U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu visited U. Maine’s Advanced Engineered Wood Composites Center to learn about the facility’s work developing technology for floating wind turbines off the Maine coast.
Chu accepted the invitation from Republican Sen. Susan Collins, of Maine, who accompanied him on the visit. Gov. John Baldacci and U.S. Reps. Mike Michaud, D-2nd District, and Chellie Pingree, D-1st District, were also present.
AEWC Director Habib Dagher displayed different technologies being developed to help harness offshore wind energy and introduced Chu and the delegation to representatives from companies and other partners in the DeepCwind Consortium, a partnership that is working on a prototype for an offshore wind turbine near Monhegan Island off the coast of Maine. Dagher also showed the laboratory’s bridge in a backpack technology — composite arches that can be carried in a backpack, inflated on-site, shaped, and filled with concrete to create the foundation of a bridge.
Collins said UMaine’s wind power work she sees as “potentially transforming Maine’s economy.” She said 15,000 new jobs could be created with development of the offshore technology.
A July 2008 report from the Department of Energy set a goal goal of harnessing 20 percent of the nation’s power from wind by the year 2030. Offshore wind is expected to account for 16 percent of that goal.
In October 2009, the Department of Energy, a member of the consortium, gave AEWC an $8 million dollar grant for research and development of the turbines.
“It’s truly impressive,” Chu said after the tour. “It’s part of the leadership Maine has shown in going towards a new economy.”
Chu called the Gulf of Mexico oil spill “just another reminder” that the United States must wean itself from dependency of oil, but said the federal government has been working since before the spill to look for new energy sources. But, he stressed, the changes cannot occur overnight.
“It will take many decades to make these changes,” Chu said.
AEWC projects that by 2018, fossil fuel costs could reach $8 a gallon, making the cost of energy 40 percent of the average Maine household income. 80 percent of Maine homes use heating oil, making it the most oil-dependent state in the nation.
Baldacci cited the June 8 passing of Question 2 on Maine’s referendum ballot as a sign Mainers are firmly behind the facility’s development of alternative energy. Part of the $26.5 million bond issue voted for by 61 percent of voters went toward the facility’s employment of 300 construction workers and the future creation 100 full-time jobs – all working on offshore wind energy.
“If we’re going to get off dependency of foreign oil, I think the University of Maine has that technology,” Michaud said.