In July, the U.S. Department of Interior greenlighted large offshore wind farms in New Jersey and Maryland. Once the financial agreements are in place, New Jersey’s Atlantic Shores and Maryland’s MarWin and Momentum will join the two large wind farms in New York approved in June. These projects will receive huge, multibillion-dollar subsidies from the federal government and electricity ratepayers. What benefits will New Jersey and Maryland enjoy from this flood of money?
To answer this question, it is best to recall the classic warning of the Trojan Horse legend, “Beware of Greeks bearing gifts”—in other words, the hidden dangers of accepting something that seems too good to be true. New York State ignored that warning when it agreed to pay very high prices for the electricity to be supplied from its new offshore wind farms—Empire Wind 1 and Sunrise Wind—located off the coast of Long Island.
In announcing the final agreements, New York Governor Kathy Hochul triumphantly claimed that the new projects would create more than 800 jobs during the construction phase and deliver more than $6 billion in economic benefits for the state over 25 years.
Rather less emphasis was given to the fact that New York will pay an average price of over $150 per MWh (megawatt hour) for the electricity generated by Empire Wind 1 and Sunrise Wind.That’s more than four times the average wholesale price of electricity in New York during 2023–24, $36 per MWh. The total annual premium over the wholesale market price for the power from these wind farms will be about $520 million per year at 2024 prices. Over 25 years, New York ratepayers will be paying about $13 billion for alleged benefits of $6 billion.
That is not all. Thanks to tax credits, U.S. taxpayers will cover at least 40% of the costs of constructing the wind farms. At a minimum cost of $5.5 million per MW (million watts) of capacity, the total federal subsidy for New York’s two wind farms will be at least $3.8 billion.
What about jobs and other economic benefits? A study prepared for Equinor, the owner of Empire Wind 1, and submitted to the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) claimed that it would directly generate 180 annual jobs in New York during the six-year construction phase. The study estimated another 60 annual jobs due to the indirect employment effect, i.e., extra employment in the supply chain for the project.
A more reasonable estimate for the two projects together would be 515 annual jobs, not 800. The total contribution to New York State’s gross value added (the equivalent of GDP at the state level) during the construction of both projects would be less than $450 million, based on the report submitted to BOEM. Similar calculations for annual operating and maintenance (O&M) costs suggest an annual contribution of about $24 million to gross value-added or about $600 million over 25 years.
Rather than the benefits of $6 billion over 25 years touted by Governor Hochul, a realistic assessment would be closer to $1.1 billion at 2024 prices. In any event, residents will be paying a cumulative premium of $13 billion for the electricity these projects will generate.
Moreover, the additional jobs claimed for the project are concentrated heavily in the final year of construction—and the largest share (47%) consists of professional services. Overwhelmingly, these are jobs for people who would otherwise be working on other assignments.
The economic benefits of the two offshore wind farms are much lower than claimed by the governor and the jobs are, in large part, temporary assignments for professional services staff. Promoting business for consulting firms may be considered a desirable outcome by Ms. Hochul. Still, the very high financial burden will be borne by almost the entire population of the state.
Stepping back from the New York projects, the Biden administration’s overall goal is to reach a target of 30 GW (billion watts) of offshore electricity generation capacity by 2030 or shortly thereafter. That is equivalent to 17 times the capacity of the combined Empire Wind 1 and Sunrise Wind projects. Detailed costs and financial arrangements vary, but the figures above suggest that the recurring premium paid by electricity ratepayers in states with offshore wind farms will be about $9 billion per year. The benefits of new job creation and incomes from capital and O&M expenditures are likely to be less than $800 million per year.
In addition to the very large subsidies paid for from ultra-high electricity bills, federal taxpayers will contribute about $65 billion via tax credits if the Biden administration’s offshore wind target is met. While the subsidies for individual projects may not seem outrageous, the commitment of money to subsidize offshore generation is about $870 for every member of the country’s population. This may be spread over 25 years, but it is a huge liability for one very small element of U.S. programs to support renewable energy.
Gordon Hughes is a Senior Fellow with the National Center for Energy Analytics.
This article was originally published by RealClearEnergy and made available via RealClearWire.
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Hopefully they haven’t dismantled all the conventional generation when the next Sandy type blow rolls into the neighborhood. Watching them ration electricity may finally wake a few people up.
