Owen Klinsky
Contributor
A Danish renewable energy group booked huge impairment losses Thursday after it pushed back the launch of one of its U.S. offshore wind projects, according to its first-half 2024 earnings report.
Orsted estimated the value of its assets declined $472 million in the first half of 2024, largely due to delays at the onshore substation for its 704 megawatt (MW) “Revolution Wind” project off the coast of Rhode Island and Connecticut, the report showed. The company also reported a variety of other problems, including losses related to its cancellation of its Ocean Wind projects in New Jersey and its abandoned effort to produce eco-friendly methanol in Sweden.
“Despite encouraging progress on our US offshore wind project Revolution Wind, the construction of the onshore substation for the project has been delayed,” Orsted’s CEO Mads Nipper said in reference to the delay. “This is, of course, unsatisfactory, and we continue our dedicated efforts to de-risk our portfolio.”
The delay at Revolution Wind was driven by soil contamination at an onshore transformer station, and resulted in an asset markdown of $310 million, or roughly 65% of the total impairment amount.
Orsted’s stock fell as much as 9% following the earnings announcement, according to Reuters.
The U.S. offshore wind industry has had a wave of project delays, missed production targets and public backlash in the past year.
New York State scrapped three offshore wind projects in April after failing to finalize power purchase agreements with developers. The failed efforts contributed to Democratic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul issuing an official review in July admitting the state was going to miss its goal of 70% renewable electricity by 2030.
A July report from the American Clean Power Association found there will only be 14 gigawatts of offshore wind production capacity deployed by 2030, less than half the Biden administration’s target.
The industry also came under fire in July after a broken wind turbine off the coast of Nantucket scattered debris into the ocean, resulting in multiple beach closures. (RELATED: ‘Bunch Of Suits Trying To Cover Their Tracks’: Beach Town Locals Slam Offshore Wind Developer For Polluting Shores)
The Biden administration has provided billions of dollars in subsidies to the offshore wind industry, including to Orsted.
“We maintain a strong focus on de-risking project execution and prioritizing growth options with the highest potential for value creation,” Nipper said of Orsted’s first-half earnings results.
Orsted and the White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
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Wind will make Solyndra look like a good investment.
Plenty more on the way.
https://www.theepochtimes.com/us/epa-obligates-27-billion-in-climate-related-funds-to-68-recipients-5707375?utm_source=ref_share&utm_campaign=copy
The only things more costly than (Wind and Solar) Free Energy are the proposals of Democrats trying to “Save Us” from our productive lives
Obama thought so 🙁
Solyndra was an excellent investment. For some people. You have to be able to time your bailout JUST before the plane goes into a tailspin.
Likewise the gathering of campaign contributions is all about timing.
Net Zero is a funny game. The only way to win is not to play.
Well, I think a better winning strategy is to grab the Government subsidies while actually not putting any of one’s (the business’) own money into the related venture.
Thanks, Joshua.
It certainly is a W.O.P.E.R.!
https://tenor.com/view/the-simpsons-mr-burns-excellent-sly-gif-15090441131025470920
Future historians will puzzle over this.
How did this descent into hysteria happen? How did people suddenly get persuaded that there was a climate emergency? Why did they then persuade themselves that the remedy was to transition electricity generation to wind and solar? When it cannot be done, and even if it could, it would not materially affect either global emissions or the global climate? And why did it continue for decades, despite mounting evidence that it was totally unfounded?
Why was the mania mainly confined to the English speaking countries?
And why did this happen at the same time, and in the same groups, that equally mad and evidence free ideas and policies proliferated about sex and gender and race?
I guess we shall have to wait a few years and see what they write, and in the meantime resign ourselves to living in the madhouse that the West has turned itself into. And to see that this is not putting it too strongly, consider that if you are a man between 20 and 50 in England, and go in for an X-ray, you are liable as a matter of policy now to be asked if you are pregnant.
Its a madhouse, all right.
