In a recent and rather dramatic turn of events, the Rhode Island Fisherman’s Advisory Board (FAB) has made a bold statement by collectively resigning from the Rhode Island Ocean SAMP process. Their letter, addressed to Jeff Willis, the Executive Director of the Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management Council (CRMC), pulls no punches in its critique of the Council’s approach to offshore wind development.
“We, the undersigned members of the Rhode Island Fisherman’s Advisory Board (FAS), hereby resign and refuse to participate any longer in the Rhode Island Ocean SAMP process. It has become abundantly clear that the Rhode Island CRMC has made deference to offshore wind developers its top priority regardless of the requirements of the Ocean SAMP, the cost to the environment, or the impacts to Rhode Island’s fishing industry.”
https://ecori.org/fishermens-advisory-board-done-playing-role-in-crmcs-political-theater/
This statement alone speaks volumes about the perceived shift in priorities of the CRMC. The FAB members believed that their role was to ensure that offshore wind projects conformed to the requirements and restrictions of the Ocean SAMP. However, their experience suggests otherwise:
“The Ocean SAMP process has been reduced to mere political theater, to which we refuse to lend any further credence by our presence.”
https://ecori.org/fishermens-advisory-board-done-playing-role-in-crmcs-political-theater/
The FAB’s frustration is palpable. They detail the countless hours they’ve invested, providing the CRMC with expertise, data, science, research, and experience. Yet, they feel their efforts have been in vain:
“Concurrence decisions are made ahead of time regardless of any other considerations, FAB expertise rejected and ridiculed by the Council as ‘anecdotal’ while the developer is free to provide misinformation with impunity…”
https://ecori.org/fishermens-advisory-board-done-playing-role-in-crmcs-political-theater/
The letter paints a picture of a process that has lost its way, with the FAB feeling sidelined and their expertise undervalued. They highlight the stark contrast between the strict regulations they face in the fishing industry and the leniency shown to offshore wind developers:
“It is apparent that the Council does not take its regulatory role seriously. As the seventh-most regulated industry in the nation, we in the fishing industry know what it is like to be held to strict regulatory standards, including environmental standards.”
https://ecori.org/fishermens-advisory-board-done-playing-role-in-crmcs-political-theater/
The FAB’s concerns extend beyond mere procedural issues. They point to tangible environmental impacts, such as the “decimation of cod spawning grounds” and “significant long-term impacts on Rhode Island’s fishing industry.”
In a poignant conclusion, the FAB members express their unwillingness to be associated with what they view as the Council’s misguided decisions:
“We will not allow our names to be connected in any way to Council approvals now amounting to wholesale ocean destruction. Rhode Island is supposed to be the Ocean State, not the Windmill State.”
https://ecori.org/fishermens-advisory-board-done-playing-role-in-crmcs-political-theater/
The religious fervor and the profiting off government largesse of green tech bows to no petty environmental concerns.
Jeesh…those wind mills look so expensive and fraught with problems, I would rather have a nuclear power plant.
And nukes are actually dispatchable, and last much longer than windmills.
Not only that but a 2 MW wind turbine weighs 1688 tons: 1300 tons concrete, 295 tons steel, 48 tons iron, 24 tons fiberglass, 4 tons copper, .4 tons neodymium, .065 tons dysprosium and more. And up to 80 acres of space
It takes 550 of them to equal the output of a single unit 1100MW Nuclear Generator…when the wind blows JUST RIGHT. When the weather doesn’t cooperate (under 7 mph or over 50 mph) as it does about 60% of the time, wind produces nothing while Nuclear continues even in storms and stillness day or night more than 90% of the time.
550 requires
1688 X 550 = 928,400 tons
1300 x 550 = 715,000 tons of concrete
4 x 550 = 2,200 tons of copper
.4 x 550 = 220 tons of neodymium
.065 x 550 = 35.75 tons of dysprosium
And up to 80 x 550 = 44,000 acres of space to avoid wind shadowing
Just to not install a single reliable 1100 MW nuclear generator
One study by the UC Berkeley NE department figured that, on a life cycle basis, generating 1 MW-Hr from wind takes about 10X the mineral resources than what is needed from generating 1 MW-Hr from nuclear. IIRC, this was focused on energy production and not materials needed for energy storage.
Land usage is another story.
