New Issue Brief Evaluates Feasibility of Offshore Wind Expansion

The Biden Administration's offshore wind proposals defy economic health, material capability, and environmental sanity

NEW YORK, NY – Last March, the Biden administration set ambitious goals for expanding the role offshore wind plays in providing American energy, calling for 30,000 megawatts (MW) of offshore wind turbines by 2030, and 110,000 MW by 2050. The administration touted the role the 30,000-MW target could play in creating thousands of new jobs and avoiding 78 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions per year. But policymakers should consider the feasibility of such a plan before being persuaded of its virtues.

A new Manhattan Institute issue brief from adjunct fellow Jonathan Lesser offers a constructive, wholesale evaluation of the administration’s proposal, finding the project to be unachievable and its claims far-fetched. Lesser deconstructs the project from a variety of key perspectives, raising important questions related to offshore wind’s economic, environmental, and material implications.

The installation considerations of offshore wind are formidable. As Lesser explains, planning, developing, and constructing a single offshore wind project can be a years-long endeavor, even when raw materials and physical space, unencumbered by ecological and conservationist considerations, are readily available. The economics, Lesser concludes, are even more dismal: even if the president’s goal was physically achievable, the financial considerations, which exceed those for other green energy sources, are staggeringly cost-prohibitive.

Finally, the environmental benefits of offshore wind are dubious at best. The purported 78-million-ton annual reduction in CO2 emissions claimed by the administration represents less than 2 percent of total U.S. CO2 emissions in 2020 and less than one day’s worth of world CO2 emissions—a decrease which will have no measurable impact on climate change, especially as nations like China, whose CO2 emissions account for almost one-third of all world emissions, continue to increase their annual consumption of fossil fuels.

Click here to read the full report.