By David Wojick
The US Energy Department recently suspended a large grant at the University of Maine for research on floating wind technology. The full significance of this suspension will not be known until it plays out, but it is useful to see the context. This research plays a central role in Maine’s massive offshore wind development program, which CFACT has been fighting for some time with sizable success.
Maine averages just a mere 1,500 MW of electricity consumption, but they want to have a crazy 3,000 MW of offshore wind. This target assumes complete electrification of cars, trucks, home heat, etc. – the full transition, which is never going to happen.
Even worse, given the great offshore depths, this has to be floating wind which costs around three times as much as fixed bottom wind, which is already way too expensive. Floating wind is also environmentally destructive with a vast undersea web of anchoring cables.
It also requires a big factory to make the huge floaters that carry the turbine towers. Maine’s objectionable choice of a factory site is Sears Island, the largest uninhabited and undeveloped island on the East Coast. Maine legislator Reagan Paul’s district includes Sears Island and she is adamantly against this project. CFACT has worked closely with her in this fight.
Central to the Maine plan is the use of floating wind technology being developed by the University of Maine. You can see some of their research work funded under the now stopped grant here: “Optimized Floating Offshore Wind Turbine Substructure Design Trends for 10–30 MW Turbines in Low-, Medium-, and High-Severity Wave Environments”.
Thus, the DOE funded research that was just stopped is on the critical path for the Maine plan. In fact, the University researchers were in the process of building, launching, and operating a small scale version of their floater design. The floater is sitting at a dock waiting for its turbine tower to be erected.
However, Maine’s entire offshore program has already been stopped, at least for now, which might make the research moot. This stoppage is an event that CFACT likely played a key role in.
The Sears Island floater factory was going to cost a lot of money, so Maine applied to the US Transportation Department for a roughly half billion dollar grant to pay for most of it. DOT had already given a similar huge grant to California.
CFACT research found that this DOT grant program was intended for projects that improved US freight traffic, which a floater factory certainly does not do. Thus the grant would be a misallocation of federal funds.
So we filed a complaint with GAO’s Fraud, Waste, and Abuse Reporting System. They examined it and sent it to the DOT Inspector General. Not long after that, DOT notified Maine that their grant application would not be funded.
It is possible that DOT turned Maine down for other reasons, but the timing makes it likely that we blew the telling whistle. Of course DOT did not say the grant would be inappropriate as they had already made one just like it. But President Trump was about to take office, so maybe they decided it was time to abandon Biden’s illegal grant practice once it was pointed out.
For more on the foolishness of the Maine program see my report here: http://www.cfact.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Maines-massive-floating-wind-folly.pdf
Getting back to the DOE research grant stoppage, it would be great if they were joining EPA and Interior in carrying out the President’s policy of stopping offshore wind. EPA and Interior have each recently stopped a major offshore wind project.
However, as with the DOE research stoppage, all of these actions are temporary, at least on paper. Each says there is an investigation going on, as does the President’s offshore wind executive order.
So there is a lot left to be done when it comes to stopping offshore wind. CFACT will be active throughout this process. Stay tuned to see how it all plays out.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Sic transit gloria.
Gloria gets travel sick?
“Sic transit gloria” is a Latin phrase that translates to “thus passes glory” or “glory is fleeting”. It’s a reminder that earthly fame and success are temporary and will eventually fade. The phrase is often used to emphasize the impermanence of material possessions and achievements. ”
From Google’s AI
Also, the impermanence of ourselves.
Duhhhhh . . . do you mean, like, that phrase might apply to the fleeting glory of offshore floating windfarms and their slick marketing to gullible bureaucrats? Who could have thought of that???
/sarc
Floating offshore wind is tripling down on a bad idea.
FLOATING offshore wind is the most expensive of all, but Maine wants to install 3000 MW of it about (300) 850 ft tall windmills, each mounted on a 50% submerged, steel platform at least 250 ft x 250 ft x 75 ft tall to maintain the windmill in upright position in all conditions.
Here is an analysis I did about 5 years ago.
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/floating-offshore-wind-systems-in-the-impoverished-state-of-maine
.
Maine government bureaucrats, etc., in a world of their own climate-fighting fantasies, want to have about 3,000 MW of floating wind turbines by 2040; a most expensive, totally unrealistic goal, that would further impoverish the already-poor State of Maine for many decades.
