Mills proposes 10-year moratorium on offshore wind

In a bid to defuse opposition and avoid conflict with Maine’s fishing interests, Gov. Janet Mills proposed a series of actions Monday to advance a floating wind research project planned for far offshore in federal waters, while protecting the near-shore waters valued for lobstering and coastal tourism. 

In a letter to licensed commercial fishermen, Mills announced that she will ask the Legislature to approve a 10-year moratorium on new offshore wind projects in waters managed by the state, which extend three miles from shore.

The ban, however, wouldn’t include the already permitted New England Aqua Ventus demonstration site off Monhegan island. That venture, which would feature a single turbine atop a floating platform pioneered at the University of Maine, is being developed in a $100 million partnership with two global ocean energy companies, Diamond Offshore Wind and RWE Renewables.

Read the full article at:

https://www.pressherald.com/2021/01/25/in-bid-to-ease-fishing-indus...

Offshore Wind Power: The Status of Wind Power in Maine; Concerns and Progress in Wind Technology

Guests

Dr. Habib Dagher, executive director, University of Maine Advanced Structures and Composites Center

Dan Burgess, director, Governor’s Energy Office

Kristan Porter, president, Maine Lobstermen’s Association

Sarah Haggerty, wildlife biologist, Maine Audubon

Chris Wissemann, CEO, New England AquaVentus

https://www.mainepublic.org/post/offshore-wind-power-status-wind-po...

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Comment by Richard McDonald/Saving Maine on January 31, 2021 at 7:41pm

Willem: But a lot has changed in 15 years. With the Climate Change cabal now in charge their plans will accelerate. Funding is the only obstacle.  

Comment by Willem Post on January 27, 2021 at 10:25pm

Richard,

It took the Norwegians 15 years to test, design, and build a few floating wind turbines off the coast of Scotland, for demonstration purposes.

Then, they tried to con Maine into doing it as well, except the cost of the electricity would have been about 30 c/kWh, WITHOUT SUBSIDIES.

The prior Governor, now cooling his heels in Tax-free Florida, told the Norskis to scr.. themselves.

EVEN PIGS CAN BE MADE TO FLY WITH SUBSIDIES 

Comment by Richard McDonald/Saving Maine on January 26, 2021 at 3:21pm

This is my cyniocal take on the moratorium. Mills is playing politics (no surprise) with her gracious moratorium. She's up for re-election in 24 months and doesn't want the bedrock communites of Maine's fishing industry pissed at her. The moratorium is a head fake. If you step back and think through what needs to take place between now and the reality of spinning turbines of our coast you'll realize she's not doing the fishing industry a big favor. This is a very safe bet for Mills - it costs her nothing with the cliamte change zealots - she'll be long gone. They know it will take years to design, package, approve and build a large scale offshore development - so no pressure from them. In the meantime, UMaine will bump along with their toy turbines, the state will quietly conduct due diligence on a service site (Mack Island) and potential developers will line-up once the Federal leases are announced (years away) -  then the hard part begins - service infrastructure buildout, project design, community input, opposition, delays, permitting, studies and more studies, and (maybe) construction. It takes about 4 -5 years to analyze, permit and build a ridgeline project so10 years feels about right for a highly-complicated, "floating" offfshore project. It could take longer.

In addition, the climate zealots will continue their narrative and ramp-up the rhetoric and fear to insure Maine meets the mandated 100% renewable goal which makes offshore wind a necessity.

So there's nothing in her call for a halt that halts anything. She gets some nice press while behind the scene work continues to develop offshore wind. Typical politics that's all.   

Comment by Long Islander on January 26, 2021 at 12:58pm

Why the double standard for offshore vs. inland wind?

https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/why-the-double-standard

Comment by Penny Gray on January 26, 2021 at 12:52pm

Fishermen are struggling to protect their dwindling resources and preserve a Maine way of life.  Large landowners inland are looking to maximize income from forestlands by encouraging wind leases.  I don't think Mills anticipated the fight from the lobstermen and others.  This bodes ill for Maine's mountains.  Nobody cares about rural residents.  The one comment posted on the link to the floating turbines in Richard McDonald's post has far more comprehension of the industry than most of the comments posted in the Portland Press Herald.  Not surprising.

Comment by Richard McDonald/Saving Maine on January 26, 2021 at 10:19am

Habib Dagher's floating wind tech is late to the game. 

https://www.offshore-mag.com/renewable-energy/article/14188688/wind...

Comment by Art Brigades on January 26, 2021 at 9:47am

Why is it so ok to cautiously weigh the impacts on the ocean but not on the mountains? 

Comment by Stephen Littlefield on January 26, 2021 at 8:47am

Never liked or trusted that little troll Fauci!

Comment by Thinklike A. Mountain on January 25, 2021 at 10:03pm

Why do we call government the Swamp when "The Sewer" would be more accurate?

“Until now, the only reporting of Dr. Fauci’s role in all of this has been his funding of the Wuhan lab in general,” Hilton said. “But tonight we can go further thanks to this paper. We can see the specific activity that Dr. Fauci funded and it is terrifying — so terrifying that after we reached out to NIH this paper was mysteriously taken off-line on Friday for a while. But we downloaded it weeks ago.”

Saying the evidence suggests the U.S., under Fauci, commissioned the research that produced the COVID-19 virus, Hilton called on the infectious disease expert to “step aside.”

“This week President Biden made Dr. Fauci his chief medical advisor with an enhanced role,” Hilton concluded. “In the light of the documents and the evidence we presented tonight, that role is completely untenable. Fauci must step aside until we get to the bottom of this in creating, unintentionally of course, the catastrophic global pandemic.”

ARTICLE AND VIDEO at following weblink: https://www.bizpacreview.com/2021/01/25/steve-hilton-finds-stunning...

 

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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