Apr 8 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - Kirk Moore Asbury Park Press, N.J.



A new federal report stresses the potential for offshore wind power to supply much of the East Coast, and the governors of New Jersey and Rhode Island joined wind energy entrepreneurs in urging faster action on regulations so wind projects can move forward.

When it comes to offshore gas and oil exploration, "pursuit of those resources is not something we have an appetite for," Gov. Jon S. Corzine told Interior Secretary Kenneth Salazar on Monday in the first public hearing on the Minerals Management Service report.

Prospects for offshore wind energy took an early stage at Monday's presentation by the Department of Interior, where federal planners led off with sunny estimates of the potential for generating hundreds of gigawatts from wind turbines at sea.

"There is tremendous potential in wind on the Atlantic," Salazar said in opening the daylong conference in the Atlantic City Convention Center. "I know there are people who want to close the door on oil and gas," but the fact is that significant untapped reserves almost certainly exist under the seafloor, particularly in the Gulf of Mexico.

"We have a lot of information about some places. If you look in the central Gulf, there is a huge amount of geophysical information . . . That's not true in the mid-Atlantic," Salazar told reporters.

Federal officials are making progress on new rules for offshore wind energy development, Salazar said.

"Hopefully, in the next month or two, we can get those into a final form," he said.

Winds with average speeds of about 18 to 20 mph are off the coast, just east of the nation's biggest population centers, said Robert LaBelle of the federal Minerals Management Service, which released its survey of energy potential on the outer continental shelf.

Representatives from wind energy start-up companies said they need action from the government to set up rules so projects can proceed.

"Your rules are not clear," said Daniel Cohen of Fishermen's Energy, a consortium of commercial fishermen who propose to build a wind demonstration project east of Atlantic City.

"It's easier to drill for oil," said Jeff Tittel of the Sierra Club. "There's no federal regulations in place to allow windmills to be built... This hearing is really critical because it's going to determine the future of our coast."

As for oil and gas potential, the Atlantic shelf is a distant third behind the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska, according to a summary presented by Brenda Pierce of the U.S. Geological Survey.

Of 64.85 billion barrels of oil that could be economically recovered, almost 3 billion barrels are believed to lie off the East Coast, Pierce said. Of 270 trillion cubic feet in potentially recoverable natural gas, some 40 trillion cubic feet may be under the Atlantic, she said.

Political leaders made their preference clear.

"The tiny amount of oil . . . is not worth risking our $38 billion tourism industry, its $4.5 billion fishing industry," said Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J.

But others said the nation can't afford to not explore possible hydrocarbon reserves under the sea floor. The last survey work by Texaco in the early 1980s indicated potential natural gas formations beneath the Baltimore Canyon, near the edge of the continental shelf about 89 miles east of Atlantic City, according to Jim Benton of the New Jersey Petroleum Institute.

Industry groups say opening new shelf areas to drilling could generate an additional 2 million barrels of petroleum a day by 2030 and offset one-fifth of oil exports. Rep. Rush D. Holt, D-N.J., said it's better to devote resources to renewable power sources.

"We must make that transition," Holt said. "That means not increasing our dependence on fossil fuels."

While most New Jersey politicians are distinctly opposed to drilling, "we still hope to change their minds," Benton said before the hearing. The audience of about 200 included plenty of drilling supporters along with critics.

"For every kilowatt of wind, we need a gas generator idling on backup for those times when the wind is not blowing," said former Pennsylvania congressman John Peterson. "Natural gas is the bridge to renewables."

"This is old news, which every other country except the USA has solved," said S.G. Warfield "Skip" Hobbs, a petroleum engineer from New Canaan, Conn. Renewable sources like wind, solar and geothermal energy supply just 1 percent of the nation's needs and "as a practical matter, fossil fuels will rule for another generation," Hobbs said.

The Hibernia and Terranova oil fields on the Grand Banks produce oil for Canada and "there has been no significant environmental impact in what is called Iceberg Alley," Hobbs said.

Drilling critics said the amount of potential gas and oil off the mid-Atlantic states is not worth the risk of an oil spill.

"Come back to Atlantic City in the summer, and there will be thousands and thousands of people at a hearing like this," said John Weber of the Surfrider Foundation, who presented an anti-drilling petition of 21,000 signatures his group collected online through Facebook.

The lack of affordable energy is one factor that hobbles American manufacturers in their global marketplace, said Jeffrey D. Uhlenburg, president of Donovan Heat Treating Co. in Philadelphia.

"I had one disruption in my natural gas supply, and my energy costs went up 400 percent," Uhlenburg said. Those costs were a factor in layoffs that reduced the 70-year-old company from 37 to 10 workers, he said.

It would be years before mid-Atlantic well fields could be developed, said Margo Pellegrino, a Medford Lakes environmental activist known for her long-range kayak expeditions.

"If your manufacturing business is on the rocks now, where is it going to be 20 or 30 years from now when this oil is available?"

Others spoke of threats to the coastal economy from oil spills.

"I can't tell you how even a small piece of residual tar gets all over the place," said surfer John O'Malley of Marlboro, who recalled surfing at a fouled beach in California.

"I remember the gas rationing of the 1970s. I don't want to see our country go through that again," said Sally Tuohy of Montgomery, Pa.

"Where I come from, there is no economic engine without a clean beach," said Matt Walker of Kill Devil Hills, N.C., who told of a friend who works three ocean-dependent jobs: maintenance work in the resort area, commercial fishing in winter, and running a small inn.

The 2008 spike in diesel prices cost 140,000 jobs in the trucking industry, said Richard Moskowitz of the American Trucking Association.

"Even if we took every piece of farmland and converted it to biodiesel, it would only replace 7 percent" of domestic truck diesel needs, he said.

Fishermen are almost unanimously opposed to offshore drilling but split several ways on wind energy.

"Every job these windmills or oil rigs produce will cost one commercial fishing job, maybe more," said Jim Lovgren of the Fishermen's Dock Cooperative in Point Pleasant Beach and the Garden State Seafood Coalition.

"It all depends on where they put the things," said Bruce Freeman, a science adviser to the Jersey Coast Anglers Association. "All they're looking at (in the report) are the best wind fields."

Windmill tower bases could attract marine life, but fishermen are worried about being excluded from security zones.

Rep. Frank J. Pallone Jr., D-N.J., said he was relieved to hear the minerals service report focused in such detail on wind energy. But the activation last year of a five-year planning process "was a setback," he told environmental activists gathered outside the hearing.

Most of the New Jersey congressional delegation signed a letter asking Salazar to not permit offshore petroleum leasing, Pallone said, and he'd prefer to see a resumption of the 20-year-old congressional moratorium on drilling.

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