Let me fix that for you …
Hopefully they have dismantled all the conventional generation when the next Sandy type blow rolls into the neighborhood.
Watching them ration electricity may finally wake a few people up.
Almost the entire supply and erection and O&M parts, will be by European companies, including the financing by European pension funds to pay decades of pensions to European pensioners, who will not visit the US to offset the money outflow.
Biden/Harris are super screwing us
Elect Trump by a landslide to stop this nonsense for good, and to MAGA, and to safeguard the US Supreme Court, and Freedom of Speech, and the Right to Bear Arms at all times.
Offshore Wind Blade Not Too Large To Fail
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/offshore-wind-blade-not-too-large-to-fail
Degradation and failure of turbine blades under service conditions.Potential causes leading to wind turbine blade failures.
A lot of this wind crap started with Merkel and her off-the-charts-costly ENERGIEWENDE
Merkel has a PhD in Physics.
She knew better, but she allowed herself to be pushed by leftist, Socialist know-nothings into closing nuclear plants, promote the ENERGIEWENDE, and allow millions of unskilled, third world, from God knows where, to enter Germany and create all sorts of unrest in staid Germany.
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I lived in Germany for three years in the 1950s
I find it unrecognizable to-day
Van der Liar wants to make it worse, not just Germany, but all of Europe
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When I lived there, GUEST workers (haha) from Türkiye were brought in to do low-skilled factory work.
But the German women, at that time, did not want to go out with them, so they demanded Muslim virgin child brides to be sent from Türkiye
But that was not enough, the whole extended family, on both sides, came as well.
Then the issue arose, where do we go to church.
They demanded Islam churches and Sharia Law
Word got around, Germany was a rich sap, come on down by the millions. etc.
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I warned my uncles/aunts and cousins and they laughed at me.
They are crying in their beer now!
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A repeat of that disaster in the US can be avoided, by electing Trump by a landslide to MAGA
Obama, Clinton, Biden, Harris, Walz, etc., should not be anywhere near the the US government, to stop the weaponizing of the government
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Tim Walz’s Own Brother, Jeff Walz, Considers Joining Forces with Trump, Slams Governor as ‘Unfit to Make Decisions About Your Future’
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In the 1950, the ratio of adult women to men was 4 to 1, due to Germany losing soldiers by the millions in WW2.
It was sheer stupidity and short-sightedness of Germany’s leadership to cement Germany’s downfall by inviting GUEST workers from Türkiye
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With too long rotor blades having torsional failures, the end of large wind turbines is near.
12 MW units have torsional failures of blades in the North Sea and near Cape Cod.
3 to 6 MW wind turbines are not viable, except in the windiest areas.
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Nuclear has to take its place
However, that is a problem, because of scare-mongering and woke-isms, almost all of the world’s nuclear sector is totally dominated by Russia, China and Korea.
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The West is a distant second
Hinkley in the U.K. and the French plant in Finland have huge over-runs, and many years of schedule delays, because incompetence is piled onto woke idiocy.
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“Merkel has a PhD in Physics.”
Just having a Ph.D. in Physics doesn’t mean a person knows about anything useful. I had an undergraduate degree in physics, M.S. and Ph.D. in geophysics, but what really taught me much more (clarified what the physics laid a foundations for) was engaging in engineering for a long time, studying on my own (a lot), and finally getting the P.E. certificate. One has to put in much personal effort to become both smart and wise.
That being said, I think your posts are great.
The word for “settled science” is engineering.
It’s much easier to fool humans with papers loaded with male bovine excrement in papers than it to fool mother nature by trying to get a design to work.
I took a similar route for some years, but quickly exited to engineering, which I found much more interesting, and rewarding
20 MW by now. Next time you post this we are probably at 25 MW
https://interestingengineering.com/energy/largest-single-capacity-offshore-wind-turbine
And, given winds abysmal 40% capacity factor, those nonexistent 20MW turbines (there’s currently a single 18MW deployed in China) will produce about 8MW as a daily average over a year.
Nuscale SMRs: 0
18MW: 1
I think we have a winner 😀
Nameplate.
Rated to 79.8 m/s (i.e., cat 5) does not mean tested or demonstrated to that force. Funny how the article references a Cat 17 typhoon. I could not find a reference to anything but cat 1 through cat 5.
