On July 13, 2024, an offshore wind turbine at the Vineyard Wind 1 project experienced a significant blade failure, leading to debris washing up on Nantucket’s beaches and prompting a federal shutdown of the wind farm. This incident raises obvious questions about the safety and reliability of offshore wind projects, as well as the regulatory framework governing this emerging industry.
The Incident
Turbine Blade Failure
On Saturday, July 13, 2024, one of the turbines at the Vineyard Wind 1 site, located approximately 15 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket, suffered a blade breakage[1]. According to Vineyard Wind spokesperson Craig Gilvarg,
“The blade experienced a breakage approximately 20 meters out from the root”
https://nantucketcurrent.com/news/vineyard-wind-reports-turbine-blade-damage-in-offshore-incident
The affected turbine was still in its commissioning phase and undergoing testing when the incident occurred.
Debris Washing Ashore
In the days following the incident, debris from the broken turbine blade began washing up on Nantucket’s south shore beaches. Residents reported finding pieces of green and white foam, along with larger pieces of fiberglass, stretching from Madaket to Nobadeer[1]. The debris consisted of non-toxic fiberglass fragments ranging in size from small pieces to larger sections, typically green or white in color[1].
Beach Closures and Safety Concerns
As a result of the debris, six beaches on Nantucket’s south shore were closed to swimming on Tuesday, July 16[7]. Nantucket Harbormaster Sheila Lucey stated,
“The water is closed to swimming on all south shore beaches, due to large floating debris and sharp fiberglass shards”
https://nantucketcurrent.com/news/vineyard-wind-reports-turbine-blade-damage-in-offshore-incident
While walking on the beaches was still permitted, officials strongly recommended wearing footwear due to the presence of sharp fiberglass shards and debris[1].
Regulatory Response
Federal Shutdown
In response to the incident, the federal Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) ordered Vineyard Wind to shut down operations “until further notice”[2]. The BSEE, which oversees offshore energy projects, sent a team of experts to work closely with Vineyard Wind on analyzing the cause of the incident and determining next steps[4].
Investigation and Analysis
Vineyard Wind announced that GE, the project’s turbine and blade manufacturer and installation contractor, would be conducting the analysis into the root cause of the incident[1]. The company stated that it would continue working with federal, state, and locals to ensure the health and safety of its workforce, mariners, and the environment[1].
Vineyard Wind Project Overview
The Vineyard Wind 1 project consists of an array of 62 wind turbines, spaced 1 nautical mile apart on an east-west and north-south orientation[3]. The turbines are General Electric Haliade-X models, each capable of generating 13 megawatts of electricity[3]. The project includes two submarine cables that transmit the generated electricity to shore, with an onshore substation located in Hyannis[3].
Recent Regulatory Changes
In January 2023, regulations governing offshore renewable energy activities, including workplace safety and environmental compliance, were officially transferred from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) to BSEE[5]. This transfer clarified the roles and responsibilities of BSEE and BOEM in promoting offshore renewable energy production[5].
Industry Implications
Safety Concerns
The Vineyard Wind turbine failure has raised questions about the safety and reliability of offshore wind projects. As the first major incident at a commercial-scale offshore wind farm in the United States, it may lead to increased scrutiny of safety protocols and equipment reliability in the industry.
Environmental Impact
While the debris from the turbine blade was reported to be non-toxic, the incident highlights potential environmental concerns associated with offshore wind development. The impact on marine life and coastal ecosystems will likely be a focus of ongoing discussions and future project assessments.
Economic Considerations
The shutdown of Vineyard Wind operations, even if temporary, could have economic implications for the project and the broader offshore wind industry. Delays in power generation and potential increases in operational costs may affect the project’s financial viability and investor confidence.
Regulatory Scrutiny
This incident may lead to increased regulatory oversight and potentially stricter safety standards for offshore wind projects. Regulators may revisit existing guidelines and consider implementing more rigorous inspection and maintenance requirements.
Public Perception
The visible impact of the turbine failure, with debris washing up on popular beaches, could influence public perception of offshore wind projects. This will likely lead to ramped up propaganda campaigns by project developers and industry advocates.
