The breakup of the Minerals Management Service into three separated parts after the drilling disaster exposed the depths of the corruption of the old MMS, has also yielded a new focus on clean energy from the ocean, and a 700 MW off-shore wind project off of Long Island may be the first test of corruption-free permitting.

A consortium of New York utilities has just applied for a permit to start feasibility studies required to build a 700 MW off-shore wind farm that would be sited off the coast of Long Island.

At 14 miles out to sea, the turbines would be scarcely visible from land. The New York Power Authority, which gets 75% of its power from hydro, had originally tried for a much smaller 150 MW farm there in 2003, but the project had been shelved in 2006, due to escalating cost estimates at that time from developer NextEra. The new consortium comprises New York utility ConEd, the Long Island Power Authority, and the NYPA itself, which is the largest state-owned utility in the US.

The application goes to the Obama administration’s newly formed Bureau of Ocean Energy (BOE) which will focus more developing on renewable energy rather than primarily fossil energy as MMS did. But, unlike the MMS that it replaces: to prevent corruption, it will neither grant the permits nor collect the royalties.
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