“Future historians will puzzle over this.”
I’m not an historian nor do I play one on TV, but why wait on the future?
I’m currently puzzled.
The mechanics of pushing an untruth seem to be well understood — and ruthlessly used. Back in the day, so I read, at first few people believed the meme that (mostly) old women witches were responsible for bad weather, failed crops, mysteriously dying farm animals, and a myriad of other mainly weather related difficulties. However, the idea was heavily leveraged by the first useful idiot true believers until eventually the majority realized they had to keep their mouths shut and go along with the charade for their own good, whatever they personally believed. According to historical research based on written records of trials and executions, mostly kept by the churches, there were around 50,000 executions for Witchcraft in what were then the German states.
A large proportion of those executions somehow seemed to enrich various nobility.
Not much difference today, with the new nobility.
Executions were power. Once you could make an accusation against any person, provide a few well-paid witnesses, and summarily execute them, you held unlimited power to make your subjects say and do anything. Which gave you even more power over all your subjects.
Disclaimer: Any parallels drawn to modern society are yours, not mine.
I think, the technique is to promote assertions and establish them as ”givens”. I can recall that when I first heard about wind energy (for example) many many years ago, in the early days before the climate hysteria was a common household disease, it was promoted with the promise of free energy in the future. Well, the wind is ”free” after all, so I thought, yeah, sounds great.Who doesn’t want free energy? Amazing, but all these years later, there are still people who think this is the potential. However, the wind has changed (pardon the pun) and gradually, more and more begin to realise there’s no such thing as a free lunch. So the emphasis now is more towards how important it is to have ”clean, CHEAPer, greener” energy so as to fight climate change. An imaginary problem with fabricated solutions that not only, don’t work, but are totally unnecessary.Yet, so many accept them as established ”givens”
Yep, “the wind is ”free”. It just costs an Arm & Leg to covert it into Electricity.
“….and in the meantime resign ourselves to living in the madhouse that the West has turned itself into.”
Its a madhouse, all right.
****************
Yes, as Charlton Heston said in Planet of the Apes, it surely is.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMnM_cQu6Fo
It’s still one of my favorite sci-fi movies.
If someone in a hospital asked me if I was pregnant I would need all my self-restraint not to bust him or her in the mouth.
They’re still trying to figure out tulips…
Michel, The simple answer to your question is. Cultural Marxism.
The West’s institutional fixation with a failed, though constantly tried social strategy, is based on the belief that it will be better next time than the previous attempts. We simply have to adopt an ever purer version of the totalitarian madness to demonstrate its effectiveness….apparently.
The nonsense focus on stupidity by the Marxist’s mindset now collectively described as ‘Woke’ gives us a real time experience of how institutionalised madness is deployed.
The next time any man is asked at the X-ray department ‘are you pregnant?’ Think. Would you trust anyone with your body, who is so wedded to dogma and so prepared to follow the rules of woke, they would ask you such a stupid question?
‘if you are a man between 20 and 50 in England, and go in for an X-ray, you are liable as a matter of policy now to be asked if you are pregnant’
Very distressing – I am in my 70s and am now feeling ignored!
However much one hates the MSM, its not enough.
Unfortunately this is small stuff compared to the numerous huge projects in progress. for example Dominion just finished te 50th of 176 foundations off virginia for its 2,600 MW monster. Plus the just bought thevleasevfor a second 2,600 MW.
There are 28 active leases with a bunch more coming as BOEM is rushing to get as many sold as possible before the election. Trump has promised to stop everything on “Day one” but that would not be easy. Lease holders have development rights.
Then what the Guv should do is bury them in paperwork, summons, maybe a spurious lawsuit or 10, new enviromental studies, ad nauseum. After all, that’s what the geenie-wackos do,; turnabout is fair play, no?
Especially since in this case it’s actually justified. How many whales have to wash up on the beaches?!