Those bureaucrats, etc., would help fatten the lucrative, 20-y, tax-shelters of mostly out-of-state, multi-millionaire, wind-subsidy chasers, who likely have minimal regard for: 1) Impacts on the environment and the fishing and tourist industries of Maine, and 2) Already-overstressed, over-taxed, over-regulated Maine ratepayers and taxpayers, who are trying to make ends meet in a near-zero, real-growth economy.
.
Those fishery-destroying, 850-ft-tall floaters, with 24/7/365 strobe lights, visible 30 miles from any shore, would cost at least $7,500/ installed kW, or at least $22.5 billion, if built in 2023 (more after 2023)
.
Almost the entire supply of the Maine projects would be designed and made in Europe, then transported across the Atlantic Ocean, in European specialized ships, then unloaded at a new, $500-million Maine storage/pre-assembly/staging/barge-loading area, then barged to European specialized erection ships for erection of the floating turbines. The financing will be mostly by European pension funds.
.
About 500 Maine people would have jobs during the erection phase
The other erection jobs would be by specialized European people, mostly on cranes and ships
About 200 Maine people would have long-term O&M jobs, using European spare parts, during the 20-y electricity production phase.
https://www.maine.gov/governor/mills/news/governor-mills-signs-bill-create-jobs-advance-clean-energy-and-fight-climate-change-through
.
The Maine people have much greater burdens to look forward to for the next 20 years, courtesy of the Governor Mills incompetent, woke bureaucracy that has infested the state government
The present course leads to financial disaster for the impoverished State of Maine and its people.
The purposely-kept-ignorant Maine people do not deserve such maltreatment
.
Electricity Cost
Assume a $750 million, 100 MW project consists of foundations, wind turbines, cabling to shore, and installation at $7,500/kW.
Production 100 MW x 8766 h/y x 0.40, CF = 350,640,000 kWh/y
Amortize bank loan for $375 million, 50% of project, at 6.0%/y for 20 years, 9.194 c/kWh.
Owner return on $375 million, 50% of project, at 10%/y for 20 years, 12.385 c/kWh
Offshore O&M, about 30 miles out to sea, 8 c/kWh.
Supply chain, special ships, and ocean transport, 3 c/kWh
All other items, 4 c/kWh
Total cost 9.194 + 12.385 + 8 + 3 + 4 = 36.579 c/kWh
Less 50% subsidies (ITC, 5-y depreciation, interest deduction on borrowed funds) 18.290 c/kWh
Owner sells to utility at 18.290 c/kWh
Onshore grid expansion/reinforcements, 2 c/kWh
Curtailments/Counteracting 24/7/365, 4 c/kWh
Subsidies shift costs from project Owners to ratepayers, taxpayers, government debt
.
NOTE: The above prices compare with the average New England wholesale price of about 5 c/kWh, during the 2009 – 2022 period, 13 years
.
Cabling to Shore Plus $Billions for Grid Expansion on Shore
A high voltage cable would be hanging from each unit, until it reaches bottom, say about 200 to 500 feet.
The cables would need some type of flexible support system
There would be about 5 cables, each connected to sixty, 10 MW wind turbines, making landfall on the Maine shore, for connection to 5 substations (each having a 600 MW capacity, requiring several acres of equipment), then to connect to the New England HV grid, which will need $billions for expansion/reinforcement to transmit electricity to load centers, mostly in southern New England.
One could say that the floater is just sittin’ on the dock of the bay, wastin’ time…
Earworms can be fun!
For many people, a floater is something disagreeable left in a toilet bowl after flushing.
My Man, Otis!
‘It also requires a big factory to make the huge floaters that carry the turbine towers.’
Yikes, not a great visual…
Not to mention the smell.
Yep, when those floaters break wind…watch out
Maybe they can have it float at sea to not damage the beauty of Maine. Regardless of cost. For green and clean energy, cost is no object. 🙂
But hey, if it went down in a storm they are all highly proficient in screaming SUPERSTORMSANDY! It is all part of the Obama/Biden energy funding shell game with your tax dollars–the more uneconomic the project the better for local spinoff of federal spending to nowhere.
