00:00Offshore wind is supposed to be a cornerstone of New Jersey's clean energy future.
00:04But in a matter of months, one of the most ambitious projects off the coast
00:08went from a billion-dollar promise to its gears grinding to a halt.
00:15Atlantic Shores planned to add a string of around 200 turbines 10 to 20 miles offshore.
00:21But this year, Shell pulled its $1 billion investment,
00:24and the new Trump administration delivered blow after blow to the wind energy industry.
00:30Now, many Jersey residents, like engineer-turned-activist Bob Stern,
00:35are hoping President Trump will pull the plug once and for all.
00:39I'm joined by energy reporter Keaton Peters, who in his latest report for Straight Air News
00:43unpacks the dramatic shift that's brought offshore wind projects to a standstill.
00:48Keaton, you started your story with Bob Stern,
00:51who's behind this non-profit Save Long Beach Island that fights some of these offshore wind projects.
00:56He's voted for Democrats most of his life, but he sat out this past election over the issue
01:01and is encouraged and actually hopes that President Trump is going even further in targeting offshore wind.
01:06So with all of that said, what can you tell me about how offshore wind is playing out politically and in public opinion?
01:13Yeah, thanks, Simone.
01:15In the state of New Jersey, there's a narrow majority that, according to the latest polls out of Stockton University,
01:22do support renewable energy and offshore wind specifically.
01:27But we've seen that that number is coming down.
01:30In 2019, it was much higher, the percentage of voters that support offshore wind.
01:37And now the only subgroup in there that supports offshore wind, more than 50%, is Democrats.
01:46So about 60% of Democrats polled said they supported offshore wind,
01:51which is actually 19 points lower than the amount of Democrats who said they supported solar.
01:56And Republicans in the state, very few support offshore wind.
02:01And among independents, it's around 42%.
02:04You talked about this very closely watched gubernatorial race that's going to be happening in New Jersey.
02:09Is offshore wind a deciding factor in that?
02:12I think time will tell in November whether it's a deciding factor.
02:16But what I can say is that energy prices are something that's being talked about a lot on the campaign trail.
02:24Republicans are trying to tie support for offshore wind to high energy prices,
02:31while more Democratic-aligned groups are saying that offshore wind is something that would actually help lower prices.
02:41But I will say that the Democratic candidate in that race doesn't specifically mention offshore wind.
02:47She says, cleaner, cheaper power.
02:49So I think that speaks a little bit to the fact that offshore wind specifically has become more of a divisive issue in recent years.
02:59Yeah.
03:00What would you say are some of the major headwinds against offshore wind projects?
03:04Yeah, it's really important to keep in mind that this isn't just something happening in New Jersey.
03:08Up and down the East Coast especially, there are a lot of wind projects that had been proposed.
03:17Many of them had even started going forward in the last four years.
03:21Now, the Trump administration has made some serious changes to policy.
03:25So a few of the things they did was no longer issuing new permits for offshore wind projects,
03:34no longer offering leases of offshore wind on federal waters, which is, you know, right next to the shore is typically state waters.
03:42But you go a little bit further out, which is where the wind is most consistent
03:46and where those turbines would have less of an impact on coastal views.
03:51That's all federal water.
03:52So essentially all of the big wind projects offshore require federal permits.
04:00The government's no longer going to be giving those permits out.
04:05And one of the biggest things recently is actually a stop work order on an offshore wind farm that was already about 80 percent complete with their construction.
04:16So not just shutting the door and saying we're not going to let new offshore wind projects through,
04:23but actually looking at the ones that are already undergoing and making an effort to stop those from being completed.
04:3180 percent is pretty far along there.
04:33One of your sources described Trump's policy shifts in this as throwing a monkey wrench into the economic development machine.
04:40So what is the argument for these offshore wind projects?
04:44It depends who you ask.
04:46You know, some people really emphasize the fact that this is zero emissions energy.
04:51No, the wind doesn't produce the type of pollution you get from traditional power plants.
04:58But a lot of it is also economics.
05:02It's true that offshore wind is fairly expensive.
05:06But my sources pointed to markets in Europe and China where the more offshore wind they build, they get a sort of economy of scale where it actually gets cheaper the more that they invest in it.
05:19And some of the manufacturing for the components in these turbines was starting to come to the United States.
05:26Atlantic Shores specifically, you know, their developers said that it would be $1.9 billion of investment and 22,000 jobs for New Jersey.
05:39So, you know, whether those numbers are exactly true or not, certainly there's a lot of potential jobs in these projects.
05:46And they also point to how it would support the grid because offshore wind actually blows the hardest at night and in colder months.
05:56So it has sort of the opposite profile of when you think about solar power only being available in the day.
06:04Folks have told me about how if you pair these different resources together, you can get a pretty reliable grid.
06:12It doesn't mean that there wouldn't be any need for those traditional power plants, but they said you can get a little further with offshore wind.
06:20Keaton, what does your story tell us about the future of renewable energy projects, given everything that you've just told us?
06:28I think the future of renewable energy projects is very much in flux.
06:33There were so many investments announced under the Biden administration when the policy was, you know, giving out these taxpayer subsidies and trying to encourage those permits.
06:48Now that is being largely rolled back.
06:52In general, I don't think that the folks who are inside the renewable energy industry would say that this is going to end progress.
07:01But it's certainly slowing it down.
07:04And you look at examples like Bob Stern and Save Long Beach Island, where they really want to prevent these projects from being able to come back.
07:15And so we'll see if those are successful in really, at the end, in a few years, did we just see that projects like these were stalled or were they stopped altogether?
07:26That's the kind of question that I'll be looking at as an energy reporter.
07:30And we'll be following it.
07:31Keaton Peters, Sands Energy Reporter.
07:33Thank you so much, Keaton.
07:34And to read Keaton's entire report, you can search offshore wind at san.com and on the SAN app.
07:41For Straight Air News, I'm Simone Del Rosario.
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