Offshore Wind Turbines  May Already Be Antiques

Picture: Megawatt Wind Turbine Failures Since 1979 -  Infra Sound  
.
Offshore wind contractors are halting the development of massive wind projects on the East Coast due to economic pressures, interest rates, lack of investors long-term capital expenses, and a lack of a supply chain.  
.
No one is asking what is going to happen to all the wind turbine parts engineered, designed, and stored for delivery over the past few years. Many of these parts may sit in warehouses for years.
.
Every year more enhancements are quickly advancing to wind turbine components and configurations of current wind turbines with a power rating of up to 14 megawatts.
.
The Chinese now have a new wind turbine rated at 22 megawatts twice the size of currently ordered East Coast wind turbines. The current turbines being considered today could quickly change to the larger less expensive Chinese turbines next year.
.
This would not be the first time older-model wind turbines were installed and failed. 
.
The Massachusetts Technology Collaborative now called the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center using money from the state’s ratepayer-funded renewable energy trust fund, ordered two turbines delivered in December 2005 for $5.2 million.
.
No one wanted the antiquated gear-driven turbines as they sat in a warehouse in Texas for years until they were installed in Falmouth Massachusetts in 2010 and 2012. 
.
The old turbines had gearbox problems and major noise issues for nearby neighbors. The newer turbines had direct drive rather than a gearbox.  The turbines were removed in 2022 over multiple lawsuits.
.
Who is going to want an ocean wind turbine that could have for example blade problems or is already too small when installed or sat in a warehouse? 
.
Note #
1. Environmental issues include Whale deaths that have followed the wind industry since the Block Island wind farm in 2016 and have followed the construction. The question of infra-sound from the blades over a long period of time in the ocean could also affect marine life.
.
2. The question of insuring the submarine cables is still up in the air.
.
3. Massachusetts has a multi-million dollar blade testing facility in Charlestown that is too small for today's wind turbines and they are only getting larger.
.  
The commercial wind is a bunco scheme of enormous consequence. The people who value intellectual honesty should not quietly be fleeced by such mendacity, even from their government officials. 

 

Views: 111

Comment

You need to be a member of Citizens' Task Force on Wind Power - Maine to add comments!

Join Citizens' Task Force on Wind Power - Maine

Comment by Willem Post on November 5, 2023 at 10:52am

Frank,

Ask them how they came up with the 3,600 FTE, and how much will be left over after cancelled projects.

Comment by Dan McKay on November 5, 2023 at 5:26am

From "Power Advisory " :

The main reasons why this market is currently undersupplied are as follows:

  • Increases in RPS. The Massachusetts RPS was modified in 2018 from 1% annual increases to 2% annual increases for the years 2020-2029. There have also been RPS increases in Connecticut and Maine during 2019 and 2020.
  • Delays in Offshore Wind Projects. Under the Trump administration, the 800 MW Vineyard Wind project was delayed as the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) delayed the project’s federal permitting. However, on March 9, 2021, the Biden administration gave initial approval to the project, and it is now on schedule to come online in 2023 or 2024. Several other offshore wind farms will follow. But this still creates a void for compliance buyers who contracted these projects until then.
  • Delays in the New England Clean Energy Connect (NECEC). The Massachusetts Clean Energy Standard (CES) which came into effect in 2018, creates an additional requirement for compliance entities to buy Clean Energy Credits (CECs). Class 1 RECs qualify as CECs as well as non-emitting resources such as large hydro from Canada via the 1,200 MW NECEC transmission project contracted by the state’s electric distribution companies from a 2017 solicitation. However, this project has taken longer than expected to begin construction and in the meantime, compliance buyers must use Class 1 RECs to fill the void, or pay the CEC ACP which is equal to 50% of that of the Class 1 REC ACP. In 2021, that’s 50% of $60, or $30 and in 2022, that’s 50% of $40, or $20. This serves to tighten the Class 1 REC market to some extent, although when pricing is above the CEC ACP, Class 1 RECs will not be used. Rather, compliance entities will pay the CEC ACP which is lower. The NECEC got its final permit approval on January 15, 2021 and has subsequently begun construction. Though the is a court injunction that is holding up a 54 mile stretch of the project. The project is expected to achieve COD in Q2 2023. The project had originally been scheduled to come online in 2022.
Comment by Dan McKay on November 5, 2023 at 5:22am

