Costs for offshore wind turbines are soaring just as the world needs them most, derailing big projects worth billions of dollars even as Europe burns and the demand for renewable energy soars. In the last week, major projects were stymied or cancelled from the coasts of Massachusetts and Rhode Island to Britain, where inflation has torpedoed a Swedish-funded project off the Norfolk coast. The problems: rising cost of steel and other vital services, like specialised vessels to install the turbines, Bloomberg reports. The US currently has a total of seven offshore turbines, compared with more than 2,500 in the UK. President Biden wants to boost offshore wind capacity to 30 gigawatts by the end of the decade by adding roughly 6,000 offshore turbines. It’s going to be an uphill fight.
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