Energy Musings - April 20, 2026

Proponents of offshore wind believe the worst is over after the administration failed to appeal a court order granting relief. Another suit has strong claims, but could face a challenging future.

Offshore Wind Legal Challenges Continue

The Trump administration’s legal challenges to offshore wind court rulings have expired, which allowed the projects to move forward unobstructed. Offshore wind proponents claim this proves the Trump administration’s claims about the approval process and national security issues were ill-founded. However, a lawsuit that commenced last December and makes similar claims is slowly progressing through the court system. Maybe there will be a different outcome.

On December 18, 2025, Green Oceans filed a Notice of Intent to Sue the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) and the Department of the Interior (DOI) under the provisions of the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA), which were ignored during the approval process for Sunrise Wind. Because the standard for judging the approval criteria, as mandated by OCSLA, was improperly manipulated to advance the Biden administration’s political agenda, reinstating the original mandate calls into question the legality of the Sunrise Wind approval. The belief is that if the original mandate had been followed properly, Sunrise Wind would not have been approved.

The notice and the actual lawsuit were filed within the two-year timeframe for suits over such administrative actions. The plaintiffs noted that some of their claims may fall within the six-year statute of limitations, and they have met that standard. The timeframe began with the publication of BOEM’s decision to approve Sunrise Wind in the Federal Register on March 29, 2024.

The plaintiffs include Green Oceans, a Rhode Island nonprofit environmental organization that has been fighting the industrialization of the neighboring oceans for years, along with several commercial fishermen, a recreational fisherman, and a Green Oceans member who claims to have been personally harmed by the installation of offshore wind farms. The plaintiff group also includes two local Native American Tribes, two individuals involved with Rhode Island historical facilities, and the New England Fishermen’s Stewardship Association, all of whom are impacted by the Sunrise Wind project.

The lawsuit makes three claims, each involving specific legislation dealing with government approval of offshore energy and environmental projects. The claims cite violations of OCSLA, the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA), and the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). With each violation cited, BOEM’s violation of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) was also claimed. Each claim enables the plaintiffs to present evidence of BOEM’s failure to follow the requirements of each law, the legal mandates included in them, and the proper assessment of costs and benefits of the Sunrise Wind project.

For example, under the claim of violating OCSLA, BOEM failed to apply the proper standard when assessing competing commercial interests in the lease hosting Sunrise Wind. When the Biden administration put forward its agenda to build 30 gigawatts of offshore wind capacity by 2030, the Interior Department’s Solicitor General conveniently interpreted OCSLA’s requirement for dealing with competing economic interests by allowing the Secretary of the Interior to balance competing interests and select one over the other. Thus, the Solicitor issued M-Opinion 37067 stating that “[t]he subsection does not require the Secretary to ensure that the goals are achieved to a particular degree, and she retains wide discretion to determine the appropriate balance between two or more goals that conflict or are otherwise in tension.” This flexibility allowed all conflicting claims to be settled in favor of offshore wind developers, which, not surprisingly, was the outcome.

M-Opinion 37067 was a misinterpretation of OCSLA, which states that each conflict must be decided individually. Therefore, in May 2025, the Acting Solicitor removed M-Opinion 37067 and replaced it with the prior opinion, M-Opinion 37059. Under that standard, BOEM is required to ensure that each criterion in OCSLA is met without diminishing any competing criteria. Conflicts must be resolved in a manner satisfactory to the parties, and not create a clear fairway for offshore wind.

Given the reversion to the original standard, BOEM must reassess the numerous criteria settled in favor of offshore wind that may have been detrimental to competing interests. If a reassessment of the original decision is required, it could affect the legitimacy of Sunrise Wind’s approval. For example, the developer must prepare and file a decommissioning plan and post a decommissioning bond. This is a standard for all offshore energy projects, and oil and gas companies are not granted waivers. Sunrise Wind, like all offshore wind projects, was granted BOEM waivers. This obligation is critical because offshore wind projects are being developed by limited liability companies that own few assets other than the wind farm turbines, which limits the government’s access to funds for decommissioning the wind farm.

Another major issue we have highlighted in previous articles about offshore wind is radar interference, a claim of the Green Oceans lawsuit. The height of the wind turbine blade tips can interfere with line-of-sight radar systems, such as those located on Cape Cod. That interference can disrupt early-warning systems for national security, air traffic control, and Coast Guard search-and-recovery activities. The following exhibit is from the Green Oceans lawsuit filing.

