Maryland Offshore Power Faces Headwinds

Expiration of federal tax credits not likely to hamper O’Malley’s efforts

Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) plans to reintroduce a bill to fund an offshore wind farm — legislation that has twice failed to make it out of the General Assembly, according to an administration spokeswoman.

“We’re hoping to introduce something similar to last year,” spokeswoman Takkira Winfield said last week, noting that the details of the bill still are being ironed out.

On Thursday, O’Malley sent a letter to President Barack Obama (D), encouraging him to look to Maryland for examples of clean energy, including the governor’s offshore wind proposal. “Maryland has chosen to aggressively develop our vast offshore wind resources,” O’Malley wrote.

The effort is complicated by the possible expiration of federal wind energy tax credits that, if they expire, would hit the industry hard, advocates say.

The production tax credit, which gives energy companies 2.2 cents for every kilowatt hour of wind power produced for the first 10 years, is slated to expire New Year’s Eve. “Don’t throw wind power off the fiscal cliff,” Lucy Bannon, field organizer for the nonprofit advocacy organization Environment Maryland, said at a news conference Nov. 28 in Baltimore to urge Marylanders to support wind power development.

Wind power has had plenty of opportunity to mature into a reliable power source (the Dutch have been using it for centuries now), and it simply hasn't.  It suffers from problems of  being intermittent,  requiring some kind of backup (coal, gas or nuclear most likely), or some massive form of power storage capacity which isn't on the horizon as of yet.  It has some problems with killing "charismatic megafauna" (birds and bats), which may or may not be an issue offshore.  I don't mind offshore power installations, but allow them to compete in the market with other forms of power, and let the consumer decide.

Let the tax credit expire.  Are you against more revenue or something?