Secretary Salazar Hosts First
Offshore Renewable Workshop
June 4, 2009
Music/Announcer: This is a podcast from the U.S. Department of the Interior.
On Thursday June 4th, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar kicked off the first of 12 regional public workshops on the Obama Administration’s new Offshore Renewable Energy program for the outer continental shelf. The workshops will provide information and answer questions about the process for granting leases, easements, and rights of way for offshore renewable energy projects as well as methods for sharing revenues for these projects with the adjacent coastal states. Here are the secretary’s remarks.
Secretary Ken Salazar: President Obama asked me to become Secretary of Interior. We had a conversation about what it was that we wanted to do for this country and many of you who watched the campaign of the last fall know that he talked a lot about the importance of tackling the new energy frontier and addressing the challenges that we face with climate change. That is a signature issue in my view of our times. It is something which the president strongly and passionately believes in and something which I strongly and passionately believe in. And that means that for us as we move forward with energy we need to make sure that we have a comprehensive energy plan, and that means we will continue to develop oil and gas. We’ll continue to develop and utilize coal resources but we also have opened up a new chapter and a new beginning to renewable energy in this country.
And I would expect that when you look at how the United States of America is powering itself in the year 2012, in the year 2014, in the year 2016, that you’re going to see lots of different generators of power that are being put on the grid including wind from the offshore at the Atlantic. Including the development of our great solar resources as we harness the power of the sun in the southwest, or as we harness the power of the wind from the high plains, or we look at the opportunities that we have with respect to geothermal in many of our public lands across the west so there is a lot to do.
I will tell you that today as I stand here in front of you we have last count over 240 applications from the private sector wanting to move forward with the development of major solar and wind energy projects around the country. And those applications are far larger than the kinds of solar power plants that we’ve seen in the past and I have attended many groundbreakings where we have actually put forward power plants which harness the power of the sun at one megawatt or two megawatts or even eight megawatts down in my native San Luis Valley. We’re talking about here in terms of the sun is really getting to the point where we are developing commercial scale solar projects where we would be able to generate 200 and 300 megawatts of power. And as we move forward with that front on energy on solar energy we also need to make sure that we are addressing the ecological values that are important to our country.
And so we will be very thoughtful relative to how we move forward with that agenda. The same thing is true with respect to the offshore. When one thinks about just the Atlantic potential as a result of conversations and directives that we had in meetings with MMS and the rest of our agencies. We asked MMS and BLM and others to develop a report on the potential for renewable energy. And one of the things that MMS and USGS did together is to come up with a report which we published some 30, 45 days ago in which they calculated the amount of wind energy that potentially could be produced off of the Atlantic, and the calculation was approximately 1,000 Gigawatts of power. That is an incredible amount of energy. Now I know that that’s what’s technically developable.
It’s not what it’s going to be developed because there are lots of other issues that have to be looked at. But the fact of the matter is that there is significant wind energy potential and probably the Atlantic Coast is going to be the first place we’re going to see wind energy developed in a very significant way. Some people will say that’s pie in the sky kind of stuff but here I believe it is not because of the fact that we already have other countries who have done it. If you look at Denmark, today Denmark produces about 20% of all of its electrical energy needs just from harnessing the power of the wind.
So they’re already doing it in that little tiny country of Denmark. So I always say, “If countries like Denmark could get to the point where they are developing that kind of energy, there really is no reason for us not to be able to do the same thing here in the United States of America. It’s really a matter of whether or not we have the will to get it done.” And I will propose to all of you attending this first workshop here that within four years you will see the blossoming of the wind energy potential especially off the Atlantic but in other places as well.
There are other projects that are being proposed off the shores of Texas in the Gulf, and there are projects that are being planned as well off of the Pacific and even some smaller projects in places like Alaska. So we will see wind energy becoming a very significant part of our energy portfolio in the years ahead. So I wanted to come here today and to congratulate Walter and Roland and the people from MMS, Fish and Wildlife and USGS because they have worked very hard to get us to where we are today. So best of luck as you move forward with the rest of the workshops that you will be holding around the country, and thank you for letting me share these comments with all of you. Thank you.
[Applause]
Announcer: This has been a podcast from the U.S. Department of the Interior