The offshore wind industry is suffering a runaway cost crisis.
Could the bust be at hand? The evidence is piling up.
The Feds have admitted that offshore wind development can cause the death of whales and other marine mammals, but they refuse to actually assess that threat for any wind facilities
As dead whales continue to wash up on New Jersey’s beaches, Garden State officials are hoping to issue the final permits in the coming months enabling construction to begin later this year on the state’s first offshore wind facility.
The forced transition to occasional electricity generation from breezes and sunshine has proven to be ultra-expensive for the wealthy countries of Germany, Australia, Great Britain, and the USA. For the poor... devastating.
The intermittency of wind power greatly reduces the efficiency of the gas fired backup generators. That is, a lot more gas has to be burned to generate the same amount of electricity. This means that wind power will not reduce emissions by very much.
The inevitable result will be shortages and price spikes.
Just for electricity from EV batteries, and the electricity occasionally generated from wind turbines and solar panels, the World Bank estimates that more than three billion tons of metals and minerals could be required over the next three decades.
What we need is supply chain emission analysis.
If the primary justification for building enormously expensive offshore wind megaprojects is to reduce CO2 emissions then there may be no justification.
In NOAA's own opinion there will be eight human caused dead Right Whales caused by the project every year, even though the allowable amount is zero!
NOAA is taking public comments on a massive proposal to harass large numbers of whales and other marine mammals by building a huge offshore wind complex.
New Jersey is arguably the leader in stupidity here, although there are several serious contenders, so let's take them as a quick example.
These are the Draft Environmental Impact Statements (DEIS) that precede each offshore wind project. They are jointly prepared by BOEM and NOAA.
Opposition to onshore and offshore wind spans the political spectrum to include environmentalists, chambers of commerce, fishermen, Native American tribes, ferry operators, airport commissions, business groups, municipalities, and homeowners.