Then why would they elect him?
The US is spending $150 billion per year on illegals
If you like that, as a Democrat, continue to crew yourself by voting Democrat.
If you don’t like that, do what sane Democrats are doing, vote for Trump and MAGA
Your hallucination was noted.
This does not answer the question, however. The last time they hit panic button. And then mashed it for good measure, so frantically and clumsily that the habit of applying fig leaves led to banning all mentions of Benford’s Law on Facehug. So, uh, if they wanted him out this much, why would they put him back into that chair now?
Your sarcasm is noted.
Thankfully there’s a difference between Wakefulness and Wokefulness
In all honesty, if they dismantle enough conventional generation to be dependent on the wind for electricity, it won’t take any Sandy-type blow to cause rationing of electricity. Just a good string of days where the wind doesn’t blow at the “right” speeds will be enough to result in rationing of electricity.
Hopefully if this happens during bitter cold conditions, the ranks of those who will die as a result of these bone-head stupid policies will be drawn by those who voted for the NY Eco-Nazis and enthusiastically installed electric heat pumps to heat their homes, rather than those who voted against the NY Eco-Nazis and held on to their gas-fired boilers (and if they’re lucky, also have natural gas or propane generators).
While I sympathize with the concept, the vision of human tragedy such a result is mind-blowing.
No kidding. When a huge storm does come, and it will, these wind turbines will likely be severely damaged if not destroyed. It reminds me of the huge hail storm that pummeled a solar farm in NE and the other one in TX. No follow-up on any electricity generation afterwards, though. Chances are, little if any generation of electricity. Instead, likely scrambling to figure out how to replace this generation, figuring the cost to remove and dispose of these damaged solar panels and then the cost to resurrect these solar farms again or maybe not given the propensity of these hail storms. Hence, were these storms figured into the cost vs benefit analysis? Why would you place solar farms in areas with the probably of marble, golfball and baseball size hail? Obviously, subsidies cloud judgment and the decision-making process. Lastly, whenever has any government program use of taxpayer funds ever produced a positive return on investment? Nothing comes to mind, except possibly the dams the government construct years ago and that simply speculation on my part.
There’s price gouging, then there’s tax gouging.
You can decide not to buy something to avoid the price gouging. Try not paying taxes.
The UN commissioned a study of dams worldwide a couple of years ago (decades ago actually) and found that dams over-ran cost estimates on average by a factor of two, and except for a few instances never delivered the promised benefits. Among the few exceptions were Hoover and Grand Coulee.
Consider Teton Dam in Wyoming. It irrigated Rexburg, Idaho.
The interstate highway network has had a large impact on the country.
Much of it negative. Subsidizing expensive long-distance tractor-trailer transport in favor of rail transport at taxpayer expense being a fine example.
The REA. There are few examples, to be sure.
Now this problem is greatly simplified, for all sides involved. The gifts go straight to the people in charge of the gates, and 10 years of tiresome mucking about are easily skipped.
The investments pay for themselves. https://www.usdebtclock.org/
See also: «après nous, le déluge». And yes, «they always project».
Applying the standard rule, those 515 jobs in the wind industry will destroy between 1,030 and 1,545 jobs in the rest of the economy.
What those in charge don’t understand is that cheap reliable energy creates jobs, expensive unreliable energy destroys jobs.
Harris claims that her and Biden created over 300K clean energy jobs in their fight
against “climate crisis” BigJoeBastardi had a piece with this mornings posting this==>
https://x.com/TheDamaniFelder/status/1829682091103314347
Total marxist lies …..We all know where this is going and it won’t end well…
And even if they did? Those jobs are counterproductive, it would be worse than “digging and filling trenches”.
Excellent analysis. The average job is maybe 40 days so not really a job.
A solar “farm” built behind my ‘hood in 2012- about 18 acres of panels. They hired 40 electricians and they worked for many 2 months- then let go.
After which most of the jobs were… what, sweeping bird guano and other trash from those panels?
Hmm. This sounds like another incentive is making up the jobs that could be traded for keeping some Helot support. They need any they can get, seeing how even washing poop off pavements is potentially heretical now.
