Despite more than $113 million in taxpayer funding, UMaine's ofshore wind scheme was found inferior to private sector designs
By Steve Robinson
June 27, 2024
Last year, LD 1895 “An Act Regarding the Procurement of Energy from Offshore Wind Resources” passed, which got the ball rolling on Maine’s push for offshore wind port.
The port will be the culmination of a more than decade-long taxpayer-funded effort to develop a floating offshore wind research array project, with the goal of eventually turning the Gulf of Maine into an industrialized wind farm. The viability of this technology was to be tested through an array of 12 wind turbines using the patented VolturnUS concrete, semi-submersible floating offshore wind turbine platform design created by Dr. Habib Dagher of the University of Maine, over the last decade. The Portland Press Herald conceded that this floating offshore wind research array project is too cost-prohibitive without an almost billion-dollar dedicated wind port facility off the coast of Maine, which means that a port must be constructed before the state can even move forward with the research array outlined in LD 1895.
Enter Sears Island. It is precisely because of this VolturnUS technology that the uninhabited and non-industrialized Sears Island was chosen for the offshore wind port location due to the large land and deep water requirements needed for the football-field-sized concrete floating platforms to be manufactured and launched, even though there is a viable already industrialized port location on Mack Point, only 800 yards away. The need to prop up this technology also led to Governor Mill’s introducing a bill, LD 2266, which was sponsored by Rep. Gerry Runte (D-York) — (whose wife just happens to work for the company that developed Maine’s Offshore Wind Roadmap). This bill lifted EPA protections for sand dunes on Sears Island that got in the way of Maine’s plans to industrialize the last of its kind island on the east coast. This bill initially failed in the house, but after threats and coercion by special interest groups like the Natural Resources Council of Maine and the Maine Labor Climate Council, the bill eventually passed.
It is also the VolturnUS technology that is being touted as a new Maine-made marine industry that will provide hundreds of jobs and give Maine unprecedented influence over offshore wind energy around the world.
There is just one small problem with these claims—the VolturnUS platform may not be viable for commercialization, as indicated by a recent Department of Energy readiness contest.
Article continues at https://www.themainewire.com/2024/06/hope-floats-but-not-for-umaine...
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Comment
U.S. Sen Angus King
Maine as Third World Country:
CMP Transmission Rate Skyrockets 19.6% Due to Wind Power
Click here to read how the Maine ratepayer has been sold down the river by the Angus King cabal.
Maine Center For Public Interest Reporting – Three Part Series: A CRITICAL LOOK AT MAINE’S WIND ACT
******** IF LINKS BELOW DON'T WORK, GOOGLE THEM*********
(excerpts) From Part 1 – On Maine’s Wind Law “Once the committee passed the wind energy bill on to the full House and Senate, lawmakers there didn’t even debate it. They passed it unanimously and with no discussion. House Majority Leader Hannah Pingree, a Democrat from North Haven, says legislators probably didn’t know how many turbines would be constructed in Maine if the law’s goals were met." . – Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting, August 2010 https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/wind-power-bandwagon-hits-bumps-in-the-road-3/From Part 2 – On Wind and Oil Yet using wind energy doesn’t lower dependence on imported foreign oil. That’s because the majority of imported oil in Maine is used for heating and transportation. And switching our dependence from foreign oil to Maine-produced electricity isn’t likely to happen very soon, says Bartlett. “Right now, people can’t switch to electric cars and heating – if they did, we’d be in trouble.” So was one of the fundamental premises of the task force false, or at least misleading?" https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/wind-swept-task-force-set-the-rules/From Part 3 – On Wind-Required New Transmission Lines Finally, the building of enormous, high-voltage transmission lines that the regional electricity system operator says are required to move substantial amounts of wind power to markets south of Maine was never even discussed by the task force – an omission that Mills said will come to haunt the state.“If you try to put 2,500 or 3,000 megawatts in northern or eastern Maine – oh, my god, try to build the transmission!” said Mills. “It’s not just the towers, it’s the lines – that’s when I begin to think that the goal is a little farfetched.” https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/flaws-in-bill-like-skating-with-dull-skates/
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Hannah Pingree - Director of Maine's Office of Innovation and the Future
"Once the committee passed the wind energy bill on to the full House and Senate, lawmakers there didn’t even debate it. They passed it unanimously and with no discussion. House Majority Leader Hannah Pingree, a Democrat from North Haven, says legislators probably didn’t know how many turbines would be constructed in Maine."
https://pinetreewatch.org/wind-power-bandwagon-hits-bumps-in-the-road-3/
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