President Joe Biden approved the nation’s first large-scale offshore wind farm. Planned off the coast of Nantucket, Massachusetts, the 800-megawatt installation should help the Biden administration achieve its goals to drop greenhouse gas emissions from the energy sector to zero by 2035.
According to Treehugger, the Vineyard Wind project will consist of 84 wind turbines that will generate enough energy to power 40,000 homes.
“A clean energy future is within our grasp in the United States. The approval of this project is an important step toward advancing the Administration’s goals to create good-paying union jobs while combating climate change and powering our nation,” said Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland, the country’s first Native American cabinet secretary.
The installation will use Haliade-X turbines with blades longer than a football field. Their manufacturer General Electric describes them as “the most powerful offshore turbine in the world.”
Vineyard Wind is expected to start producing energy in 2023. It will help displace nearly 1.7 metric tons of carbon emissions a year.
This project is just the first of many, as the Biden administration aims to build offshore wind farms along the Pacific and Atlantic coast, with energy capacity for 10 million homes. New offshore wind projects will also create around 77,000 direct and indirect jobs in the steel, shipbuilding, and manufacturing sectors.
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