The line-of-sight radar interruption issue is serious.

Radar interference extends beyond national security and air traffic control. It also involves the creation of clutter, i.e., false images on ship radar systems that limit the Coast Guard’s search-and-rescue operations for mariners. This issue has been recognized for decades, without a solution, despite efforts by an interagency study group. It is an issue BOEM has ignored in its approval of offshore wind projects.

The Claims for Offshore Wind Farms

Facts or BOEM do not support offshore wind’s environmental and economic claims made by proponents. The argument for building offshore wind is that it provides cheaper power than fossil-fuel-generated power, is environmentally cleaner, and produces reliable electricity. Offshore wind reportedly meets the three demands we make for our power: that it is cheap, reliable, and clean. None of these claims is true.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration estimates the Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE) for various energy generation sources used in its annual energy outlooks. While we are always suspicious of LCOE estimates because the results can be easily manipulated by the selection of assumptions input to the formula, we are pointing to the government’s 2025 LCOEs.

The 2025 estimate per megawatt-hour of power, calculated in 2024 dollars, for offshore wind was $88.16. That compares to the LCOE for a combined-cycle natural gas plant of $64.55. These are estimates for projects that would be in operation in 2030. The offshore wind estimate includes the benefit of a renewable energy tax credit, while the combined-cycle gas plant has none. Interestingly, offshore wind’s LCOE is nearly 10% higher than the estimate for an advanced nuclear power plant, $81.45.

Reliability is a measure of the consistency with which a generating source delivers power. The output from wind turbines and solar panels is subject to weather and the daily cycle. This variability impacts the capacity factor of each energy source. The capacity factor is defined as the ratio of actual electrical output to the maximum possible output over a specific period. Most capacity factors reflect the generating source’s annual output. However, for power grids and electricity customers, the key is the capacity that can be relied upon consistently, hour by hour, every day. Obviously, solar cannot generate power during the night, on cloudy days, or when covered with snow and ice. Wind turbines are affected by wind droughts, which often have a limited duration but can persist for days.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) states that the capacity factor of offshore wind turbines ranges from 29% to 52%. That is considerably better than the capacity factor of onshore wind turbines, which is 23-44%. That is because you can install larger turbines and more of them in an offshore wind farm, since the ocean has substantial unoccupied space. Many fossil fuel power plants have capacity factors of 85% or higher. The real issue with lower wind capacity factors is that they require developers to overbuild to achieve output equivalent to a project’s nameplate capacity. With a maximum capacity of roughly 50% for an offshore wind farm, the developer would have to build twice that capacity to ensure power from the initial wind farm. Another, and more likely way to offset the low density factor is to maintain dispatchable backup power to deliver power when wind fails. That backup power adds costs and emissions to the grid’s electricity output. However, the cost of building and operating this duplicate power generation system is never assigned to the cost estimate for offshore wind.

The energy density excluding RI and MA may be overstated.

To appreciate the significance of capacity factors, a 2023 study by a team of scientists at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory presented an interesting chart. The chart is from the report, Capacity Density Considerations for Offshore Wind Plants in the United States. It shows the weighted-average capacity density (factor) for wind projects located in the waters off each Atlantic coastal state, along with the average density.

You will note a total weighted-average density bar (orange) for all state offshore wind farms. There is another bar (yellow) that reflects the weighted-average density after excluding the offshore wind farms of Massachusetts and Rhode Island. The difference between the total and the adjusted total is from 4.42 megawatts per square kilometer (MW/km²) to 5.64. Excluding the two states with the lowest density increases the average density, suggesting that more electricity can be generated from wind farms in the remaining states.

The authors of the report felt obligated to remove Massachusetts and Rhode Island, the leading states in offshore wind development, because the Coast Guard required a one-nautical-mile separation between turbines in the wind farms it approved. This spacing was mandated for mariner safety and to aid search-and-rescue operations due to radar interference. However, the spacing diminishes the density of the projects.

Since the report was prepared in 2023, it was based on wind farm designs from earlier years, often before they had undergone the approval process. Therefore, the higher capacity density of the other states is likely overstated. Of course, BOEM might approve wind farm densities that ignore the Coast Guard’s safety mandate for turbine spacing as dictated to developers in Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

An issue never addressed by BOEM or developers in their offshore wind proposals is the impact of the low capacity factor on grid reliability. The longest-operating offshore wind farm, Block Island Wind (BIW), has never produced the projected annual electricity output that regulators and ratepayers were told it would.

