Mayor Bloomberg Wants Wind to Power NYC

Mayor Michael Bloomberg is proposing a plan that could see windmills on New York City’s bridges and skyline.
Mayor Bloomberg Wants Wind to Power NYC
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg speaks at the National Clean Energy Summit at the Cox Pavilion on Tuesday in Las Vegas, Nevada. Political and economic leaders are attending a two-day summit to discuss alternative energy. (Ethan Miller/Getty Images)
8/20/2008
Updated:
10/1/2015
<a><img src="https://www.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2015/09/1energy.jpg" alt="New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg speaks at the National Clean Energy Summit at the Cox Pavilion on Tuesday in Las Vegas, Nevada. Political and economic leaders are attending a two-day summit to discuss alternative energy. (Ethan Miller/Getty Images)" title="New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg speaks at the National Clean Energy Summit at the Cox Pavilion on Tuesday in Las Vegas, Nevada. Political and economic leaders are attending a two-day summit to discuss alternative energy. (Ethan Miller/Getty Images)" width="320" class="size-medium wp-image-1834060"/></a>
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg speaks at the National Clean Energy Summit at the Cox Pavilion on Tuesday in Las Vegas, Nevada. Political and economic leaders are attending a two-day summit to discuss alternative energy. (Ethan Miller/Getty Images)

NEW YORK—Mayor Michael Bloomberg is proposing a plan that could see windmills on New York City’s bridges and skyline in a new and ambitious push for renewable energy.

Bloomberg outlined his plan Tuesday night at a Las Vegas conference on alternative energy. The Mayor said he is approaching private companies and investors in New York to study how turbines can be built throughout the city. The city has also issued a formal request to companies around the country for advice on wind powering New York.

“We want their best ideas for creating both small- and large-scale projects serving New Yorkers,” Bloomberg said.

One of the big ideas that Bloomberg is most enthusiastic about is windfarms for New York.

“Perhaps companies will want to put windfarms atop our bridges and skyscrapers, or use the enormous potential of powerful off-shore winds miles out in the Atlantic Ocean, where turbines could generate roughly twice the energy that land-based windfarms can. Windfarms located far off our shores, some evidence shows, could meet 10 percent of our city’s electricity needs within a decade.”

Turning New York City into a major source of wind power is years away in reality. But Bloomberg, who has 18 months left in office, says he is committed to getting the discussion going. He wants to see a reduction in the city’s dependence on a power grid that caused several large blackouts in the past decade. The grid is not the only thing Bloomberg would like to stop depending on.

“More than 100 years ago, a new statue standing tall in New York Harbor gave our nation its greatest symbol of freedom. In this century, that freedom is being undermined by dependence on foreign oil. So I think it would be a thing of beauty if, when Lady Liberty looks out on the horizon, she not only welcomes new immigrants, but lights their way with a torch powered by an ocean windfarm.”

The main obstacles to the technology will be neighborhood opposition to the windmills; the high cost of building and running them; and a mass of red tape to get through with state and federal agencies.

But the mayor said offshore turbines could be placed “as much as 15, 20, 25 miles offshore, where it’s virtually invisible to land.”