And all for something that CANNOT provide the energy needed, because it can’t operate 24/7.
From the above article:
“. . . efforts to de-risk our portfolio.”
That’s a new low in gobbledygook.
And it invites the obvious question: Well, why did you risk your portfolio in the first place? . . . got a little too greedy?
Heads should roll at Orsted for valuing subsidies over risk.
“de-risk our portfolio”
The schist hit the fan, and we don’t know how to clean it up.
Orsted simply would not exist without State subsidy. The entire business model is predicated on it.
Subsidies and mandates are the only business case for worse-than-useless wind and solar.
The Guardian just keeps lying : https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/aug/15/we-should-have-better-answers-by-now-climate-scientists-baffled-by-unexpected-pace-of-heating? I you are looking for Saturday humor it all there. “The worsening trend will continue until fossil fuels are stopped. “As climate change continues, every decade it gets warmer, the impact is larger and the consequences are greater,” Says noted climate hack Gavin Schmidt +you get the more than 99.9% of climatologists agree trope.
It is nice to know the Guardian has moved on from the previous 97% scientists agree phase.
Who knows, it may adopt the Tower Hamlets voter turnout level of confidence and claim 110% of scientists all agree soon….
Remember the basic rule. Never click on a Guardian article it just encourages them and provides them with click based add revenue.
Thank you for reading it and reporting it.
You can get a free copy of the Guardian comic output from most UK university students’ common rooms. Always worth reading what the enemy is planning to do next.
The Guardian’s circulation figures are so poor that the Scott Trust stopped publishing them.
Quite, that is one of the reasons they are so eager to get click counts.
The alternative is to start publishing factual copy, sadly while they have the likes of Monbiot on their books that option is not being tested.
It is also why the World’s most evil man – Bill Gates – stepped in with a few million to stop them heading for the bankruptcy they deserve.
Apparently the Guardian lost £39 million last year. Lying isn’t profitable.
The more gov’t money they lose, the more gov’t money they get.
From the above article:
“The Biden administration has provided billions of dollars in subsidies to the offshore wind industry . . .”
Most likely the direct result of the
Inflation ReductionFederal Debt Explosion Act of 2022.Inflation Induction Act
This year has been a feeding frenzy, as Biden and Democrat hopes fade while there are $billions left unclaimed. As federal giveaway deadlines approached, we have witnessed an onslaught of solar, storm shelter, climate planning, and other proposals feeding at the federal Inflationary Return Act trough.
Now comes the time we juxtapose. The “vice” half of an administration that built 7 EV charging stations in two years (for which they allocated $7 billion) announced she will see to it that 3 million homes are built.
https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/kamala-harris-wants-3-million-new-houses-built-feasible
https://www.stripes.com/theaters/us/2024-03-30/biden-7-billion-7-ev-charging-stations-13457136.html
If it made any financial sense private money would be flooding in, and no subsidies would be needed
Wind and solar are not green, they are not renewable, they are expensive, they are not recyclable, they can not provide energy when needed, they do endanger the grid, they should be removed from the grid. Fire up all fossil fuel and nuclear, build new fossil fuel and nuclear, keep the grid up to date and safe from wind and solar.
Over decades, I made a lot of money ‘investing’ (both long and short’) on sure things. Orsted is a short, but risky rather than a sure thing because of Biden subsidies and European origins.
My best short ever was kitchy Bamboo Company furniture, when they touted their European expansion. I lived in Europe for six years, and knew it had no hope, Shorted at tout hiked $33, closed the short at $3.
Meanwhile, in Texas (and probably many other places), these clean, green monstrosities are somehow saving the world:
https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/sweetwater-wind-turbine-blades-dump/
There goes the neighborhood. They could repurpose them as homeless shelters.
I’ve long thought they would make serviceable oars for the vessel St. Greta uses for her transoceanic voyages.
They should be dumped in “blue” states that vote for this crap.
Will not be good for retirement funds in Denmark banking big on “renewables”.
