NEWS BRIEFS: Offshore wind in S.C. in peril thanks to memo, group says

Staff reports | A presidential memorandum that halts offshore drilling and testing off South Carolina waters also puts an end to the burgeoning offshore wind industry, clean energy advocates say.

The memo initially seemed to be good news for conservationists: President Donald Trump recently signed a memo halting new leases for offshore drilling exploration for South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia and Florida from July 1, 2022, until June 30, 2032.Sure, it could easily be undone with another memo, it doesn’t apply to any current leases already issued and it wouldn’t stop seismic testing completely. But it was something and appeared to be in the direction South Carolina officials have pushed: putting an end to chants of “drill, baby, drill” in Palmetto waters. 

The Southern Alliance for Clean Energy’s (SACE) Chris Carnevale of Charleston said he was “surprised” by the moratorium. “When that came out, my brain was not even thinking about offshore wind,” he said.

Turns out, that got banned too, Bloomberg News reported this week. “The withdrawal includes all energy leasing, including conventional and renewable energy, beginning on July 1, 2022,” Bureau of Ocean Energy Management spokeswoman Tracey Moriarty told Bloomberg News. 

South Carolina has been hailed as a potential offshore wind energy leader in recent years. A 2019 report said the state could land a $70 billion industry, create thousands of jobs, and generate more power than its consumers needed.

“South Carolina has worked for over a decade to get prepared for offshore wind energy,” Carnevale said. “We have a number of businesses in South Carolina that are in the wind energy supply chain.”,North Charleston is home to a wind turbine research center with Clemson University, making it a key spot for wind power innovation. 

In other news:

Witness signatures not* required on absentee ballots. The asterisk says it all: The fight over whether witness signatures will be required on absentee ballots in South Carolina continued this week. It landed in The Washington Post and on the Supreme Court of the United States blog. As of Friday morning: You don’t need a witness signature on your absentee ballot, but perhaps you should consider this popular wisdom: “It’s better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it.” 

Festival gets grant.  Black Ink: A Charleston African American Book Festival will get a  $5,000 grant from the Literary Arts Emergency Fund for its next free festival, which will be virtual for three days starting Jan. 14, 2021.  “Now more than ever, the festival’s impact is even greater due to the existing public dialogue taking place about equality and race,” Black Ink’s committee chair Djuanna Brockington said in a press release. “There is a current shift occurring in the book publishing industry with a greater focus on diversity among writers. Amid this movement, Black Ink is positioned to continue highlighting the importance of diversifying our literary landscape and amplifying those voices.”  The free festival will host New York Times bestselling author Kwame Mbalia as its keynote speaker. Mbalia is a middle-grade writer who authored the novel Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky.

Statehouse Report’s Lindsay Street contributed to this report. Have a comment?  Send to:  editor@charlestoncurrents.com