The push to bring offshore wind energy to the Maryland coast has been circuitous and contentious - and it isn’t quite a done deal yet. The arrival of the windmills, most likely by the middle of this decade, feels both close at hand and very, very far off. “Offshore wind is a game-changing industry that has the potential to create good-paying jobs while delivering clean, renewable energy to millions of homes,” said Sam Salustro, director of coalitions and strategic partnerships at the Business Network for Offshore Wind, a Baltimore-based nonprofit, member-funded organization with a mission to develop the offshore wind industry and its supply chain. Wind energy could also be a powerful driver for key parts of the state’s economy - both on the Delmarva Peninsula and at the Tradepoint Atlantic industrial development in eastern Baltimore County, site of a former Bethlehem Steel plant. It’s part of a greater strategy by the Biden administration to promote clean energy and it will help Maryland leaders fulfill their goals for generating carbon-free electricity. The arrival of powerful turbines off the coast of Ocean City, each about 800 feet tall, is likely to be a transformational development. The training center is one of the few tangible signs that the consequential and growing offshore wind industry may well be coming to Maryland’s Atlantic shore in just a few years. It takes away the ambiguity by just showing it. “It gives us a real sense of the scope and scale. “It’s a really powerful depiction,” said Elizabeth Kretovich, Mid-Atlantic marine affairs manager for Ørsted, one of two energy companies with plans to erect wind turbines in the waters off Ocean City. This set-up, on the campus of the Maritime Institute of Technology and Graduate Studies in Linthicum Heights, is part of one company’s campaign to show stakeholders what its wind farms will look like in the ocean - and what mariners will need to know to navigate around them. In a smaller room in the same building, a virtual fishing trawler makes a similar journey through an array of computer-generated wind turbines. It’s a simulation, meant to recreate the sensation of navigating a ship through a wind energy farm in the Atlantic, with lifelike images of windmills, sea, varying weather patterns and other vessels projected across eight giant screens. The experience feels real enough to cause seasickness - even though nothing’s moving. As captain, you’ll need to adjust speed and remain vigilant to keep the boat upright and avoid the 800-foot towers up ahead. The waves are high and rain is lashing the windows. The ship is cutting through the choppy waters of the Atlantic Ocean. Click here to read more from the Climate Calling series.
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