New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy’s Administration Gives up on Offshore Windmills
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy’s Administration Gives up on Offshore Windmills
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New Jersey will not provide financial backing to new offshore wind projects, Gov. Phil Murphy’s administration announced Monday.
The decision blows a hole in his environmental agenda and legacy and effectively dooms Atlantic Shores, a project off the coast of Atlantic City that has been the focus of opposition from President Donald Trump and Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-N.J.).
Murphy, a term-limited Democrat, took office in 2018 hoping offshore wind projects would be a perfect issue to unite a liberal coalition and ensure his legacy by providing clean energy to fight climate change and mega projects to employ union workers.
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The challenges include 1) economic conditions beyond Murphy’s control and 2) Trump, preferring the use of abundant, domestic fossil fuels, which have a major benefit of increasing CO2 ppm that increases the growth of flora and fauna and increases crop yield to feed hungry people
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In New Jersey, state utility regulators has rushed approval new projects by agreeing to burden ratepayers with extremely expensive electricity from windmills.
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The state had approved five projects. Two were canceled in 2023 by Danish energy giant Ørsted, largely because of inflation and supply chain issues. Three others were plodding along with little prospect of being completed..
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The death blow came to Atlantic Shores, which was on track to be the state’s first offshore wind project after Ørsted’s exit.
The project, a 50-50 partnership of European energy giants Shell, a Dutch oil and gas conglomerate, and EDF, a French company, received federal permits in the final weeks of the Biden administration.
But, because of greatly increased costs, the partnership needed more subsidies from the state.
When Shell realized no additional money would be forthcoming, it pulled out of the project.
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Another pair of projects that already received state backing are years away from getting the federal permits, which the Trump administration may never grant, and have asked to extend key deadlines for their projects. .
One of those requests, from Leading Light Wind, came before Trump was elected; the other, from Attentive, a subsidiary of TotalEnergies, came days after Trump took office.
Attentive is also one of the companies that dropped out of the recent BPU bidding process.
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The projects do not get money until they generate power. So, while state has spent time and often significant resources on planning for offshore wind – including hundreds of millions earmarked for a special “wind port” facility in South Jersey — ratepayers are not paying for power they may never receive.
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The head of the state Economic Development Authority, Tim Sullivan, said in a statement that the state has “taken a cautious approach to further development of the port since 2023, and we have worked to identify alternative uses that would maximize the economic development, job creation, and financial potential of the site for the state.”
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All these project deaths and delays are devastating to Murphy’s climate economic development agenda. .
Environmentalists and some labor unions who have long championed offshore wind have also had their hopes dashed.
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Perhaps one of the most potent signs of how dashed hopes have been came last year at a South Jersey port that was being reconfigured to assemble giant foundations for wind turbines.
A company had started to cut up and scrap the massive structures, known as monopiles, meant for Ørsted’s first project.
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Comment by Thinklike A. Mountain on February 18, 2025 at 12:55am
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https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2025/02/european-leaders-emergency...
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REPORT: Sen. Tom Cotton Allegedly Working Behind the Scenes to Block Trump’s Pick, Elbridge Colby, From Getting Confirmed at the DoD
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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 on the Maine expedited wind law
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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