Audrey Streb
DCNF Energy Reporter
The offshore wind industry is floundering as President Donald Trump reverses Biden-era policies designed to boost the industrialization of America’s oceans.
While President Joe Biden pushed for an enormous expansion of offshore wind energy during his time in the White House, many of the projects his administration supported with subsidies and favorable regulation have since collapsed or been abandoned by developers due to unfavorable economic conditions and the Trump administration’s crackdown on incentives for the green energy technology.
“The windmills are killing our country by the way,” Trump said on June 12. “We’re not going to approve windmills unless something happens that’s an emergency. … I guess it could happen, but we’re not doing any of them.” (RELATED: Massive Offshore Wind Boondoggle Dead In Water)
Trump claims Biden’s wind farms are killing whales in numbers like we’ve never before seen.
TRUMP: “[Windmills] are driving the whales, I think, a little batty. And they’re washing up on shores at levels never seen before.” pic.twitter.com/0ZPlauBaBs
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) September 26, 2023
Trump moved to temporarily withdraw all offshore wind leasing on the Continental Shelf and ordered a review of all permits for wind leasing on his first day back in the Oval Office.
About a dozen East Coast offshore wind projects envisioned during Biden’s tenure have since been paused, according to E&E News. Among these include the recently-axed development off the coast of New Jersey, as well as a review of a huge project along th Massachusetts coast.
“We’ve seen a chilling effect across the industry from the administration’s stance on offshore wind, and subsequent damaging executive orders,” Katharine Kollins, president of the Southeastern Wind Coalition, told E&E News.
Shell, which dropped out of the New Jersey project in January after initially pledging to invest nearly $1 billion in the development, reportedly told E&E News that it “will not lead new offshore wind developments.”
Despite Trump’s moves to block offshore wind expansion, many Democrat officials still support the technology. Democratic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul kept her state’s massive offshore wind project alive in May, reportedly in exchange for working with the Trump administration to advance fossil fuel pipelines in the state, though Hochul’s office previously told the Daily Caller News Foundation that they made no official deal.
In recent years, opposition to offshore wind farms surged due to concerns about high-voltage cables being routed through residential neighborhoods and reports of dead whales and dolphins washing up along the East Coast, which some observers suspect is linked to ocean industrialization. Additionally, wind turbines off the coast of New England have malfunctioned and shed debris into the ocean, prompting environmentalists to voice concerns about marine life.
Fishermen have also spoken out against these projects, arguing that their industry and livelihoods are endangered by offshore wind farms.
Shell and the Southeastern Wind Coalition did not respond to the DCNF’s requests for comment.
All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.
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Only a foolish energy minister would think that offshore wind is a good idea. Unfortunately in the UK we have a had a series of idiots in charge of energy policy – hence lots of heavily-subsidised offshore wind farms (including floating ones).
Because nuclear is the most energy dense, the least mineral intensive, has the highest capacity/utilization factor and the longest life cycle it is the most economical power source. Once an assembly line factory is producing cookie cutter identical reactors, that like CCGT and wind turbines can be transported to the job site on semi-trailers for plug and play, not even natural gas-fired CCGT will be able to compete. SMR isn’t the best future power option, it’s the only one.
But what about unreliable, intermittent, low-capacity factor, short life cycle, weather dependent wind and solar? Get serious, obsolete junk that never should have been smeared far and wide, and certainly, never should have been allowed to contaminate any modern electrical grid. W&S provide great future opportunity for dismantling and landfilling jobs, that’s about it.
that (UNlike CCGT and wind turbines) can be transported to the job site on semi-trailers for plug and “play”
I believe you had a typo or two.
Cleanup and removal need to be a priority, it a hazard to navigation and the wild life.
Democratic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul kept her state’s massive offshore wind project alive in May,
More like on life support-
New York governor seeks to build the state’s first new nuclear power plant in decades
Never come between a State leader and a bucket of Federal money with great moral imperatives of our times.
Trump calls heavily subsidized, weather-dependent wind systems:
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1) Expensive bullshit, that
2) Uglifies the beautiful American Plains and seashore view sheds, and
2) Kills fisheries, birds and bats, tourism, and
4) Produces grid-disturbing, expensive electricity/kWh, at 2.5 times fossil/nuclear/hydro, and
5) Requires all sorts of $upport systems/crutche$ to be on the grid, the cost of which, c/kWh, are in addition to the price, c/kWh, paid by utilities to Owners of wind systems.
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Just calling a spade a spade.
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The Spain/Portugal blackout would have never happened, if no wind and solar systems were on the grid.
Sanity would have been SOP.
HIGH COST/kWh OF W/S SYSTEMS FOISTED ONTO A BRAINWASHED PUBLIC
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/high-cost-kwh-of-w-s-systems-foisted-onto-a-brainwashed-public-1
.