Massachusetts has a REC problem. The betters in Mass. thought offshore wind would accelerate their renewable program, so they increased the percentage of renewables that investor-owned utilities must offer by standard offer from 1 % to 2%, which will send the price ratepayers pay for Renewable Energy Credits through the roof.

Comment by Frank Haggerty on November 4, 2023 at 10:00am

In 2021 Massachusetts promised offshore wind will generate 3,600 full-time equivalent (FTE), including 500 union jobs highlighted at the signing of the nation’s first offshore wind agreement.

Per the Project Labor Agreement on Friday, July 16, 2021, in New Bedford, Massachusetts 

The news media fails to report the failures.

Comment by Willem Post on November 4, 2023 at 9:49am

Floating Offshore Wind Systems in the Impoverished State of Maine

Maine government bureaucrats, etc., in a world of their own climate-fighting fantasies, want to have about 3,000 MW of floating wind turbines by 2040; a most expensive, totally unrealistic goal, that would further impoverish the already-poor State of Maine for many decades.

Those bureaucrats, etc., would help fatten the lucrative, 20-y, tax-shelters of mostly out-of-state, multi-millionaire, wind-subsidy chasers, who likely have minimal regard for:

1) Impacts on the environment and the fishing and tourist industries of Maine, and

2) Already-overstressed, over-taxed, over-regulated Maine ratepayers and taxpayers, who are trying to make ends meet in a near-zero, real-growth economy.

Those fishery-destroying, 850-ft-tall floaters, with 24/7 strobe lights, visible 30 miles from any shore, would cost at least $7,500/ installed kW, or at least $22.5 billion, if built in 2023 (more after 2023)

They would produce electricity at about 40 c/kWh, without subsidies, about 20 c/kWh with subsidies, the wholesale price at which utilities would buy from Owners (higher prices after 2023)

https://www.maine.gov/governor/mills/news/governor-mills-signs-bill...

The Maine people have much greater burdens to look forward to for the next 20 years, courtesy of the Governor Mills incompetent, woke bureaucracy that has infested the state government 

The Maine people need to finally wake up, and put an end to all the climate scare-mongering, which aims to subjugate and further impoverish them, by voting the entire Democrat woke cabal out and replace it with rational Republicans in 2024

The present course leads to financial disaster for the impoverished State of Maine and its people.

The purposely-kept-ignorant Maine people do not deserve such maltreatment

NOTE: The above prices compare with the average New England wholesale price of about 5 c/kWh, during the 2009 - 2022 period, 13 years, courtesy of:

 

Natural gas-fueled CCGT plants, with low-cost, low-CO2, very-low particulate/kWh

Nuclear plants, with low-cost, near-zero CO2, zero particulate/kWh

Hydro plants, with low-cost, near-zero-CO2, zero particulate/kWh

U.S. Sen Angus King

THE UNTOLD STORY OF RECORD HILL WIND

The Untold Story of Record Hill Wind, continued

 

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/

Not yet a member?

Sign up today and lend your voice and presence to the steadily rising tide that will soon sweep the scourge of useless and wretched turbines from our beloved Maine countryside. For many of us, our little pieces of paradise have been hard won. Did the carpetbaggers think they could simply steal them from us?

We have the facts on our side. We have the truth on our side. All we need now is YOU.

“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”

 -- Mahatma Gandhi

"It's not whether you get knocked down: it's whether you get up."
Vince Lombardi 

Task Force membership is free. Please sign up today!

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/

© 2024   Created by Webmaster.   Powered by

Badges  |  Report an Issue  |  Terms of Service

Sign in to chat!