Much more than that
https://robertbryce.substack.com/p/the-power-of-power-density
https://robertbryce.substack.com/p/the-iron-law-of-power-density-part
In addition to Robert Bryce, see Mark Mills – https://manhattan.institute/article/the-energy-transition-delusion and https://media4.manhattan-institute.org/sites/default/files/mines-minerals-green-energy-reality-checkMM.pdf
That along with the posts from WUWT by Willis E. – California Dreaming and Bright Green Impossibilities – in fact, if you just do a search on “bringht green impossibilities on WUWT, you will see a number of very good articles.
https://www.nei.org/news/2015/land-needs-for-wind-solar-dwarf-nuclear-plants
If you count acreage for generation vs acreage for the safety of the facility…Diablo Canyon NPP covers just over 750 acres of space including over 700 acres of open land for control. The generating facilities themselves sit on just over 12 acres to produce 2256MW over 90% of the time.
Topaz Solar Farm is a 550MW site on 4700 acres (2256 MW would take 18,800 acres) with a capacity factor of 26% (so would need 75,200 to cover the capacity factor) but only produces useful energy from 10am till 2pm so would require TWh of battery back-up to offset when energy is generated vs when it’s needed.
Obviously, “the Fix” is in.
Buyden will blame Trump!
The Xo Baiden administration will blame Trump, Baiden himself couldn’t put two coherent words together to blame anyone for anything
The environmentalists where the ones who got nuclear stopped in favor of fossil fuels. Nuclear power plants would have been standardized, safe, and cheap by now had the nuclear industry been allowed to grow. Much of the cost of nuclear was because of regulatory oversight since the reactors weren’t all similar.
There may be hope yet for the planet as more and more people/organizations fight back against the big green nonsense.
Climatistas care nothing about the environment or the havoc they cause. They are only focused on a control agenda.
Some don’t know… and they’re getting older. Bills. Kids.
The idea that the next generations leaders are foregoing parenthood worries me.
“No kids” diminishes future consequences, as long as the retirement fund holds out.
There’s talk to be had about whether the retirement fund can withstand zero population growth. Maybe they’ll invest overseas.
I know the feeling.
Years ago, in a small town, the elected folks appointed several of us to act as a planning advisory group. They paid no attention to anything we suggested. After a year or so, we self-disbanded.
Years ago, in a medium sized school district, I inherited the leadership of the District Advisory Committee for Title I. With due malice aforethought, I consulted the past minutes of the committee. (There were innumerable meetings going back for years.) I could find no instance in which the committee had ever given advice to anyone. (Some administrators do seem to be skilled at keeping parents distracted, away from genuine problems.)
Observing that there was no clear process for actually making recommendations, we set out to create one. We distributed forms to members on which to propose recommendations, and a formed a sub-committee to review submissions and make proposals to the whole committee. Shortly we forwarded, (I think,3) proposed recommendations to be considered and voted on at the committee’s regular meeting.
The one recommendation remember was at least simple: that parents be given a copy of their kids’ test scores at the regular parent teacher conferences. The administration went ballistic. It was as though we were proposing to tear the schools down brick by brick… As I remember, the recommendation passed anyway.
I had some satisfaction, when what was essentially the same advice came down in a mandate from Sacramento a year or two later. Had nothing to do with us, but did show that our parents were not out to lunch in giving that advice.
“…political theater…” says it all.
Not an isolated incident – Scottish ministers have over-ruled local objections 40 times in the last 5 years https://www.strathspey-herald-.co.uk/news/community-objections-to-wind-farms-in-highlands-fall-on-stony-ground-225155/
In addition the Tories are looking to remove the moratorium on mainland wind farms after lobbying from the renewables industry.
Apologies. https://www.strathspey-herald.co.uk/news/community-objections-to-wind-farms-in-highlands-fall-on-stony-ground-225155/
Not isolated at all. In its Green Energy Act of 2009, Ontario’s government specifically removed the applicability of all municipal zoning laws from all renewable energy projects.
This act of petty tyranny is one reason why the provincial Liberals in Ontario have been reduced to non-party status, the last two elections running.
tangible environmental impacts, such as the “decimation of cod spawning grounds” and “significant long-term impacts on Rhode Island’s fishing industry.”
Neither of those ‘impacts’ are tangible. They have no magnitude.
