b'8American Journal of Transportation ajot.comWill offshore wind power be the next US energy boom?For the Atlantic states, offshore wind power might be the next energy boom.By George Lauriat, AJOTBack in 1859 the Drakeoffshore wind energy capac-Well, located in appropriatelyity was 2,134 megawatts and named Oil Creek, Pennsylva- by2019hadgrowntoover nia in the corner of the state28,300 gigawatts. near Lake Erie, was success-fully drilled by Edwin DrakeUS W indP oWerg AtherSand set off the first oil boomS Peedin U.S. history and launchedWhile onshore power has thehydrocarboneraofgrownrapidlyintheU.S. industrial power. Now to thefrom 6,737 gigawatts gener-East, the Atlantic Ocean mayated in 2001 to over 300,000breakbulk hold the key to the next greatgigawatts generated in 2019 energy boom. -offshorewindpowerhas Despitearetrogradedlaggedbehindcontributing approach to wind powerpar- only a trickle from the windquarterlyticularly offshore wind powerfarmoffBlockIsland.But bytheTrumpAdministra- that is changing as states in tion, the rush to develop more(BOOMcontinued on windpower,aswellasotherpage 15)renewables, is inevitable as the gusher unleashed by Drake.OnJune20th,tempera-turesintheSiberianhamlet ofVerkhoyansktopped100 degreesarecordhighfor the region. On that day, Verk-hoyanskwashotterthan Veracruz. With such obvious alarming weather trends, the need to reduce carbon is high on the agenda of nearly every countryintheworld.For example, even in the middle ofthepandemicthePrime MinisteroftheUK,Boris Johnson,announcedaplan for$446millioninfunding to cut greenhouse gases. But thetoolsinthetoolboxto address climate change on a large scaleespecially in the industrial worldare few. Thatchallengelargely begins with finding ways to generate energyespecially electricityusing clean renew-ables.Withthisasastarting point,othercleantechnolo-gies can be deployed. It really doesntdomuchgoodto switch to electric vehicles and other clean systems without addressingthebasicissueof cleanelectricgeneration.The twomaintoolsarewindand solarpowersystems(hydro-power not withstanding). And ofthetwo,windpowerhas emergedastheprincipaltool in addressing large scale clean power generation.Areportcommissioned byOceanRenewableEnergy ActionCoalitions(OREAC) theOceanPanelcontends ocean-based renewable energy, such as offshore wind, floating solar,tidalandwavepower, could meet nearly 10% of the globalannualgreenhousegas emissions reductions necessary toremainonaParisClimate Agreement-compliant1.5C pathwayfor2050.OREAC estimates upwards to 85% of thisdecarbonisationpoten-tial will come from offshore wind. And globally offshore wind power has been grow-ing rapidly. In 2009 the global'