Paul Craney, a spokesperson for the Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance, expressed concerns about the incident and its timing:
“Not even one offshore wind factory has been completed and we’re already seeing red flags in the mildest of conditions. Now, the House is pushing for new authorization for so-called clean energy procurements, forcing ratepayers to subsidize this costly decision. It’s cronyism at its worst. The people of Massachusetts shouldn’t be forced to spend their hard-earned money on precarious energy sources resulting in environmental cleanups and unreliable, unproven outcomes”
https://www.wgbh.org/news/local/2024-07-16/feds-halt-vineyard-wind-operations-after-weekend-turbine-incident
Looking Ahead
The Vineyard Wind turbine failure serves as a significant test case for the nascent U.S. offshore wind industry. As the sector continues to grow, with the Biden administration setting a goal of deploying 30 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2030[6], the response to this incident and its long-term implications will be closely watched by industry stakeholders, regulators, and the public.
Key areas to monitor in the coming months include:
1. The results of the root cause analysis being conducted by GE and any subsequent recommendations for turbine design or operational changes.
2. Potential updates to safety protocols or regulatory requirements for offshore wind projects.
3. The duration of the Vineyard Wind shutdown and its impact on the project’s timeline and financial performance.
4. Any changes in public sentiment or political support for offshore wind development, particularly in coastal communities.
5. The response of other offshore wind developers and how they may adjust their practices or communication strategies in light of this incident.
As the U.S. offshore wind industry continues to evolve, incidents like the Vineyard Wind turbine failure will likely shape its development, influencing everything from technological innovations to regulatory frameworks and public engagement strategies.
Citations:
[1] https://nantucketcurrent.com/news/vineyard-wind-reports-turbine-blade-damage-in-offshore-incident
[3] https://www.vineyardwind.com/vineyardwind-1
[5] https://www.bsee.gov/about-bsee/renewable-energy
[7] https://www.cbsnews.com/boston/news/nantucket-beaches-closed-vineyard-wind/
[8] https://www.boem.gov/renewable-energy/regulatory-framework-and-guidelines
H/T georgeinsandiego, pkudude99, R C, David
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How much was the liability/cost (avg per day) for the closed gulf beaches?
Sounds like Wind will be just another super expensive “Free Energy” source that doesn’t last long. Lets hear what excuses will pop up
Perhaps…
It was an off day
It had a cold
It was Jet Lagged
It was taking cold medicine
It just got over having Covid (for the next debate excuse)
His sniper could not find the bullseye
‘It just broke, when we turned it on’…
‘not my fault, it is someone else’s fault’
There’s soon to be a GIANT swirling patch of fiberglass and foam, the size of Massachusetts in the Atlantic Ocean. But don’t worry … micro fiberglass in the environment isn’t as harmful as micro plastics … this article already confirmed it.
If you are itchy after swimming, what then?
Calamine lotion?
This spring I pulled out a fiberglass reflecting rod. As a result I got more than 8 to 10 fiberglass “needles” about the diameter of a hair in my hand. When I read the above article I immediately thought of how painful and difficult it was to get them out of my hand. Hope that this wind turbine incident does not cause others to suffer like this.
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/GEV/ shows their stock dropped 9.25% today.
I own GE stock in a managed portfolio. They look to become the Boeing of electricity.
GE Vernova is part of the GE three-way split. Perhaps it could be analogous to the “Baby Bells.”
https://www.investopedia.com/ge-completes-its-split-into-3-public-companies-as-ge-vernova-makes-its-trading-debut-8623533 notrs:
Old GE performed miserably after the worthless mortgages scam fell through.
Ge owned a sizable portion of loan and mortgage debt.
GEV stock is up 22.86% in the past three months
You are data mining
No, I’m looking at the response to a significant event. I wasn’t data mining. I want to see three particular closing prices. Mining goes a lot deeper.
You’re looking at what may have been a misguided belief among investors that the GE energy division was on the right track. Off hand, I don’t know what percentage of GEV is the wind division. Perhaps you can look that up and report back, please.
22.9% in three months looks to be data cherry picking.
GEV is basically unchanged from May 27, 2024.
