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This week, two companies secured rights to build offshore wind off the coast of Maine.

Offshore wind is expensive and prices have gone up. And so any good news is great in the sector

right now. It's Friday, November 1st, or as we call it around here, it's Science Friday.

I'm Cyfry producer D. Peter Schmidt. Offshore wind is coming to the Gulf of Maine.

Earlier this week, the federal government held an auction for eight leases to develop wind

projects off the state's coast. Bad news is, companies bid on only half of those available

leases. And it's the first day of Native American Heritage Month. Later in the episode, we have a

profile of an indigenous artist who's worked with NASA to create futuristic pottery out of

Martian clay, along with

other science-inspired art. But first, here's guest host Rachel Feldman with the top science

stories of the week. Joining me now to explain what this all means in the context of the wind

energy sector and to discuss other top science stories of the week is my guest, Casey Crownhart,

senior climate reporter for MIT Technology Review based in New York City. Casey, other top science stories of the week is my guest, Casey Crownheart, Senior Climate Reporter for

MIT Technology Review, based in New York City. Casey, welcome back to Science Friday.

Thanks so much for having me. Always great to be here. So let's start with the basics of this

auction. How many leases were given out and who got them and how much energy will that actually

amount to?

Absolutely. So like you said, this auction this week was for eight potential leases off the

coast of Maine. Four of those leases ended up being sold. A developer called Avondgrid won two of them

and a developer called Invenergy, one, the other two.

If all of these leases get developed, that means that we could generate up to 6.8 gigawatts of power.

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