Mention Coal and All of a Sudden...

by: Eileen

Wed Apr 08, 2009 at 08:28:08 AM EST

This AP article published in the Daily Press entitled "Can offshore windmills replace coal for power?" was quite the talk of a number of listservs yesterday and showed up independently in my Inbox three or four times. Today's "in" article making all the rounds is "Wind Officially Employs More Than Coal Industry" from EcoGeek.

But hello Virginia?!? Wind could also be our ticket to getting Virginia's offshore drilling Lease Sale 220 postponed. Anybody wanna get excited about that idea?!?

Luckily Interior Secretary Ken Salazar is paying attention. Not only did he push back by 180 days George Bush's original deadline for public comment on the 2010-2015 program for offshore oil and gas development, but he also tasked MMS and the USGS to produce a report on all offshore energy resources. That report was published in time for presentation at the 4 regional meetings (one each for the Gulf Coast, Pacific Coast, Atlantic Coast, and Alaska) that Sec. Salazar also ordered.

Thus I arrived in Atlantic City, NJ bright and early Monday morning where the Atlantic Coast meeting was held.  

I was one of the lucky few actually called upon by Sec. Salazar to speak.  (Below the fold are my remarks.) Yes, the virtues of offshore wind were greatly extolled by Salazar, Governor Corzine, Sen. Menendez, 3 or 4 Congresspersons, and other electeds - all voicing opposition to offshore drilling and all very heavily noting the potential and current pursuits being done in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Delaware, and New Jersey. Meanwhile, Virginia has the more prime location for offshore wind.  I talked briefly about Virginia's potential in my remarks to Salazar, and he directed follow up questions to me on this.  My sense is that the idea of Virginia looking at wind power is new to Salazar - something we already plan to fix.

But I spoke mostly in hopes that Salazar will do as Gov. Kaine has requested in postponing Virginia Lease Sale 220 for offshore drilling.  I mentioned Virginia's great wind potential as one other reason for this postponement. For Salazar is very interested in taking a very comprehensive approach to development of ALL of the Atlantic's offshore energy resources.  We need to push the point that there is no reason to exclude Virginia from this comprehensive approach, especially with the great offshore wind potential that Virginia brings to the Atlantic Coast table!  

So maybe I can get a little company with the offshore drilling fight now that it involves indirectly our fight against coal?!?

Governor Kaine in his letter dated Feb. 19, 2009 to you, Sec. Salazar, calls for the postponement of Virginia Lease Sale 220. "This Lease Sale is the only one currently proposed anywhere along the Atlantic seaboard," he writes.  "I believe that no lease sale should be conducted in the Atlantic until the process that you have outlined for the 5 Year Program [2010-2015] is complete."

Including Virginia in the same process used to study all other Atlantic offshore drilling, and to incorporate adequate information about other offshore areas of Virginia, makes sense.  Certainly, if MMS doesn't have enough information and studies to safely conduct any other lease sales in our region, they certainly do not know enough to conduct the FIRST lease sale, Virginia's Lease Sale 220, which goes on the auction block as early as 2011.

For example, of all the states along the Eastern seaboard, opposition to offshore drilling remains strongest in New Jersey, with their vital coastal-dependent tourism industry.  Yet at the December 2008 MMS workshop in Williamsburg discussing Lease Sale 220 off of Virginia, when addressing concern for the industrial development of Virginia's coast expected to be necessary to handle raw products that may come to shore from drilling platforms, a Shell Oil executive indicated that energy companies might "instead build underwater pipelines to refineries in New Jersey, bypassing the Virginia coast altogether."  As it is right now, such pipelines and New Jersey refineries lie outside the scope of study by MMS as specific for Virginia's early Lease Sale 220.

Not only does it makes sense to study Virginia as a whole and to study the Atlantic coast as a whole, it also makes sense to consider planning for all offshore coastal resources to include wind and wave power, as you have suggested.  

According to the Virginia Coastal Energy Research Consortium, a consortium chartered by Virginia's General Assembly, Virginia is one of the prime states for locating a large share of new offshore wind capacity.  Their research suggests that a wind farm using available technologies that covers an area equal to that of Virginia Beach could satisfy 20% of the electricity demand of the Commonwealth. Also unique to Virginia's offshore wind development is its location near located near coastal metropolitan load centers, thus potentially contributing to a comprehensive resource development plan.  

Serious environmental and national security concerns have been raised about Virginia offshore drilling since its questionable enrollment in the 2007-2012 program. Not only does an Environmental Impact Statement need to take fully into account the reliance of much of Virginia's economy on the coast, it must be measured with regard to offshore energy resource development for the entire Atlantic coast.  Postponing Virginia Lease Sale 220 is the most environmentally sound and economically responsible course to take.  Thank you.