Just curious what the repair costs are for such a failure? Is it even worth the cost of repair after all the Federal subsidies have been mined? Will this broken contraption just be abandoned in the ocean? To become a “forever” navigation hazard?
The “repair” would consist of replacing the turbine blade that failed. Given the above article and how little is known to date, that replacement blade could be assumed to have the same probability of failure.
Assuming the rotor was spinning when the blade broke, I’m sure the other two blade were damaged by a lot of the debris. I expect all three blades get replaced.
If the rotor was spinning when the one blade broke, centrifugal “force” may have put the debris on a trajectory away from the path of the other two blades.
However, there remains the question if the turbine had the electronic control smarts to gradually bring the rotation to a standstill before the rotor imbalance could break the other blades or the turbine’s bearings and/or support structure.
Fiberglass items often don’t cut the fiberglass strands, leaving broken pieces trailing as the blades spin, not clean broken pieces sailing outward.
Well, the clear evidence is that most of the blade (that is the portion 20 meters outboard of the blade root) did break off . . . instantaneously or eventually. And the above article reports that only that portion of one blade failed.
Sure there might have been damaged inflicted on the other two blades of the one wind turbine due to the failure of the first blade, but it appears to have been insufficient to cause failure of them.
We just need more facts.
GE – providing more green jobs than you expected!!
Renewable jobs for renewable energy …
This is CLEAN ENERGY for y’all !!
Right.. !
So now that these 62 x 13 MW turbines aren’t producing any power, what is? Reliable, plentiful and affordable Fossil Fuels.
They do not produce power when there is too little wind, or too much wind
In fact, they CONSUME power, 24/7/365, whether operating or not.
The total SELF- USE power is about 1.5 to 2% of the annual production
The variable output has to be counteracted by traditional power plants, causing 1) more wear and tear of these plants, and 2) lower annual production, 3) lower efficiency of that production
Those owners are triple-screwed, unless compensated
In addition, the on-shore grids need reinforcement and expansion to deal with the additional MW from the wind turbines
Then there is the damage to fisheries and tourism and the beach being littered by parts of the wind turbines,
Then, there are the oil leakages into the water from the Greyhound bus on top of the 500 ft tower.
The A to Z COST ARE MUCH HIGHER THAN IS BEING ADVERTIZED.
THE THIRD-TERM OBAMA CABAL, USING BIDEN AS A DYSFUNCTIONAL FIGUREHEAD, IS SCREWING THE US PEOPLE BIG TIME FOR IDEOLOGICAL REASONS, and to have more Democrat government command/control over our lives.
Floating Offshore Wind Systems in the Impoverished State of Maine
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/floating-offshore-wind-systems-in-the-impoverished-state-of-maine
World’s First Floating Wind Farm to Undergo First Major Maintenance Campaign, Turbines to Be Towed to Norwegian Port
https://www.offshorewind.biz/2024/01/15/worlds-first-floating-wind-farm-to-undergo-first-major-maintenance-campaign-turbines-to-be-towed-to-norwegian-port/.
By Adrijana Buljan
.
The world’s first commercial-scale floating wind farm, the 5 turbines, 30 MW Hywind Scotland, officially entered the operations and maintenance (O&M) phase in October 2017. After a little over six years of operation, the Siemens Gamesa wind turbines are now due for major maintenance work.
While offshore turbines undergo maintenance work more than once during their lifespans, and tasks, such as major component exchange are not uncommon, this is the first time this will be done on a floating farm.
“From operational data, we have identified the need for heavy maintenance on the wind farm turbines.
This is the first such operation for a floating farm and the safest method to do this is to tow the turbines to shore and execute the operations in sheltered conditions,” an Equinor spokesperson said in a statement emailed to offshoreWIND.biz.
The maintenance will be performed during the summer in the Gulen Port in Norway as Equinor has awarded the contract for the onshore works to the Wergeland Group, which is expected to finish the campaign in three to four months after the start.
“Wergeland is the closest port with offshore wind experience and sufficient water depth that can service these turbines. The work will be done in close collaboration with the turbine supplier Siemens Gamesa,” Equinor’s spokesperson said.
