Tag Archives: Vineyard Wind project

At Some Point We Need To Admit That It Doesn’t Work

Posted on by

On Thursday, Hot Air posted an article about the Vineyard Wind farm, off the Nantucket coast.

The article reports:

In the middle of April came word that one of the two partners in the project, GE Renewables, a subsidiary of GE Vernova (which made the infamous blades used in the project), had declared itself no longer a player. It was walking away.

This caused much angst amongst everyone, especially the Vineyard Wind development (with its offshore parents, Iberola and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners), which declared the nearly complete $4.5 billion (with a ‘B’) project could not be finished without GE Renewables full participation. They filed a lawsuit to force GE into honoring the contract.

Within 24 hours, Vineyard Wind had a ruling from a Suffolk Superior court judge telling GE they could not walk away, and to get back to work, calling the GE complaints ‘fanciful,’

…As of yesterday, the Massachusetts judge has agreed to rehear the case because the wind farm is now supposedly ‘operational,’ which completely negates Vineyard Wind’s arguments against GE Renewables’ exit.

…What makes this tit for tat argument interesting are the details. What, exactly, is ‘operational’ in a wind farm?

According to Vineyard Wind, they still need GE around because they’re only partially operational, which sounds kind of like being only ‘mostly dead.’

The article quotes The Citizens’ Task Force on Wind Power:

…When you see the blades spinning, the turbines do not engage the generator to produce power until 6 miles per hour. After 6 mph, they start generating, and they don’t produce full power until around 23 miles per hour. In other words, a 13 megawatt wind at around 12 miles per hour may only produce half its power. Additionally, the turbines are automatically shut down during storms due to high winds or shifting winds. 

The average wind speed off Massachusetts is around 20 miles per hour.

The article at Hot Air notes:

According to the wind farm operator in court in their lawsuit against GE Renewables, it will never pay for itself over the – God willing – 20-year life of the project.

It will never come close.

Nonetheless, there are still silly cultists chanting the mantra, as yet another renewable boondoggle plays out in public.

The article concludes:

…Vineyard Wind’s Final Environmental Impact Statement concludes: “…it is anticipated there will be NO collective impact on global warming as a result of offshore wind projects.”

It’s a shame the same couldn’t be said for consumers’ wallets, the national budget, the ocean, or sea creatures in it.

See also a previous article on the environmental problems caused by the Vineyard Wind project. This project has been a boondoggle from the start.

Buyers’ Remorse

Posted on by

On Friday, Hot Air posted an article about the city fathers of Nantucket’s regret at allowing the developers of the Vineyard Wind project to construct a large-scale offshore wind farm 15 miles from the island town.

The article reports:

The Nantucket City Council and Nantucket residents are suffering from buyer’s remorse, like everybody who decided to buy a Yugo based on the marketing that it was a great car at an amazing price. 

We told you so. It’s as if liberals see common sense and choose to do the opposite of what it tells them. No amount of sage advice will dissuade them because some “expert” with dollar signs in their eyes can talk them into anything as long as they whisper magic words like “renewable energy.”

The article includes a quote from The Washington Free Beacon:

If they could go back in time, officials in Nantucket, Massachusetts, wouldn’t sign the legal agreement that helped bring the nation’s first large-scale offshore wind farm 15 miles from the island town’s picturesque shoreline.

That was the common sentiment expressed during a Nantucket select board meeting this week about the August 2020 community benefit agreement the town entered into with developers of the Vineyard Wind project, which is currently under construction. “These wind turbines are bigger, brighter, and much more impactful than we ever thought—and not to mention the environmental hazards from failures,” said Dawn Hill, the chairwoman of the select board, which serves as the town’s executive body.

The agreement represented Nantucket’s formal endorsement of the project and satisfied Vineyard Wind’s legal responsibility to consult with the town. Because Nantucket is a federally designated national historic district, regulators and developers must consult with the town on new projects that may threaten its protected status.

“Hindsight is 20/20,” added Greg Werkheiser, an attorney who represents Nantucket. “Every lawyer in the world wishes 5 or 10 years into a negotiated contract that they could take the knowledge they have, fly back in time, and renegotiate—but communities make the choices they have with the information they have at the time.”

North Carolina take note! There is a group pushing for wind farms off the North Carolina coast.

Remember this event:

Tensions between Nantucket and Vineyard Wind reached a boiling point in July 2024 after a football field-sized blade on one of its wind towers fell apart during construction, sending 50 tons of fiberglass and industrial-grade foam into the ocean, forcing the island’s beaches to close. Project developers waited until debris washed ashore three days following the failure before they informed Nantucket about the incident, sparking fury from officials, businesses, and residents.

In the 12 months since the blade failure, the developers haven’t provided the town with information about changes to the construction timeline or the progress of environmental reviews related to the blade failure. As of this week, Vineyard Wind’s leadership remains in “hiding,” according to Mohr. Alas, Vineyard Wind issued its most recent press release in October, and its only public update this year appears to have come during an earnings call held last week by one of its developers, the Spain-based energy firm Iberdrola.

“They were not uninformed. Local groups were informing them five years ago that they should not do this deal and gave them all the reasons why they now regret it,” said Dave Stevenson, the director of the Center for Energy Competitiveness at the right-leaning Caesar Rodney Institute. “The folks in the town didn’t fight, they didn’t look at all the negatives, they just didn’t listen.”

Don’t let that happen here!