Federation Report Focuses on Renewable Energy
by Joyce Deaton

OCEAN – Pioneers are beginning to stake out the country’s next energy frontier off the N.C. coast because they know what every kid with a kite also knows: It gets breezy at the beach.

And nowhere along the East Coast does that breeze blow steadier and stronger than off the shores of North Carolina, which may soon find itself at the center of the rush to harness the wind.

Down near Oak Island, a small company is culturing microscopic algae – yes, pond scum – with the hopes of one day converting them into fuel to power diesel and jet engines. In Jacksonville, officials at Camp Lejeune are installing solar panels on base housing, and in the piney woods of the coastal plain utility companies are eyeing trees and wood waste as sources of power for our homes.

As we gradually move away from our reliance on coal, oil and other fossil fuels, we are increasingly turning to the wind, the sun and plants from farm fields and forests to power our future. Those and other sources of renewable energy are featured in the N.C. Coastal Federation’s 2012 State of the Coast Report. The 16th annual report will be released Friday at a conference on renewable energy that the federation is sponsoring at the Riverfront Convention Center in New Bern.

“Energy is a generational challenge for us,” Brian O’Hara notes in the report. He heads the Offshore Wind Coalition, a non-profit group that is promoting the development of wind energy off the N.C. coast. “This is not quite a crusade, but I think it’s the right thing to do.”

Featuring new forms of energy in a State of the Coast Report also felt right for the federation. The state’s largest coastal conservation non-profit group has historically been opposed to offshore drilling for oil or natural gas, explained Frank Tursi, an assistant director with the federation and the report’s editor and lead writer.

“If we keep saying ‘No,’ then we have a responsibility to offer acceptable alternatives,” Tursi said. “This State of the Coast Report offers some of those alternatives.”

The report focuses on wind, solar, biofuels and other renewable energy sources that could affect the state’s coast and describes their potential benefits and possible challenges.

Offshore wind, for instance, offers great potential for generating electricity, Tursi noted. No power is generated that way in the United States, but almost every state on the East Coast is developing policies to lure developers off its shores. Studies, though, have concluded that the wind blowing off the N.C. coast is the best anywhere in the country. If put to work generating electricity, that wind could theoretically supply all of the state’s electrical needs, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.

Like most of the energy sources featured in the report, wind power won’t poison the air with pollutants or contribute to global warming by spewing tons of carbon dioxide. If an offshore turbine fails, blackened birds won’t land on our beaches.

Offshore wind farms could also generate thousands of jobs. Federal estimates suggest that building enough wind turbines off the N.C. coast during the next 20 years to equal the generating capacity of 10 nuclear plants the size of the Shearon Harris plant near Raleigh would create 50,000 local jobs and provide about $22 billion in local economic benefits.

Transporting and erecting giant wind turbines offshore is expensive, Tursi said, driving the cost of the initial electricity they generate well above what consumers in North Carolina are used to paying. Power generated by wind farms on land is much cheaper, but those turbines have a greater risk of killing birds and bats.

Along the same lines, trees in coastal North Carolina are plentiful, and converting them to fuel for power plants could provide landowners with income. But it could also lead to unsustainable forestry practices that could threaten the ecological health of the state's forestland.

“So much of this is about balancing and weighing different facts,” Steve Wall of the Biofuels Center of North Carolina says in the report. “None of these energy issues is easy. But when you look at the Gulf spill, maybe you think this is a better way to go.”

This story provided courtesy of the North Carolina Coastal Federation

The N.C. Coastal Federation is the state’s only non-profit organization focused exclusively on protecting and restoring the coast of North Carolina through education, advocacy and habitat preservation and restoration. Since its founding in 1982, the federation has worked with citizens to safeguard the state’s coastal rivers, creeks, sounds and beaches and has protected or restored more than 50,000 acres along the state’s coast. Its headquarters is in Ocean in Carteret County, between Morehead City and Swansboro, and it has regional offices in Wilmington and Manteo. For more information about the Coastal Federation visit www.nccoast.org.