Hywind Scotland, located 25 kilometres offshore Peterhead in Aberdeenshire, comprises five Siemens Gamesa 6 MW turbines mounted on SPAR-type foundations.
The floating wind farm has been operating with high capacity factors since the commissioning. In 2021, Equinor reported that Hywind Scotland had reached the highest average capacity factor for any wind farm in the UK for its third consecutive year.
DOES MAINE FORESEE HAVING A DEEPWATER PORT FOR MAINTENANCE OF (250) 12 MW FLOATERS?
From Google Maps, Gulen Port, Norway (about 30 miles north of Bergen) is about 350 miles northeast of Peterhead, Scotland. I wonder how much diesel fuel needs to be burned to tow six huge wind turbines 700 miles round-trip between northeastern Scotland and western Norway?
Also, Bergen, Norway is north of 60 degrees latitude, and the North Sea can get rather stormy. What happens if one of those wind turbines capsizes in a storm while it is being towed?
To tow those turbines- they should be forced to use only wind and solar energy!
Speaking of Obama, I wonder what he thought about turbine blades washing up in his backyard paddle-boarding bay, where his cook drowned last year. Maybe he’s starting to agree with “climate czar” John Kerry, who didn’t want wind turbines ruining the view from his windsurfer.
So if this turbine blade broke in the gentle breezes of midsummer, what will happen to the other turbines in gale-force winds of a winter nor’easter, where the strongest winds are usually within 100 miles of Nantucket?
Red flags, indeed!
The repair costs of wind energy contraptions will necessarily increase.
what will happen to the other turbines
They “shut it down” right? (the entire wind farm). That means that the turbines are locked so they can’t rotate, correct?
What does THAT do to the stresses on the blades?
Only 10 of the 62 planned have been built so far. I don’t know if construction is also suspended.
Just like every time the wind isn’t blowing at the right speeds.
“reported to be non-toxic”
Really.. we should feed them shards of fibreglass for breakfast.. show how “non-toxic” it is. !!
It may be “chemically” non-toxic, perhaps.. but still extremely dangerous.
Get a small shard in your foot, can easily go septic.
Fish are going to be dangerous to eat because you don’t know how much fibreglass they have ingested.
And how are they going to clean this mess up… it’s not like an oil spill where you can use dispersants and other chemicals to break it down. etc.
Is this the Martha’s Vineyard where O’bummer lives….. I really hope so.
I wonder what swimming in water contaminated with tiny fibreglass particles does to your eyes, ears, nose and mouth. ?!
Not much. Surfers have been contaminating water with fiberglass particles for decades around the world and there are more surfers now than ever before.
A surfboard is absolutely tiny compared to how much fibreglass crap these turbine blades contain… and they rarely just disintegrate spreading particles everywhere..
This is whole different story.
You are joking I suppose. I surfed for many years and all of my boards remained intact. Rarely, a board is broken in two at a heavy break, invariably both halves are recovered as trophies
From https://newbedfordlight.org/vineyard-wind-damaged-turbine-blade-likely-to-fall-nantucket-marthas-vineyard/ :
How many surfboards’ normal wear and tear over a full year is that ?
It isn’t necessarily swallowing the fibre glass particles but if they get into the airway or lungs then could there be an asbestos like disease develop?
https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/doi/pdf/10.1289/ehp.8676
I was moving some fibreglass batts once and got some in my eye.
Not at all pleasant ! I don’t want to imagine what splinters from a huge fibreglass blade would be like.
I now wear a mask and eye protection whenever I touch the stuff.
Insulation batts aren’t much to worry about. The insulation to avoid
is vermiculite from Libby MT.. It has a tremolite asbestos in it that
is 100% lethal. It was used a lot in high rise structures.. The World
Trade Centers was loaded with it and when 9-11 happened it killed
1000’s of responders.. It’s in a lot of older homes in the attic and
removing it requires full respirators ect.
Fiberglass blades from the windtowers is not much of a hazzard
beyond getting cut/stuck from handling/stepping on them barefoot
on a beach IMO.
