Gone with the wind

Progress on offshore, renewable energy heralds big things for New York

(This piece was originally published in Crain’s New York Business. See the full article here: http://bit.ly/2D06urL)

About a year ago, if you were looking across the calm, smooth Atlantic waters from the docks of the small island town of New Shoreham, R.I., it might have been hard to tell that the nation’s first offshore wind farm just began producing pollution-free energy. Three miles southeast of Block Island and east of Long Island in the Atlantic Ocean, Block Island Wind Farm, which was constructed by Deepwater Wind, officially went online. This enormous accomplishment seemed like an appropriate way to bring in 2017.

Since then, the Trump administration has been hard at work rolling back safeguards that protect the climate and our health. Fortunately, state leaders in New York forged ahead to deliver clean-energy victories which flew in the face of President Donald Trump’s climate denial.