But don’t you know that the wind gives us FREE energy? And that we are SAVING THE PLANET? And don’t you want to join us to FIGHT CLIMATE CHANGE? /sarc
Billions of dollars blowing around in the wind in New York, what could possibly go wrong? Like some of the billions could end up in unintended pockets? Unintended? Maybe the idea all along?
It’s kind of like your new landlord from Venezuela.
I wish I knew why free energy is so expensive.
Wind, sunlight, coal, oil, gas, and yellowcake are ALL free. No one gets a bill from Mother Earth for any of them. The cost comes getting the energy from them to the user WHEN and WHERE it is needed.
The saddest part of this entire project is that the net effect will be that more CO2 will be emitted than if these wind farms were never constructed. Why are we doing this,again?
Meanwhile: https://nypost.com/2024/08/29/us-news/trump-vows-to-make-electricity-cheap-with-hundreds-of-new-power-plants-and-modular-nuclear-reactors/
He has also promised to kill offshore wind. Here’s hoping.
SMRs being mentioned should tell you what scam this is.
The fact that electricity prices go up, up, up everywhere any significant amount of wind or solar is introduced into the electric grid should tell you what a scam wind and solar “power” are.
I don’t know about the Jersey shore, but here in Maryland people are fighting back against these proposed wind farms. Especially fishermen who say that the construction and operation will ruin the areas where they fish. Hopefully such opposition can stall or even prevent these wind farms from being built. If Trump doesn’t get elected that might be the only way to stop it.
Benefits to taxpayers and society in general are based on the simple formula of value provided versus costs and resources expended. On this basis of course none of these wind farms would survive critical decisions-making. The problem is that democrat politicians judge their value in terms of political contributions and potential graft for themselves and their wealthy friends. As long as voters continue to vote against their own self interest, this industry of fraud continues.
You forgot to mention the oft used claim that this sort of power is less expensive than oil, gas or coal that we hear incessantly from the media mouthpieces of the climate apocalypse crowd. In fact you contradicted that by estimating the actual cost of the electricity. Naughty bunnies.
Here in the UK construction of the Sophia Offshore Wind Farm is underway on the Dogger Bank over an area of 600 sq miles.
It will use Siemens Gamesa 14 MW turbines with a height of 252m and 3 blades each 108m long and weighing 65 tonnes. The nacelles will weigh c. 500 tonnes whilst the foundations will be 80 to 90 metres long and weigh 1200 – 1400 tonnes.
A total of 100 of these turbines will be built at a capital cost of around £3 bn and use c. 300,000 tonnes of steel, concrete and fibre glass reinforced epoxy blades.
UK annual production of steel is around 6m tonnes pa.
The resultant wind farm will provide c. 2% of UK total electricity demand pa.
Meanwhile Ed Miliband , UK Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero and Chris Stark, formerly of the UK Climate Change Committee and recently appointed to head ‘Mission Control’ “tasked with turbocharging the UK to clean power by 2030” have recently written to the UK National Grid Electricity System Operator (ESO) saying essentially
we have this plan for 2030 but don’t have a clue as to how to achieve it . Please tell us what to do pronto
And what’s it all for?
Then there are the cleanup costs when the first big blow comes through and thankfully destroys all these whale killing bird choppers. At least the copper thieves will benefit from vandalizing all the transmission lines.
Remember, this price for a commodity available cheaper elsewhere is what it costs to “Save The Earth”, otherwise they wouldn’t be doing it.
The next question to ask is: How many degrees per the MWh price increase will the global average temperature of the earth be decreased?
Who needs whales anyway?
Wait ’til they see what DEFRs are going to cost them.
You mean those … pie in the sky … Unicorn Flatulence and Fairy Dust … Nonexistent power sources?
Over 25 years, New York ratepayers will be paying about $13 billion for alleged benefits of $6 billion.
Yes but as a climate changer you just make the plant food savings $13 billion and voila! Struggletown will sqwark as usual but they’re no good at maths anyway and besides you can make yourself popular with a modest power bill handout later when the eggs really start to break.
panem et circenses
Time for a change of Presidency it seems to all.
Only government can screw things up this bad. They need to be removed from energy production and distribution. No more tax preferences, no more subsidies and no more mandates. Do these three things and we will be back on the path to normalcy. More government isn’t the answer to anything.
More government is the answer to satiating greed and lust for power.