Meanwhile, in Maine’s neighboring state of NH, they are stepping back from offshore wind, which the previous (Republican) governor Chris Sununu was in favor of. The new governor, Kelly Ayotte is opposed to offshore wind, saying that it is “wrong for New Hampshire”, and the legislature appears to agree. Baby steps..
Because when I think “New Hampshire” I think “Seacoast”?
LOL. Yes, they don’t have much – about 20 miles or so I think. But all the more reason to protect what little coast is there, and the fishing and tourist industries.
Especially with all the pressure from Wokeachusetts which also doesn’t have much coast considering it has 7 million people- it’s hoping NH and ME will sacrifice their coasts for its neighbors.
Story tip; Powerful earthquake could raise Pacific north-west sea levels ‘dramatically’ – study
Tsunamis are known to do that.
The did not need to throw in the miniscule change in ocean level given the massive extend of change due to the earthquake.
If/when California falls into the Pacific, the paltry 1-2 mm of prior ocean level rise will not be noticed.
What will be notices is the tsunami(s). How much the ocean level might rise due to that much land spilling into it? Dunno. Big ocean.
Now I would think it would be the other way around. The Pacific Plate subducts under the North American Plate causing the NA Plate to uplift. Wouldn’t that uplift cause an apparent fall in sea level?
This type of earthquake and its history are well documented by numerous geologists such as Brian Atwater and others. The sea level will not change one iota, the land, however, will sink up to several meters. Raise sea levels “dramatically.’ What rubbish!
Weird how the alarmists extremely overuse the word “could”. That’s usually when I stop using. You won’t see that word is real science.
I just went all in on the rubber duck market. It’s gonna take a zillion of those babies to float those wind turbines.
“recently suspended … for research on floating wind technology.”
What were they supposedly researching?
The influence of the effluent from the affluent and from what distance one could still smell the Hubris from Floating Wind Breakers
As per the graphic … how many rubber duckies it takes to float a wind turbine 🙂
Or maybe they’ll only need 1 gigantic rubber duck!
Good news, we need to keep pushing, harder than ever.
That’s what she said. 🙂
Building the these off shore wind turbines in Nor’Easter Alley is just plain stupid! What were the engineers thinking? Did they cross their fingers behind their backs and hope that the Big One will never strike.
Wikipedia has a very large list of all the major nor’easters that struck the northeast coast from 1888 to 2023. The list has date of the nor’easters occurrences, their landfalls and estimates of their damage.
Go check out the nor’easter file. Lots of useful and interesting info there.
Not just nor’easters but hurricanes which hit the New England coast periodically- not often- but when they do- they do a lot of damage. One big one hit the region in the 1930s and knocked down millions of trees across southern New England. Forestry folks are still traumatized by that.
Just in name of fairness and open mindedness – is there a location where the winds are consistent enough and pumped storage sites close enough to make wind power truly viable?
Somewhere in Green Nirvana, I think.
Depends on how you define “viable”. From an engineering perspective? Economic?
My engineering degree included economics and accounting courses, so I would have to say both. Even the largess of spending and engineering during WWII and the 60s space program still had to fit into a budget.
Without considering economics a lot of bad engineering happens.
And not just engineering- even in my field of forest mgt. As an independent consultant, I had to consider economics all the time and explain it to my clients. But, the state of MA “manages” almost a million acres of forest- with zero consideration of the economics. They do cut some timber, far less than growth- but they have no idea of the costs or won’t admit their costs. The revenue they generate from the sales is far less than their costs. And that means they’re doing something wrong as I was able to prepare timber sales with profit to the owner and only take a fee. Usually around 15-20%.
And then after years of MA forest mismanagement and the resultant out-of-control forest fires, the econazis will beat their breasts and blame the sky for their precious forest disappearing in a cloud of smoke.
“The US Energy Department recently suspended a large grant at the University of Maine for research on floating wind technology.”
It’s as if nobody can do any research without tons of federal money. If Maine is going to make a killing providing and selling sea based wind energy, it can afford to do the research.
As for wanting to produce more than the people of the state require, obviously it’s going to go south to Wokeachusetts which has little shoreline and 7 million people.
As for floaters, I have them in my eyes. They’re annoying. 🙂
But, I love the AI image at the top!