Has one pair of spawning cod been disturbed, or seven million? Do ‘significant long-term impacts’ (a favorite meaningless squawk of environmentalists) mean the destruction of fish habitat, or interference with fishboats, or just spoiling the scenery with workboats and windmills?
Next time, make your ‘impacts’ something counted or clearly described.
Yeah as a hardcore skeptic of bird shredders, it’s hard to voice support for these concerns. Undersea structures generally increase biodiversity. How do windmills decimate cod spawning grounds? I’m open to persuasion.
The empirical evidence that something is killing whales is stronger, given the carcasses on beaches. It correlates with offshore wind development but so far as I’m aware the mechanism isn’t yet clear.
Sorry I’d like to be supportive but there’s no science presented here to justify that. I’m still strongly opposed to shredding birds and see no need of additional arguments against a technology that doesn’t actually work because it needs to be fully backed up by dispatchable power sources.
https://www.science.org/content/article/navy-admits-sonar-killed-whales
Rich here is an articles about sonar killing whales. The siting of the wind mills is what is causing the deaths.
At least that is my understanding.
Maybe, maybe not. I mean it sounds like that might contribute to the problem but could easily be only one cause. I would not let the greentards off the hook so easily. How convenient, it’s not the bird shredders, it’s the military. We loathe the military.
Rich I think you misunderstand.
The siting for the wind mills uses loud sound to graph the bottom for placement. That loud sound, similar to sonar, is killing the whales.
I am not blaming the military, I am pointing out a similarity between what the “greentards” are doing and what has happened in the past.
Sorry I missed your comment about the siting of windmills and only read the link you posted. That might make sense I guess.
The post is just the letter sent announcing their withdrawal.
Sounds like they had previously submitted the data but were continually ignored.
Perhaps WUWT can contact them and invite them to make a post?
for what it’s worth, we spent a week on Block Island this past june. Went charter fishing twice with the same, local and I must say exceptional and knowledgeable guide. (caught our limit of stripers both days, and actually had to throw back most because they were above the slot limit, caught some blues and a ton of black sea bass, which all went back (week early)).
He loved the turbines. Not sure he followed the economics of them, but he wasn’t put out by them at all. They were purposely built in the “in-shore” waters to avoid imperial entanglements, so if anyone would be inconvenienced by them, it would be he.
side note. RI is so corrupt that you cannot get a true “deep sea” fishing charter off of BI, even though you had a 10 mile head start to the tuna waters. You actually have to charter a boat from Point Judith to pick you up on its way out.
seems legit.
Addendum: Also, we did ask about the cod fishing. (i grew up in MA) He was quite convinced it was the burgeoning seal population that had taken the toll on cod. Couldn’t walk a beach there without the remains of at least one dead seal. Never saw that 30 years ago. Lots of yellow great white buoys too
Something can be tangible even if it hasn’t been tanged yet. It only has to be possible to tang it.
Next time, make your ‘impacts’ something counted or clearly described.
It’s a resignation letter, not a study.
Story tip
https://wordpress.com/read/feeds/867469/posts/4878555850
When you cannot tempt, persuade or bribe the masses to accept your draconian policies, just heavily fine or imprison them, it is the new democratic way under the globalist regime
try this link! Is anyone fixing the site meta, it’s frustrating?
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2023/09/02/property-owners-who-dont-comply-with-new-energy-rules-may-face-prison/
It is becoming increasingly apparent that offshore wind turbines are no longer about transitioning to so-called “green energy”, but instead are simply about money and political power for those who benefit from wind turbines.
The greed for money and political power makes people do strange things, like ignoring whale deaths at sea and avian wildlife deaths on land. Instead, they continue to refer to wind turbines as “green energy.” There is hardly anything “green” about the toxic waste and material left behind that are not recyclable when wind turbines reach their end of life. The blades immediately come to mind.
The hatred of fossil fuels and the companies that produce them (and Big Oil in particular) may be playing a role here as well. At any rate, when the greed for money and political power are at stake, facts, reason and common sense get thrown out with the bath water along with science and engineering.
I suggest that the only things keeping the wind turbine industry alive are the mandates and subsidies from government and the political clout of the eco-left.
I too really doubt ( after the construction process is over) that the fish would have any trouble dealing with the obstructions. It is one more thing for fishing vessels to worry about though even with modern electronic navigation. But the concept itself just a waste of time and money and a golden parachute to the right people properly connected.- at taxpayers expense.