One of the difficulties with the NetZero fantasy in Australia is that government and union funds are invested in “renewables”. So government and union employees actually have skin in the game.
The fund managers cannot comprehend that they are backing a giant Ponzi scheme that is at the precipice. Opposition leader Dutton has taken the Ponzi to the edge of the cliff by backing nuclear as the long term future.
It is increasingly viable for households in Australia to simply go off-grid. That reduces the demand for grid scale WDGsso their market is in decay. There is no heavy industry in Australia (apart from mining) that is not on some sort of energy assistance to survive but Greens want no stinkin’ smelters.
Queensland wholesale electricity price went negative at 7am today. Both Qld and NSW had negative prices from 9am to 2pm yesterday. This week SA and Vic have regularly seen negative pricing. And it its still winter. Rooftops are set to overtake wind as the largest source of intermittent power in Australia by the end of 2024.
It is increasingly viable for households in Australia to simply go off-grid.
Well only in remote areas where the user pays cost of transmission feed and transformer gets awful and even then with solar and battery storage the economics calls up a fuel genny for the last percent or two. If you’re talking urban then home battery storage won’t pay whereas coal produced Chinese REC subsidised solar panels certainly pays if you can use it during the day with electric storage HWS a pool pump etc.
Meanwhile struggletown can enjoy the cheap fickles mantra from the climate changers and bask in the warm inner glow-
Growing number of Aussies unable to pay power bills | Watch (msn.com)
Read this again. A couple of times. A subsidized energy company cannot execute a plan to build it’s onshore substations assets in a cost effective manner.
Did that sink in yet? Who are these charlatans?
Yes sort of like building railroad equipment without any tracks.
Which is the kind of stupid that government subsidies causes.
we continue our dedicated efforts to de-risk our portfolio.
…cos the Gummint aint de-risking us enough with the slushfunds to fulfill their mantra that fickles are cheaper.
Big government + salt water + electricity. Eh, what could happen?
What 30 years ago would have been the plot for a science fiction movie is today our daily life.
Maybe these turbines can be repurposed as carbon capture devices allowing said companies to harvest a second round of subsidies and grants?
” 70% renewable electricity by 2030 ” LOL never going to happen.
“It’s beginning to look a lot like fustion, everywhere you go…”
Even if they managed to build enough of this worse-than-useless crap for it to *occasionally* produce 70% of electric demand, it would still require 100% backup for when the wind isn’t blowing at the *right* speeds and the Sun isn’t shining (or the solar panels are covered in ice and snow).
So what’s the point?!
And in a couple of decades, most of the worse-than-useless wind and solar “collection” equipment will be up for replacement. Where is all of THAT money coming from?! And so on…
That wind turbines have a functional life of twenty years is total fiction. Warranty repair and replacement is a sizable portion of what is bankrupting turbine OEMs.
re: “Biden-Subsidized Offshore Wind Developer Reports Massive Losses In Latest Blow To Industry”
Anything to match the Solyndra losses that tax payers faced? (570 million ythereabouts)
https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamandrzejewski/2021/04/12/remembering-solyndra–how-many-570m-green-energy-failures-are-hidden-inside-bidens-instructure-proposal/
De-risking the portfolio? Any sign of a publically available hurricane study? Ernesto had brushed past well offshore
“We maintain a strong focus on de-risking project execution and prioritizing growth options with the highest potential for value creation,”
‘What an empty word salad! I wonder what the staff’s 1st draft said before being massaged through the executive suite and marketing & communications office.
1st draft:
“We took a good look at risk and actually we’re scared sh*tless”.
“…we continue our dedicated efforts to de-risk our portfolio.” This is why they pulled out of the 1GW Skipjack Wind project off of Delaware/Maryland. They couldn’t make money with the negotiated OREC rates.
I like the picture.
They get the green. We get the ashes.
I don’t like that picture at all – and I’m sick of “funding” it.