New Wind Farms and Old Wind Bags

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New Wind Farms and Old Wind Bags 1

Normally, I wouldn’t tap the same subject twice in the same day, but this story is so egregious that I had to get it posted.

Plus, it’s not Sweden. It has everything to do with the US of A, and on the day after Elon Musk bid farewell to his part in rooting out graft, inefficiency, and waste in government, it sort of just puts an emphasis on why a DOGE watchdog in every bureau and agency is needed.

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You all remember the copious number of stories I did on the Vineyard Wind debacle. That was the offshore wind farm under construction off the island of Nantucket, Massachusetts. Where, as you might well imagine, most everyone bought into the renewable dream and were semi-thrilled with the project’s progress.

Right up to where one of the 300+ foot turbine blades delaminated during a test run on a sunny summer day last July, shredding itself into deadly fiberglass and toxic chemical fettuccine.

The bits and pieces started washing up on the beaches of not only the island, but those of surrounding states, and the ‘we hate Vineyard Wind’ fest was on.

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Lawsuits erupted, the town was poring over the contract’s ‘good neighbor clause’ with Avangrid with a fine-toothed comb checking for the damage clause.

They are still pulling debris out of the water almost a year later.

All because of one blade from a batch of defective ones manufactured at GE’s Canadian Vernova facility.

They are discovering things that have been concealed from the town by the developers, even after receiving the go-ahead to continue building out the project.

The town chose not to file for damages because the developer agreed to clean things up.

It might have been very different had they also not received the clearance to continue building, and this is where a report in Just the News today comes in.

The Biden administration, in their unholy rush to get these offshore farms moving, gave these wind developers unprecedented clean-up waivers that put the American taxpayer on the hook for all clean-up costs if a project goes belly up within a certain number of years, sometimes as long as fifteen years out from when the first stick goes in the water.

If a company ‘cannot afford’ the clean-up costs for a decommissioned wind project within the initial, contracted  period of X number of years, Joe Biden made sure we would pick up the tab.

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I mean, I can’t even with this.

Newly uncovered emails from the Biden administrationā€™s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) show that taxpayers could be on the hook for $191 million in removal costs for Vineyard Wind, a 62-turbine wind farm being constructed off the coast of Nantucket, as a result of waivers the administration granted Vineyard Wind and other East Coast projects. 

In its rush to fulfill former President Joe Bidenā€™s goal of constructing 30 gigawatts of wind farms off the coasts of America, the Biden administration had issued waivers for financial assurances on offshore wind projects, saying they present an unnecessary burden to the industry. 

The financial assurance requirement protects the public from decommissioning liabilities. If companies canā€™t afford to remove the wind towers theyā€™re building after their useful life, the public has an assurance that those liabilities will be covered.

In 2017, Vineyard Wind requested a waiver to delay the assurances for 15 years after the project was built, and it was denied. They requested the same waiver in 2021 under the Biden administration, and the request was granted. The waiver cited long-term power purchase agreements, which guarantee the facility operators a set price for the electricity they produce over 20 years, ā€œrobust insurance policies,ā€ and the ā€œuse of proven technology.ā€

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Vineyard Wind’s catastrophic single-blade failure – again, one single blade – had all of them scanning the paperwork in a panic over who was going to pay to take this abomination down if it was cancelled.

The American taxpayer was going to be on the hook for at least $191M to clean-up a taxpayer subsidized boondoggle.

…Vineyard Wind began delivering power to the grid in January 2023, and itā€™s been the source of controversy since it was first proposed. The opposition grew in the summer of 2023 when a blade broke off one of the turbines and littered the beaches of Nantucket with debris, which was estimated to cost the company $700 million. 

Emails exchanged between BOEM officials in January 2024 discussing how to respond to an inquiry about the waiver, which the Functional Government Initiative obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, show that an early draft of the statement BOEM issued suggested the waiver amounted to $191 million. 

Anyone in their right mind knew the $191M was a pipe dream lowball.

…Amy DiSibio, board member for Ack4Whales, a Nantucket-based group opposed to offshore wind development, told Just the News that she is also skeptical that the figure would cover the costs of decommissioning the project. 

ā€œThat’s peanuts next to what it would cost. That’s probably what they want them to start escrowing as a percentage. But it would cost a lot more. It costs as much, if not more, to decommission than it does to commission. These projects cost billions of dollars,ā€ DiSibio said. 

…As of today, MV Times reports, the project has four operating turbines out of the 62 turbines that are planned for the first phase of the project. 

ā€œThis was essentially a $191 million gamble with our money. Itā€™s not often you can put a price on recklessness, but BOEM under its previous leadership, was in such a rush to get the risky project underway that it left American taxpayers unprotected,ā€ [Roderick] Law said.

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PREVIOUS LEADERSHIP WAS IN SUCH A RUSH TO GET A RISKY PROJECT UNDERWAY

These waivers are the IOU equivalent of the Biden EPA’s ‘gold bars off the deck of the Titanic.’ Unconscionable.

…Whatever the actual costs of decommissioning, if the companies donā€™t have the finances to cover the costs, it will fall upon taxpayers. 

What are the odds that the company has the money if they’re decommissioning a failed or partially complete project?

I can do THAT math all day long.

This is one more verifiable and malfeasant arrow in the lawsuit quiver of the groups that’ve filed suit against a number of projects, based on the underhanded, truncated permitting process the Biden Interior Department and Bureau of Ocean Energy Management used to expedite approvals out the door for these wind developments. 

The fight is going to be about stopping projects already in progress, as was unsuccessfully attempted with Empire Wind. You can bet who would be paying to take those towers, etc., out of the water if they did manage to kill it…now that we know the truth of the contract.

The anti-wind activists may well prevail with ones that have yet to start dumping rock.

None of this does anything for the American taxpayer, already on the hook for potentially gasp-inducing amounts in clean-up costs when windbag Biden’s Green fever dreams come crashing back to Earth.

This is infuriating.

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Posted in Republican News