So now a mariner has to not only worry about a lee shore if you loose the plant but a lee wind farm as well.
The windmills might create a ‘safe space’ for the fish from the trawlers and line fishermen that now cannot access the zones, so they are restricted to now less productive open waters.
A lot of this off shore wind stuff seems to be collapsing under its own weight. Orsted is down 25% in a week, has postponed all its planned US off shore, and has given as a reason insufficient subsidies against increased costs.
For perspective, when I did the analysis a few years ago, the correct LCOE for CCGT was $58/MWh compared to onshore wind (10% penetration based on ERCOT grid) at $146/MWh. ~2.5x. The biased EIA says off shore wind is ‘only’ 3x on shore. So ‘only’ 7.5x CCGT. Subsidies at on shore levels clearly do not suffice for offshore, as Orsted complaints show.
Will Joe Biden panic because the windmills are not getting built, and try to increase the windmill subsidies?
That, or watch all their big plans go down the tubes.
Forcing an energy transition on the populace is not going very well. Why? Because it is unworkable.
Since the only purpose of the windmills is to provide a way for cronies to get rich wasting taxpayer and borrowed money, the question answers itself don’t you think?
The same as any unproductive government subsidies for whatever purpose. As they say, “pile up the free money and they will come.”
The acronym SAMP stands for Special Area Management Plan
Thank You.
Any chance we can see an end to the jargon and acronym’s? Or at least encourage the authors to explain them in the article?
probably not.
Story tip
https://climatechangedispatch.com/chinas-coal-power-binge-escalates-over-300-more-plants-on-the-way/
China is on its way to Net Not Zero – a proper energy policy
Story tip
https://electroverse.info/vostok-antarctica-coldest-august-since-2002/
Its cold down there, no global boiling, please tell Antonio
Hard to believe humans or machines can function there at all. Hurts just thinking about it. Especially if one has to try to fix something.
And now they need to flood local media in RI, MA, CT, NY, DL, NJ, VA about this. Not go national, strictly local. When people really understand Federal and State governments and wind companies are killing all the protected ocean wildlife they are accusing citizens of killing they may actually wake up.
Can anyone give direction to a paper discussing a
successful and productive wind generation projects ?
I’d be shocked if they can
I would imagine it would depend on the definition of ‘successful and productive’ and who you talked to.
This is an example of a very important principle put into action. Those of us who still value objective, apolitical science as a guiding principle to policy must be willing to remove ourselves from any process that uses our participation only as window dressing to reach a predetermined political conclusion. If not, George Orwell’s fictional 1984 will become non-fiction only a few decades later than the title implies.
A VERY EXPENSIVE OFFSHORE WIND ENERGY FOLLY IN NEW ENGLAND
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/a-very-expensive-offshore-wind-energy-folly-in-new-england
EXCERPT
The Block Island Wind Farm, after many years of dithering, became operational in late 2016. It is located 3.8 miles east of Block Island, Rhode Island. It has five wind turbines, each with a capacity of 6 megawatt. Each turbine is about 589 feet tall.
The annual wind electricity production would be about 105,000 MWh/y, if the capacity factor were 0.40.
The estimated useful service life would be about 20 years, based on about 20 years of European offshore experience.
Project turnkey cost was about $290 million, or $9.67 million/MW, which at least 2 times higher than North Sea pricing.
Quick Estimate of Electricity Cost
If the major costs of 25-year financing, a return on investment, operation and maintenance, replacements, insurance, and property taxes were ignored, the cost of electricity production, just to return the capital, would be about $290 million/(20 y x 105,000 MWh/y) = 13.8 cents per kilowatt-hour.
If these costs were not ignored, the cost of electricity would be at least 20 c/kWh. That would be about the price charged to utilities under a long-term power purchase agreement, PPA. This electricity would be variable and intermittent, i.e., no wind, no electricity.
http://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/the-reality-of-wind-energy-in-new-england
Other generators, likely gas-fired, would be required to provide supplementary electricity, on a year-round basis, i.e., perform the peaking, filling-in and balancing, which reduces their efficient operation. This inefficiency increases as more wind electricity is added to the grid. See URL for more info.
http://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/fuel-and-co2-reductions…
Lifetime Performance of World’s First Offshore Wind System
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/lifetime-performance-of-world-s-first-offshore-wind-farm
This article provides some valuable lessons to learn from.