Government study finds offshore wind could meet US electricity needs

Wind farms off the coast of the US could generate enough power to meet the country's entire electricity demands, according to a new study from the Department of the Interior released last week.

Speaking at a summit meeting, 25X’25 America's Energy Future, a group working to lower US carbon emissions, interior secretary Ken Salazar said that "more than three-quarters of the nation's electricity demand comes from coastal states and the wind potential off the coasts of the lower 48 states actually exceeds our entire US electricity demand".

Critics argue that offshore wind farms are significantly more expensive than onshore forms of renewable energy, but the report found that shallow water areas of up to 30m metres that are more economically viable than deep sea developments could provide at least a fifth of the electricity needs of almost all coastal States.

The report concludes that "offshore wind resources have substantial potential to supply a large portion of the Nation's electricity demand".

As well as wind resources the study also looked at the potential for wave and tidal energy and found that while both sectors were still at the development stage, both had the potential to deliver significant levels of energy in the longer term.

In addition to renewable energy, the study analysed the potential for increased US offshore oil and gas exploration and found that large gaps in the data meant the scale of US oil and gas resources was unclear.

"Along the Atlantic Coast… the seismic data we have is 25 years old, " Salazar said, adding that further research was needed to gauge the size of offshore oil and gas resources.

The research is the latest in a series of studies from the US government assessing the size of the country's renewable energy resources. A recent study from the DoI's Bureau of Land Management identified about 20.6 million acres of public land with wind energy potential in 11 western states and 29.5 million acres with solar energy potential in six south western states, while there are also over 140 million acres of public land in the western states and Alaska with geothermal resource potential.

Salazar said that the DoI, which manages of one-fifth of US land mass and 1.7 billion acres of ocean, was committed to tapping these renewable resources.

"We are opening our doors not just to oil and gas and coal, but also to the wise development of solar, wind and wave, biofuels, geothermal, and small hydro on America's lands," Salazar said, adding that the reliance on fossil fuel imports represented "a national security problem, an environmental security problem, and an economic security problem".