May 3, 2021 — Last week, President Joe Biden told federal regulators that to combat global warming, they should speed up the deployment of offshore wind-energy turbines, with the goal of supplying enough to power 10 million homes by the end of this decade.
Maine wind power advocates said that ratifies their argument that the state must get into the game now or get left behind. But the White House directive is also amplifying fears among fishermen that they’re the ones who will be left behind.
Most offshore wind energy projects around the world are sited in relatively shallow waters, where their foundations can easily be driven into the ocean floor. But that won’t work so well off Maine, where the coastal shelf drops abruptly and the strongest, most consistent winds blow over waters that are more than 200 feet deep.
“We could not fix the turbines to the seabed,” said University of Maine engineering professor Habib Dagher, who has worked for more than a decade to design a system that would suit deeper waters.
Inspiration came, Dagher said, after a trip to Europe, where turbine platforms fixed to the seabed are common.