STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
We've called Joseph Majkut, who directs the Energy Security and Climate Change Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. That's a bipartisan nonprofit think tank here in Washington. Welcome to the program, sir.
JOSEPH MAJKUT: Good morning, Steve.
INSKEEP: You've been thinking about this for years. When you thought about concerns about wind projects, was military radar on your radar, so to speak?
MAJKUT: It is a big issue. These are large facilities. The turbines are hundreds of feet in the air. The wind farms extend for miles. If you were to develop a large offshore wind industry, you could make mistakes and create problems for national security. That is, however, a manageable issue that the Department of Interior and the DOD have worked on together for a long time. And in other countries, whether it's in Northern Europe or even off of China, these two issues can be worked on together.
INSKEEP: I am impressed first to learn that this is a problem that's been known for a long time. And second, you're telling me that the Pentagon already thought this through.
MAJKUT: Yeah. For years, the Department of Interior, which is in charge of leasing these offshore wind tracks and the DOD have wrangled, negotiated and worked together to try and manage these problems. So all the things that have been cited so far have been through the wringer of whether or not they are particularly national security questions, and project developers have made changes to their designs in response to national security concerns.
INSKEEP: OK. So without getting too technical, you're telling me that if a bunch of little drones approach the United States, which is, in this day and age, a plausible scenario, U.S. military radar is going to catch it. They're not going to be able to hide behind a bunch of wind turbines.
MAJKUT: I think, rather, what I would tell you is we can manage the risks that these facilities would be used to hide adversarial equipment or drones, as you say. In fact, what we're seeing in Germany, for example, wind farms are being outfitted with listening posts and radar equipment themselves to extend the view of the National Security Enterprise.
INSKEEP: Wow. That's really interesting. Let's talk about what I think are the real objections to wind as well as solar power, renewable energy sources generally. A critic, like the president, will say it doesn't work when the wind doesn't blow, and that, therefore, it is not a secure source of energy, which sounds like a common-sense statement. Is it true?
MAJKUT: It is true that renewables don't generate power when the wind's not blowing. But when the wind blows, they can be very, very helpful for keeping the grid online or providing plenty of power. One of the things that's really interesting about offshore wind from an energy perspective is that, as a renewable resource, it's relatively high capacity, meaning it works quite a bit. It's always blowing a gale off of New England, for example. And it can peak at times when you really want power, for instance, in the wintertime, when power prices in New England are high as people have a high heating burden. Offshore wind actually is at its best at that moment and can really help the grid provide power at lower cost.
INSKEEP: Is the technology to store the energy from wind power through batteries or some other means, has that been improving over time?
MAJKUT: Yes, it has. Batteries have actually been one of the pleasant surprises in the electricity system over the last couple of years. We're seeing massive growth in their deployment, particularly in areas that have a lot of renewables or solar power, specifically, where we can store it when it's generated during the day and release it at later parts of the day or when demand is needed, we expect to see in the - continue in the next few years, lots more batteries coming online, and they would be applicable to offshore wind as well.
INSKEEP: Interesting. And another energy or another industry building up. Joseph Majkut, thanks so much.
MAJKUT: Thank you.
INSKEEP: He directs the Energy Security and Climate Change project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
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