As Maine gears up to spend billions of dollars in taxpayer money subsidizing offshore wind turbines, similar projects proposed or in operation off the New England coast are struggling to survive the harsh environment and growing costs.
Last year, the parent company of Central Maine Power pulled the plug on an offshore wind power development off the cost of Massachusetts after cost increases render the project non-viable, a move that cost the company $48 million in termination fees.
The company judged that the whopper of a fee was a more prudent course than plowing forward with a power purchase agreement that would cause the company to sustain even greater losses during the life of the project.
That project was just one of at least ten offshore wind developments that — despite massive subsidies and policy incentives from taxpayers — saw delays, logistical issues, and early termination, according to a review from the Wall Street Journal.
This week, a Nantucket fisherman posted video to social media showing an inoperable offshore wind turbine that had broken apart and scattered debris throughout Massachusetts coastal waters, raising anew questions over the viability of the heavily subsidized technologies.
Shortly after the images circulated widely on social media, Vineyard Wind, the operator of the turbines, told Nantucket Current that they had recovered the flotsam.
Three projects in Europe’s North Sea were also scuttled last year, along with a proposed development off the coast of Rhode Island.
In Maine, the offshore wind power has garnered nearly unanimous support from Democratic lawmakers, pro-industry interest groups, and the administration of Gov. Janet Mills (D).
[RELATED: Another Offshore Wind Project Scuttled as Maine Charges Forward with Mills’ “Roadmap”…]
The Mills Administration and allied Democrats in the Legislature have cast the wind power initiatives as aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions and somehow lowering global temperatures, a move they believe will result is less volatile weather.
However, there is also a vast fortune to be made by developers as both the Mills Administration and President Joe Biden’s Department of Energy shovel grants, tax subsidies, and other incentives into industrial wind corporations.
Despite the large amount of taxpayer money that Democratic politicians have made available to wind power developers in Maine, the technology at the center of Gov. Mills’ wind power scheme has faced setbacks of its own.
Earlier this year, the so-called VolturnUS, a floating wind turbine design spearheaded by researchers at the University of Maine, failed to advance in a prize contest held by the Department of Energy.
[RELATED: Major Offshore Wind Company Takes Huge Losses After Struggling To Get More Biden Bucks…]
Although UMaine has received more than $113 million over the past decade to support the theoretical wind power scheme, the design was found inferior to five other designs — none of which received even one-fifth of the level of taxpayer funding.
Further complicating the environmentalists’ push for offshore wind power: dead whales. Lots of them.
As industrial wind power developments have increasingly spread along the Atlantic Coast, the number of dead whales washing up on the eastern seaboard has increased significantly, and many wildlife advocates are blaming the invasive technologies used by wind power developers, including high-powered sonar, mapping technologies and power equipment used to build anchoring foundations for the turbines.
[RELATED: Hope Floats, But Not for UMaine’s VolturnUS Floating Offshore Wind Platform: Reagan Paul…]
A study highlighted on Sunday by the Daily Mail presented the latest compelling evidence that the spike in whale fatalities are linked to the industrialization of coastal waters.
Professor Apostolos Gerasoulis from Rutgers University conducted research to determine if there was a connection between whale deaths and offshore wind survey activities following the death of Luna, a humpback whale that had been the subject of previous researcg.
Gerasoulis developed a software system, named Luna, to analyze data on whale deaths and the movements of offshore wind survey vessels.
He found that the number of whale deaths in the region has significantly increased since the start of offshore wind survey activities in 2016. Before 2016, there were an average of two humpback whale deaths per year in the area; since then, the number has risen to an average of ten per year.
In 2023 alone, 21 humpback whales died in the region.
The data showed a correlation between the routes of survey vessels and whale strandings. For example, in January and February 2023, 13 offshore wind survey vessels conducted sonar testing, covering a total of 11,977 miles. During this period, seven humpback whales, including Luna, died. In contrast, the previous year saw much less survey activity and only one whale death.
Gerasoulis’s software integrated various data sources, including NOAA data on whale deaths and vessel traffic data, revealing patterns that suggest offshore wind survey activities are linked to the increase in whale deaths.
Despite these findings, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) maintains that there is no scientific evidence directly linking offshore wind activities to whale deaths. NOAA representatives have stated that no whale mortality has been attributed to offshore wind activities.
<span class="dsq-postid" data-dsqidentifier="29353 https://www.themainewire.com/?p=29353">7 Comments
Where are all the save the whale environmentalists? Windmills are outrageously expensive as well as inefficient. As far as the environment goes these wind mills as well as solar panels are an environmental disaster. What happens when these Why no info on exactly what is the lifespan of these behemoths?
The trouble is regardless that newer projects are being cancelled worldwide the Democrats in Maine and in Washington will continue to throw away millions upon millions rather than admit they are wrong. This political party does not give a damn about the average tax paying Mainer. Keep raising prices, keep raising taxes, fees, slowly keep taking your freedom as they work to expand government and your dependency on government.
Let that sink in!
Vote like your life depends on it because my friends it really does with these special self serving interest Democrats in power,
Massively overpriced junk forced on the taxpayer by an over-reaching government. That’s Bidenomics! How many internet connections for that $ 42.5 billion so far? Trick question; the answer is ZERO.
The Sierra Club says not to worry about the whales . I don’t believe them but many will.
Let’s vet them. Wonder what we’ll learn.
Hopefully this turbine is where Greta Thunberg got her juice from!
Yet another lame brain democrat idea that costs a fortune, that delivers the exact opposite results of what the democrats tell us,……
Drill baby drill,……. Trump 2024
Clean, cheap, renewable power? What is nuclear energy!
these windmill projects are going as planned really…. they were never supposed to work. only bleed the taxpayer. death by a thousand cuts. it all makes sense once you understand the carbon footprint “they” want gone isYOU