PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • April 8, 2021
On Wednesday, New England Aqua Ventus, the joint venture that is bringing UMaine’s research to market, announced an agreement with the Maine Building and Construction Trades Council promising to use union labor as work begins to assemble a pioneering wind turbine supported by a floating platform. The project will create hundreds of good-paying jobs for carpenters, ironworkers, electricians and other skilled laborers over the next two years. That could grow to thousands of jobs. We need to produce much more electricity than we do now so we can power transportation, heating and industrial processes. And we need to generate that electricity from renewable sources that don’t produce greenhouse gases. Ocean wind could play a big role in both of those transitions. Maine’s homegrown industry is arriving right on time.