Tilting at windmills

How are Maine’s two new EV charging stones going to get their own electricity? The answer isn’t blowing in the wind.

Last week, the U.S. Department of the Interior announced plans to move forward with two of California’s first-ever offshore wind power grids, located near coastal cities Humboldt and Morro Bay.

But, one environmental and energy expert sent a warning that turbines might not be as efficient as the administration thinks.

"For a solar farm or wind farms, you need to spread that thing out over so many hundreds of square kilometers, and that's your problem," Fraser Institute Senior Fellow Cornelis van Kooten told FOX Business’ Kelly O’Grady.

Another issue the expert raised surrounds wind turbine efficiency. According to the Energy Information Administration, turbines ran at 44% capacity in March 2021 but barely reached 23% capacity in July.

"You have to also then have extra transmission lines and all those kinds of things that go into it," Kooten explained. "And those create problems for the grid and for delivering power."

Biden’s wind power plan has the potential to unlock 4.5 gigawatts of energy – enough to power more than 1.5 million homes.

But, each turbine only produces 2 to 3 megawatts with a minimum two acres of space. In comparison, a compact plant produces thousands of megawatts per hour.

(Bonus reading, from a second source: minimum spacing between wind turbines)