(The Center Square) – Louisiana might not see any revenue promised by a recently passed constitutional amendment regarding royalties for offshore wind and other renewable sources.
Generally apprehensive of the clean energy initiatives of the Biden administration, President Donald Trump has issued a memorandum halting new wind energy leasing on the Outer Continental Shelf and pausing federal approvals for existing wind projects.
The memorandum also endangers any existing leases.
“With respect to such existing leases, the Secretary of the Interior, in consultation with the Attorney General as needed, shall conduct a comprehensive review of the ecological, economic, and environmental necessity of terminating or amending any existing wind energy leases, identifying any legal bases for such removal.”
The order included its first victim, the Lava Ridge Wind Project north of Twin Falls Idaho, which the Bureau of Land Management approved in December after more than three years of discussion and analysis. The project “is allegedly contrary to the public interest and suffers from legal deficiencies.”
The sun hasn’t set for the project entirely. The directive only instructs the new Interior Secretary to reassess the Bureau of Land Management’s final analysis and carry out any necessary additional reviews or environmental impact studies.
Surviving that analysis is not going to be easy.
Wind as a power source has come under increasing scrutiny for its hidden environmental costs, reliability issues, and long-term sustainability challenges. First, while wind energy offers a renewable alternative to fossil fuels, its drawbacks — ranging from excessive resource consumption to ecological harm — raise serious questions about its role in the future energy mix.
Onshore wind farms also require significantly more critical minerals than their fossil fuel counterparts — about 11 tons of materials like copper and rare earth metals per megawatt of power capacity, compared to just one ton for natural gas plants, according to the Energy Information Administration.
Offshore turbines are even more resource-intensive, demanding 17 tons per megawatt. Onshore wind farms require 30,000 acres per terawatt-hour annually, according to the Institute for Energy Research. Wind energy also occupies six times more space than a natural gas power plant.
These costs are passed from the utility to the ratepayer.
So, a positive return on investment for taxpayers is particularly difficult for wind power.
Currently, there is no wind power sited in the newly-renamed Gulf of America, but in 2023 the U.S. Department of the Interior announced plans to auction off commercial wind energy leasing rights for three areas in the Gulf of America: Two parcels near Galveston, Texas (totaling nearly 200,000 acres) and one offshore of Lake Charles, La. (just over 100,000 acres).
The order will stall any progress on their development.