President Biden on Wednesday will visit a Pueblo, Colorado, wind turbine tower manufacturing plant to promote generous federal subsidies that have enabled the facility to expand and double production.

His aggressive push to accelerate the nation’s wind energy comes amid increasing public opposition to both onshore and offshore wind farms and critics say rising costs to build and maintain them will ultimately be passed along to taxpayers and ratepayers.

“Wind power is running into an economic wall, and the public doesn’t want it,”  said Jonathan Lesser, an energy industry expert at the Manhattan Institute.

Wind power made up 10.3% of the nation’s energy mix in 2022 and some industry experts believe it can play a more significant role in powering the grid as the nation moves away from fossil fuels.

Jay Apt, an energy expert at Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School of Business, said both wind and solar have been smoothly integrated into the U.S. power grid so far, and more renewables could easily be added to the mix. 

About 3% of U.S. energy came from solar in 2022.

“There’s certainly a lot of headroom on wind and solar in this country,” Mr. Apt said. “I could certainly see it to get to 60 or 65%.”

But wind farms face major obstacles.

Supply chain problems, skyrocketing costs and public opposition have thwarted Mr. Biden’s goal of producing 30,000 megawatts of offshore wind along the East Coast by 2030, while onshore wind farms also are facing increasing public opposition.

In late October, Danish renewable energy company Orsted backed out of two major offshore wind projects planned along the New Jersey coast, citing rising costs and the failure to obtain sufficient tax credits. The company quit the projects despite $1 billion in subsidies from New Jersey and federal tax incentives provided by the Inflation Reduction Act. The company was also facing lawsuits from local governments, residents and the fishing industry over potential damage the wind farms would cause to tourism and the environment.

New Jersey’s Cape May County joined fishing and tourism businesses in a lawsuit filed last month against the Department of the Interior to stop Orsted’s offshore wind project. The groups argued the federal government violated the endangered species protection laws when it approved the wind farms. 

Construction and operation of the turbines, they said, would kill birds and hurt sea turtles and increase the number of beached endangered whales, which have been washing ashore along the Jersey coast during the initial phases of construction.

Orsted’s cancellation followed two New England developers who backed out of wind projects along the coasts of Massachusetts and Connecticut, citing rising costs and supply chain problems. Several offshore wind projects in New York state are also in jeopardy after developers were denied higher ratepayer subsidies to fund the rising construction costs of their wind farms.

States can re-bid abandoned wind farm projects, but at costs that will likely be much higher than the canceled contracts.

Onshore wind farm projects also face obstacles in the U.S. as developers run out of places to construct the giant turbines without running into community opposition or creating significant environmental impacts.

More than 70,000 wind turbines have already been constructed across millions of acres in the U.S. The combined power of the turbines can produce up to 146 gigawatts of energy, which is enough to power 45 million homes, according to the renewable energy lobbyist group American Clean Power. 

Wind power companies are now running into obstacles as they scout for additional places to build turbines on private land. They are offering farmers and other landowners lease agreements and royalties based on wind turbine energy production. 

It’s created conflict in communities divided over the appearance, impact and noise associated with wind farms.

Last year, voters in rural Michigan blocked a 375-megawatt wind farm, rejecting renewable energy ordinances that would have permitted Apex Clean Energy to build 75 wind turbines on private farmland northeast of Grand Rapids. Voters also rejected the construction of a solar energy project.

Citizens of Montcalm County, where the turbines were planned, organized community opposition to the project, warning the 591-foot industrial wind turbines would harm the economy and the environment and destroy property values. They also warned the turbines could cause health problems including headaches, dizziness, concentration problems and vertigo, which have been reported although no causal link has been proven.

The transmission lines that must be built to distribute wind power and other renewable energy have been slowed by environmental groups and residents who have sued to block the projects. 

Mr. Biden, who has set a goal of 100% “clean” electricity by 2035, has determined the nation’s grid capacity must be more than doubled to deliver renewable energy throughout the U.S. to meet his goal.

He dedicated $1.3 billion to help states build large-scale transmission lines and upgrade existing transmission lines in Nevada, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, New Hampshire and Vermont. 

About one-third of the project will have to cross state-owned or private land, which could complicate completion.

Legal challenges caused a six-year delay in a 145-mile transmission line project meant to deliver hydropower from Canada to Massachusetts. The project was halted amid opposition from the Natural Resources Council of Maine and other groups who said the transmission towers and lines that would cross through the western part of the state would damage Maine’s pristine forests, which must be clear-cut to make a path for the electricity corridor.

The project moved forward earlier this year after a Maine jury voted unanimously that a state referendum blocking it was unconstitutional.

Critics say wind farm projects are expensive, damaging to the environment and make the electrical grid less stable and more prone to brownout and blackouts.

Wind turbines often generate energy far below their capacity and can become useless when the wind is not blowing at all.

They require a constant backup energy source, either from nuclear, coal or natural gas, which will make electricity far more expensive for ratepayers.

In Germany, electricity rates have climbed as the country has invested billions of euros in wind power which is now 17% of its energy mix.

“It has been a failure and has done nothing but drive up the cost for the individual consumer and make the electric grid weaker,” said Daniel Turner, founder and executive director of Power the Future, an energy advocacy organization critical of the anti-fossil fuel movement.

In Texas, which produces the largest amount of wind energy in the nation, energy companies have asked residents to curb energy use during summer heatwaves, when air conditioning and other energy demands have strained the system and the wind turbines are often not turning.

On Tuesday, wind turbines in Texas were generating an hourly average of about 3,000 megawatts of energy, far short of the state’s 12,686 megawatt capacity for wind production.

The U.S. Department of Energy determined earlier this year that wind power is one of the fastest growing and lowest cost sources of U.S. electricity and is poised for “rapid growth.”

The Pueblo facility Mr. Biden plans to visit is expanding operations and adding 850 jobs by 2026, the company announced in April.  

CS Wind is based in South Korea. It plans to operate the Pueblo plant 24 hours per day, seven days per week. It’s the largest wind turbine tower manufacturer in the world and is expanding the Colorado plant using green energy tax incentives provided in the Inflation Reduction Act.

“This expansion investment will have a transformative impact on our environment, economy, and local Colorado society,” Seong-Gon Gim, Chairman of CS Wind, said. 

• Susan Ferrechio can be reached at sferrechio@washingtontimes.com.