes, easily surpassing the 144 million housing units now in the country.
While offshore wind is new to the United States, the technology has been refined for more than three decades in northern Europe. The evidence shows that offshore wind can be developed in ways that protect wildlife, fishing families, and provide sustainable energy for future generations.