More on Libby: https://www.sciencenews.org/article/more-miner-problem-asbestos-exposure-prevalent-mining-community
I got offered a job there back in the early ’80’s.
I met Bonnie Gestring in the mid 90’s in Helena.
while being involved with a water rights issue..
https://www.hcn.org/issues/issue-174/libbys-dark-secret/
I got recruited to work at a fiberglass boat factory when I got out of the
Navy. I drove truck delivering to the local dealers . I also
worked some in the final detail assembly section on some days. Fiberglass is a very nasty
product when it is ground like when it is shaped after coming out of the mold.
I quit after a few months, it wasn’t the lifestyle I wanted. It would get into your pores and I would take a cold shower after work to squeeze the micro slivers out then wipe them off and down the drain. The cars in the parking lot had a noticeable dust coat after a couple of hours. All the employees in the section where the grinding happened where illegal Mexican immigrants.
So far no health issues and I was heavily exposed to asbestos in the Navy during an overhaul in dry dock. I still have a shirt in a trunk from the boat days and if I put it on I start to itch within a couple of minutes…
Did you smoke then? From https://www.sciencenews.org/wp-content/uploads/1981/03/00368423.ap070512.07a00150.pdf :
Second hand smoke and chew for a while. I’ve been
told I’m fit for my age, I ride a mountain bike and
hike regularly.
Most of my shipmates smoked. And ship food would make you fat if you didn’t watch out.
Being active is the most important thing.
Mr. Ed, we are fraternal brothers of a Navy dry dock overhaul! Mine (1977 San Diego NS, USS Prairie AD15) was not fun, a year in dry dock (nasty!), then right to a 7 month WestPac deployment.
Lagging, that’s what the insulation was called. I ripped out and installed a bunch of that, very nasty itchy stuff. I’ve no lung issues from it so far (I never smoked), but I have plenty of other med issues with old age.
I’m not sure, but the home appears to be on an isolated pond:
Edgartown Great Pond is an 890 acre (at high water) brackish coastal pond located on the South Shore of Martha’s Vineyard. A thin strip of beach called a “barrier beach” separates the shoreline of the Pond from the Atlantic Ocean.
Repeat — I’m not sure.
Don’t worry … micro plastics will kill you, but micro fiberglass is safe and inert. I read that in the article.
China is still catching up on developed nations with regard quality control.
The wind turbines may have a GE brand but you need to know where key components and materials were made.
Wind turbines operate in a hostile environment and inevitably designed to the slimmest of margins ti reduce materials and costs.
The scary aspect of wind energy is that the power per unit area goes up with the velocity CUBED. It quickly becomes a nightmare.
I am probably one of the few people to directly experience the immense power of a wind turbine. Here I am sailing directly into the wind in very light breeze with no drama:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCN2MlbVJG0
The situation was entirely different once the wind picked up. That CUBED relationship is not easy to comprehend until it is experienced. It turned out to be very wet experience for me.
Did the vessel plane once the wind picked up, or are the hulls too narrow?
Why would a single blade failure require a shutdown of the entire wind farm?
In the real world, the engineering designs and manufacturing process controls were already reviewed and approved and prototypes were built and tested before manufacturing deliverable product commenced.
Sounds like a quality management problem to me. Of course, fraud is different issue, if that is suspected.
Because they are scared to death of other blades breaking.
The alternative is to make a “no-sail” excluding zone like has been done in other parts of the world where the turbines are actually producing rather than being commissioned. Until the cause is pinpointed and corrected across all machines there is real risk of killing someone. It would not be a good look to sink a vessel unrelated to the project. Likewise, killing a construction employee would get bad press.
These machines have been prototyped and the fleet is growing. Most turbine blades are made in China and these are really big machines.
Doesn’t Siemens in Germany make a lot of blades and nacelles? Maybe the German blades are better quality.
Siemens Wind Power Blades (Shanghai) is a Siemens branded turbine manufacturer. They may employ a few Germans in technology and financing roles but the real manufacturing capacity is vested in the Chinese. Most things are made in China these days.
You cannot make a cake without breaking a few eggs. Likewise you cannot make anything for industrial purposes without burning coal.