What is generally not known, the more weather-dependent W/S systems, the less efficient the traditional generators, as they inefficiently counteract the increasingly larger ups and downs of W/S output. See URL
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/fuel-and-co2-reductions-due-to-wind-energy-less-than-claimed
.
W/S systems add great cost to the overall delivery of electricity to users; the more W/S systems, the higher the cost/kWh, as proven by the UK and Germany, with the highest electricity rates in Europe, and near-zero, real-growth GDP.
See URL
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/fuel-and-co2-reductions-due-to-wind-energy-less-than-claimed
.
At about 30% W/S, the entire system hits an increasingly thicker concrete wall, operationally and cost wise.
The UK and Germany are hitting the wall, more and more hours each day.
The cost of electricity delivered to users increased with each additional W/S/B system
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Nuclear, gas, coal and reservoir hydro plants are the only rational way forward.
Ignore CO2, because greater CO2 ppm in atmosphere is an absolutely essential ingredient for: 1) increased green flora to increase fauna all over the world, and 2) increased crop yields to feed 8 billion people. XXX
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Net-zero by 2050 to-reduce CO2 is a super-expensive suicide pact, to increase command/control by governments, and enable the moneyed elites to get richer, at the expense of all others, by using the foghorn of the government-subsidized/controlled Corporate Media to spread scare-mongering slogans and brainwash people.
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Ignore CO2, because greater CO2 ppm in atmosphere is an absolutely essential ingredient for: 1) increased green flora to increase fauna all over the world, and 2) increased crop yields to feed 8 billion people.
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Subsidies shift costs from project Owners to ratepayers, taxpayers, government debt:
1) Federal and state tax credits, up to 50% (Community tax credit of 10 percent – Federal tax credit of 30 percent – State tax credit and other incentives of up to 10%);
2) 5-y Accelerated Depreciation write off of the entire project;
3) Loan interest deduction
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Utilities pay 15 c/kWh, wholesale, after 50% subsidies, for electricity from fixedoffshore wind systems
Utilities pay 18 c/kWh, wholesale, after 50% subsidies, for electricity from floating offshore wind
Utilities pay 12 c/kWh, wholesale, after 50% subsidies, for electricity from larger solar systems
.
Excluded costs, at a future 30% W/S annual penetration on the grid, based on UK and German experience:
– Onshore grid expansion/reinforcement to connect distributed W/S systems, about 2 c/kWh
– A fleet of traditional power plants to quickly counteract W/S variable output, on a less than minute-by-minute basis, 24/7/365, which leads to more Btu/kWh, more CO2/kWh, more cost of about 2 c/kWh
– A fleet of traditional power plants to provide electricity during 1) low-wind periods, 2) high-wind periods, when rotors are locked in place, and 3) low solar periods during mornings, evenings, at night, snow/ice on panels, which leads to more Btu/kWh, more CO2/kWh, more cost of about 2 c/kWh
– Pay W/S system Owners for electricity they could have produced, if not curtailed, about 1 c/kWh
– Importing electricity at high prices, when W/S output is low, 1 c/kWh
– Exporting electricity at low prices, when W/S output is high, 1 c/kWh
– Disassembly on land and at sea, reprocessing and storing at hazardous waste sites, about 2 c/kWh
Some of these values exponentially increase as more W/S systems are added to the grid
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The economic/financial insanity and environmental damage of it all is off the charts.
No wonder Europe’s near-zero, real-growth economy is in de-growth mode.
That economy has been tied into knots by inane people.
YOUR tax dollars are building these projects so YOU will have much higher electric bills.
Remove YOUR tax dollars using your vote, and none of these projects would be built, and YOUR electric bills would be lower.
Wind in general should be blocked, offshore especially.
A farmer wants a wind turbine generator on his farm, go for it.
Windmills have been used for centuries for pumping water.
Any individual who wants those technologies can do as they please. That is the definition of freedom (make your own decision) and liberty (choose as you see fit).
Forcing those decisions on the masses is criminal.
I find the expression “green energy” to be absolutely offensive.
How is it that destroying large ecosystems and converting them to areas devoid of life is green?
How is it that scarring the planet and imperilling tens of thousands of people to extract toxic metals needed for the obscenities green? Those massive scars do not magically heal.
Not to mention landfills where the toxins are dumped.
And in pursuing these obscenities, we are depriving nature of the ability to green the planet.
Once upon a time, green meant sickness or spoilt food. With that definition, it is truly green energy.
Was it Biden or the autopen wizard? Energy policy by reason of insanity is another fallback.
Don’t kill wildlife, buy your own land, pay your own way, strictly follow environmental regulations, find your own grid and customers and the market is open to you.