The chart shows the annual electricity produced by BIW from its inception through January 2026. The output for the past three years has been well below the theoretical capacity factor of 46.7%. That factor reflected the amount of annual electricity that both GE, the provider of the wind turbines, and Deepwater Wind, the developer, stated BIW would deliver, as reported in separate press releases and in testimony before the Rhode Island Public Utility Commission.

Block Island Wind has never reached the predicted annual output.

What we have not shown is the hourly output, which is the true measure of performance, because it allows matching the output against the grid’s demand. The mismatch between supply and demand affects the price paid for the wind farm’s electricity and the need for dispatchable power backup. The mismatch can highlight when the grid may be at risk of blackouts. That is a topic for another Energy Musings.

Finally, we must address offshore wind’s environmental impact on power markets. Proponents of offshore wind claim that because it does not produce any emissions when generating electricity, the clean power will reduce the grid’s total emissions. This claim ignores the emissions of the backup dispatchable power that must be provided. Secondly, it ignores the much greater emissions associated with building offshore wind farms than with other renewable energy projects. Offshore structures require more steel and concrete, and their installation process is highly energy-intensive.

What is interesting is what BOEM has written in various environmental and approval reports for offshore wind projects about their impact on climate change. Here is BOEM’s statement for Vineyard Wind, one of the first projects to receive approval.

“Overall, it is anticipated that there would be no collective impact on global warming as a result of offshore wind projects, including the Proposed Action alone, though they may beneficially contribute to a broader combination of actions to reduce future impacts from climate change.”

Similarly worded statements are included in the other approval documents. BOEM often holds out hope that these projects will eventually reduce the use of fossil fuels for electricity generation, but that has not happened yet.

BOEM almost always touts offshore wind projects as a way to help the coastal state in whose waters the project is being located with its clean energy programs. However, this is not a reason to sway the approval of offshore wind farms. It is these state clean energy mandates that distort the local utility market and are increasing ratepayers’ bills, with New York and New England among the most expensive retail electricity markets in the nation.

There is overwhelming evidence that offshore wind is neither cheap nor reliable, and that it will not help climate change through reduced emissions. By failing on these qualities, ratepayers will be spending extra money for little to no benefit. Furthermore, other commercial interests in the offshore are harmed by the construction of offshore wind farms. Those economic hits may also cost ratepayers and non-ratepayers alike, as these businesses are usually taxpaying.

Sunrise Wind’s Converter Cooling System

Returning to the Green Oceans lawsuit, BOEM approved Sunrise Wind’s Offshore Converter Station Cooling Water Intake system by bending the criteria for judging its environmental impact. The system selected by the developers is an open-loop system, in which 7.8 million gallons of seawater a day are pumped into the pipes for cooling the heat generated by the electricity converter, then dumped back into the ocean. The water is heated to at least 90º F and treated with sodium hypochlorite, which is equivalent to bleach. This volume of water happens every day when the wind farm operates.

We have written about this open-loop cooling system because of the environmental damage it delivers around the converter station platform. BOEM and Sunrise Wind developer Ørsted and Eversource acknowledged in the environmental and approval documents that the open-loop system will destroy more than 8 billion zooplankton, including more than 1.1 million copepods, which are the primary prey of the North American Right Whale. Additionally, 2.9 million fish larvae and 29.4 million fish eggs are destroyed. In other words, the open-loop cooling system destroys key components at the bottom of the marine mammal food chain, including endangered whales.

Importantly, the system’s approval required ignoring the Best Technology Available (BTA) standard as required by NEPA. That standard is set by the daily volume of water exceeding 2 million gallons. Rather, BOEM allowed Best Professional Judgment (BPJ) to dictate the choice of the open-loop cooling system. As noted by Linda Bonvie of Badditives, the Natural Resources Defense Council noted a decade ago that “Closed cycle cooling has become the technology of choice for most power plants since the early 1970s.” If closed-cycle cooling is the standard in the power industry, why is relying on open-loop cooling acceptable? Maybe it is cheaper to build?

Bonvie also pointed out that the allowed percentage of sodium hypochlorite in the cooling water discharge is below the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to measure it. Therefore, unless the percentage exceeds a much higher level, which can be measured, the agency will assume Sunrise Wind complies. As they say, close enough for government work. Not good for the zooplankton or fish larvae, however.

