Florida legislators are transferring to ban all wind energy from the state, together with offshore, regardless of lack of curiosity from trade or authorities in improvement off both its Atlantic or Gulf of Mexico coasts.
Variations of the invoice earlier than each the Florida Senate and Home of Representatives would prohibit “the development, operation, or enlargement of a wind vitality facility or an offshore wind vitality facility on this state.”
The ban would lengthen to “buildings, buildings, or electrical transmission cabling to be sited on state submerged lands or territorial waters or related to corresponding onshore substations.”
The invoice’s sponsor, consultant Paul Renner, Republican, informed native media {that a} ban is required to guard the state’s very important tourism and actual property industries.
“I believe it’s similar to offshore drilling. Floridians don’t wish to sit on the seashore and take a look at oil derricks, and so they don’t wish to sit on the seashore and take a look at huge windmills,” he mentioned.
Concern over tourism and coastal property valueshave galvanised opposition to the sector in its heartland within the Mid-Atlantic and New England states of Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York.
Article continues beneath the advert
Misery over the sector’s potential affect on native marine environments, notably amid a rash of whale strandings final yr, can also be spurring the laws.
“Let’s cease offshore wind till we are able to be certain it doesn’t disrupt the sonar of our whales,” Florida state senator Jay Collins informed native media.
Any proposed ban however, the state lacks wind energy era resulting from gradual wind speeds and risk of frequent hurricanes.
Nationwide Renewable Vitality Laboratory estimates Florida’s offshore wind speeds at between 5-6.9 metres per second (m/s), beneath the 7m/s sometimes required for business improvement.
Federal offshore vitality regulator Bureau of Ocean Vitality Administration (BOEM) regarded into improvement within the state’s Atlantic seaboard within the 2000s and 2010s however stopped all exercise by 2014.
BOEM’s wind vitality areas up for improvement within the Gulf of Mexico do not lengthen eastward to embody Florida both.
“We count on the ban on offshore wind in state waters to have minimal impact, given the low wind useful resource in proximity to Florida’s shorelines, and the pure geography of the shoreline,” mentioned Julia Pendelton, managing director for trade advocacy group Southeastern Wind Coalition.
Florida is the US’ third most populous state and generates some three quarters of its energy wants via pure fuel, with little greater than 4% generated by photo voltaic in 2022, in accordance with the Vitality Data Company (IEA). The rest is primarily coal (6%) and nuclear (12%).
Regardless of the dependency on fossil energy and vulnerability to international local weather change, Florida Republicans are additionally pushing to ease allowing necessities for pure fuel pipelines.
Whereas Florida may not go in for wind energy, the US’ largest wind turbine producer GE has a significant plant in Pensacola on the Gulf Coast.
Energy holding firm NextEra, the worldwide chief in photo voltaic and wind energy era, is likewise primarily based in Juno Seaside, on Florida’s Atlantic Ocean coast.