So you have to look at where the materials come from and where value is added to them.
If it is not made in China now, it will be in due course as the UN Climate treaties condemn the developed world to a subsistence existence. I believe current production of wind turbines is around 70% China. India is probably second on the list of turbine manufacturing nations.
The only transition being made is complete dependence on Chinese manufacturing. And none of this transition is saving coal. Wind turbines would need to last 200 years to be saving coal consumption.
Siemens makes voltage regulators as well. The utility I worked for receives them from the company, de-tanks them, rebuilds them, and then installs them. They come from the factory with loose fittings and other issues. You only have to experience one voltage regulator failure from poor manufacturing and quality assurance before making the decision to go thru this arduous task.
“Why would a single blade failure require a shutdown of the entire wind farm?”
It demonstrates the fragility of energy systems that depend on wind (and solar). It takes just one exceptional event (storm, accident or terrorist attack) and it will be down for a long time.
And it underscores the exceptional potential and durability of conventional fuels. One 55-gallon barrel of gasoline contains over 2 megawatt hours of energy. And it is easily replaced or moved to wherever it will be needed. 60% of that energy can be expected to do useful work.
“It takes just one exceptional event (storm, accident or terrorist attack) and it will be down for a long time.” …like a solar panel farm in a hailstorm? <:)
This is all well and good, far as it goes, but I want to see the video of it shaking itself to pieces. I want to glory in its self-destruction. I want to jump up and down, shouting “Kill! Kill! Kill!” until the greenie psychiatrist is jumping up and down with me, shouting “Kill! Kill! Kill!” and the sergeant comes over, pins a medal on me, and says “You’re our boy.”
You think I’m not moral enough to kill whales and destroy beaches after being a litter bug?
Yeah, I should have written “Burn! Burn! Burn!” or “Fuel! Fuel! Fuel!” but I didn’t think of it within the 5 minute window.
“Kill! Kill! Kill!”
like in Arlo Guthrie’s “Alice’s Restaurant”
I have blades in my teeth!
Will these windmills survive a powerful nor’easter? Wiki has long list of nor’easters that began in1888, describes their power and the destruction they caused. Sometimes hurricanes sweep up the coast and cause a lot of damage to structures and much
flooding on the land.
What are these guys thinking? Have they crossed the fingers and hoped that the
“Big One” will never come?
I recall that a floating solar farm on a lake in India got wiped out by a powerful storm.
Not a good idea to try to out guess and mess with Mother Nature. She will kick you
in the butt when you least expect it.
I am not a wind power apologist, but any power producing system can have manufacturing errors that lead to what is called “infant mortality” or early life failures. Quality control is supposed to catch these, but it does happen, even in fossils units.
Surely the reason for the failure is obvious – it was because of climate change!
It will be interesting to see who is on the hook for the costs of the damage, inconvenience and all of the checks now needed on the other blades.
Not all that interesting:
First choice: the electric utility rate payers in Massachusetts
Second choice: US taxpayers (per the above article, the federal Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement oversees offshore energy projects)
And all this because of the misinformation given by agenda politicians and their media pals about how clean solar and wind are when natural gas and nuclear are the cleanest fuels you can ever have even after using a generator for many decades.
When are the idiots in government going to wise up and what should we do about them if they don’t. There must be at least one deterrent.
Nantucket blade ride….
Oh dear, how sad, never mind….
It does raise the question, if a unit fails during trials how durable are these 13MW units when they come up against real weather conditions they will face 15 miles out at sea?
I don’t see a cause- but there have been several big storms in New England the past week. I had a power outage from Tuesday evening until late Wednesday afternoon in central Wokeachusetts. It totally sucked- what with 95 F temperatures and high humidity. Was the break due to storms or was the blade pure junk on arrival? Or both? If one broke, there is no reason to think more won’t break.
Likely cause is design or manufacturing defect. The loads close to the root of such large blades are large. This is also a likely reason to shut down the operation until cause is identified.
Good point, Steve. I did not see your post until after I did mine above.
I’m no engineer, but I suspect the best engineers know how to test, test, test new products so such problems would be highly unlikely. As for the manufacturing, same thing- test, test, test. Hopefully the defect will hurt that company’s reputation- along with alarming the public of the stupidity of windmills.