Climate Warfare

While the Green Oceans lawsuit has strong claims, in our opinion, against BOEM’s approval of Sunrise Wind, the case may face an uphill battle. Why? Climate warfare.

For over a decade, environmental and anti-fossil fuel activist groups have brought lawsuits against energy companies for the emissions released when their products are burned. Since carbon emissions are national and global in scope, the idea of state courts allowing these cases to be tried under state nuisance laws rather than in the federal courts against national measures has fostered climate warfare.

The fossil fuel companies were happy to have the Supreme Court of liberal Maryland throw out the City of Baltimore’s climate suit. Another pollution suit in Louisiana, although not addressing the same issue, was remanded to a federal court and removed from the state’s judicial system. The tide of state climate warfare may be shifting, but we remain cautious in passing judgment on legal matters.

Recently, we learned of a scandal involving the education of federal judges and their handling of complex scientific issues in cases, which indicates how they are being indoctrinated. In March, climate scientist Roger Pielke, Jr., wrote in his Substack, The Honest Broker, about the scandal that had just emerged regarding the Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence. In 1988, Congress directed the Federal Judiciary Center (FJC) to impanel an expert commission to assess problems with federal court performance in handling scientific issues and provide recommendations.

The first reference manual for judges was published in 1994 and has been updated every decade since. The latest version, published on December 31, 2025, included a chapter on climate change that had not previously appeared. The chapter, Reference Guide on Climate Science, immediately drew attention and created a controversy that continues.

Beginning with the third edition in 2011, the manual has been a joint effort of the FJC and the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM). Immediately upon publication of the manual, Congressional Republicans wrote the FJC, claiming that the materials in the chapter “appear to be designed to bias judges in climate-related cases.” The FJC soon announced it would remove the chapter from the manual. However, NASEM stood behind the chapter and maintained it in its version of the manual on its website.

Unsurprisingly, the battle marked a political divide with Republicans and Democrats on opposite sides. Authors of other chapters in the manual wrote about the 27 Republican State Attorneys General calling for an investigation of why NASEM retained the chapter as a “political attack by the attorneys general on a carefully and rigorously prepared scientific publication should concern us all.” The two authors of the chapter wrote a 10-page defense of their effort.

Pielke, however, showed that the authors had a serious conflict of interest that was not disclosed to the readers. Furthermore, he found that the chapter was “ghost-authored,” as defined by leading authorities and in violation of established scientific integrity standards.

Regarding the conflict, the two authors, Jessica Wentz and Radley Horton, are affiliated with Columbia University’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, an institution whose mission is to advance climate litigation. Horton has published an article, “Holding Fossil Fuel Companies Accountable.” This is an interesting choice of authors by NASEM, and something Pielke believes should be investigated.

However, he was particularly troubled by a footnote that discussed attribution research. It referenced a 2020 185-page law review article published by Wentz and Horton, but included Michael Burger, the Sabin Center’s Executive Director, as a co-author. He is also of counsel at the law firm Sher Edling LLP, which represents most of the cities and counties currently suing fossil fuel companies. He is also the counsel of record for Honolulu in its ongoing climate suit against oil companies.

The law review article describes how attribution science can be used in climate litigation. It concluded that attribution science was “sufficiently robust to support the adjudication of certain types of legal disputes.” Attribution science allows inferring outcomes from limited data, lacking solid scientific support.

Using Claude AI, Pielke analyzed the chapter and the law review article. He found that “Exact word-for-word matches of ten or more consecutive words and lightly reworded passages account for 41–48% of overlap in the Detection & Attribution Methods and Extreme Event Attribution sections of the chapter — arguably the most relevant to climate litigation.”

The scientific community standard is that the extensive use of material from another report or article should list that author as a co-author of the existing report. It is not allowed to disclose the information in a footnote, as was done in this report. This constitutes scientific misconduct that NASEM should not have allowed. Unfortunately, there is another issue involving a scientist and a NASEM paper that was treated with kid gloves not to upset Democratic political support.

There is much more to this scandal than we have outlined. It has serious implications for how judges are being educated to handle the science used in climate warfare. Suffice to say, lawyers have been using their positions to influence and educate judges, but not from a neutral position. How biased with respect to climate science is the federal judiciary? By no longer being allowed to defer to federal agencies’ judgment calls, judges’ bias can put the thumb on the scale of justice. We hope it is not the case with the Green Oceans lawsuit, but we believe readers should be aware of the possibility.