Above article has this quote:
“The blade experienced a breakage approximately 20 meters out from the root”
(my bold emphasis added)
What’s happening with the wind turbine industry is they’re pushing the limits of blade engineering in order to minimise the number of expensive offshore turbine installations (more bang per turbine) as they run out of onshore sites or run into pushback from locals. They’re learning by doing and oops!
No more low hanging fruit to be plucked by the fickles and we just learned via Fortescue their hydrogen fantasy won’t cut it either-
‘Shift in rhetoric’ towards gas from Labor (msn.com)
They’ve run smack bang into the law of diminishing returns and they know they won’t be returned when the greenouts begin in earnest.
PS: Here’s their low energy density problem seriously jacking folks off-
Battling Aussie farmer unleashes over huge 400ha solar farm (msn.com)
Hence their move into expensive offshore wind and the tradeoffs involved.
What you have to remember is the watermelons trained everyone to be ecologically sustainable and green so fickles’ energy density is now a massive problem for them as they’re hoisted on their own petard with NIMBYism. None better than themselves-
Bob Brown’s opposition to wind farm on Tasmania’s Robbins Island labelled ‘the height of hypocrisy’ – ABC News
Leftys don’t do irony.
If we close these beaches, we’re not gonna just lose the 4th of July, we’re gonna lose the whole Summer!
https://m.imdb.com/name/nm0358069/?ref_=ext_shr_lnk
Great – so now these worse-than-useless things are disintegrating BEFORE they produce their first bit of erratic, poor quality electricity. And WITHOUT any major weather event to blame it on.
Could there be a more blunt indication of how colossally STUPID these things are?! When do the masses wake up and say “ENOUGH?!”
Picture the result of a single big hurricane passing through on these things. They will be utterly destroyed and their wreckage will litter beaches from New Jersey to Maine. And rate payers will bear all the costs through inflated electric bills while the wealthy “investors” get wealthier.
Ronald Reagan nailed it when he said the scariest thing you’ll ever hear is “We’re from the government and we’re here to help.”
So, exactly how are they going to clean all that shattered fiberglass out of the water? Picking up pieces on beaches is simple, any monkey with gloves can do it. How, precisely, are they going to clear it out of the water? And spare me the “surf boards and water craft put fiberglass in water” crap. When these blades break up they shower fiberglass frags over a huge area, from large chunks down to microscopic. Anyone who has dealt with fiberglass could have told them what a massively bad idea this was, and sure many, many did tell them. I have seen the results of blade failures here in PA, on land, and it is a hell of a mess.
For more information see these posts from Bud’s Offshore Energy:
Debris poses a significant risk to marine mammals
Vineyard Wind operations shut down
Vineyard Wind turbine blade incident
And of course, losing another 5.3 % in energy efficiency (1 out of 19) isn’t going to detract at all from the overall net energy negative return on these things…
Hope these Nantucket vacationers took out trip insurance on their summer rentals. Waiting for the insurance companies to refuse to pay because “climate change” caused a thunderstorm to break the windmill.
Now that the rich elites are inconvenienced at their posh summer homes, will there be any introspection about whether windmills are a good idea?
The (no so) funny thing about this new story is that dead whale carcasses washing up along US North Atlantic shores as the direct result of emplacing/operating these offshore wind turbines seems to be quite acceptable to the residents in and around Nantucket, as well as the Feds . . . but, boy-o-boy, some fiberglas shards from turbine blades washing ashore . . . GASP! . . . we can’t have that! . . . shut it down . . . SHUT IT ALL DOWN!
/sarc
The Feds shut down the beach because of the debris from one of the turbines The Feds are pushing on the rest of us.
Likely a real threat that even the Feds recognized.
(How long was that thing supposed last?)
From https://newbedfordlight.org/vineyard-wind-damaged-turbine-blade-likely-to-fall-nantucket-marthas-vineyard/ :
From https://nantucketcurrent.com/news/island-residents-grill-vineyard-wind-as-it-apologizes-for-turbine-blade-debris :