By David Wojick
My research report — Maine’s Massive “Floating Wind” Folly — is up on the Net Zero Reality Coalition’s webpage hosted by CFACT which sponsored the research. See https://www.cfact.org/netzerorealitycoalition/, which has a lot of other research reports as well.
Below is my Executive Summary, followed by the latest bad news on this ongoing silly saga.
“Executive Summary
This report examines several fundamental aspects of the State of Maine’s offshore wind development plan. It is divided into two parts. Part 1 examines certain economic issues, such as feasibility, cost, and progress to date. Part 2 explores the proposed development as it relates to the entire Gulf of Maine, namely because the project has not advanced to the point where the State of Maine’s responsibilities have been defined.
The offshore wind plan calls for development of 3,000 MW of generating capacity, an amount that is roughly double Maine’s average electricity usage. The viability of Maine’s offshore wind plan depends entirely on the massive transformation of the state’s grid from fossil fuel use to electrification. It is clear that the citizens of Maine have not been informed of this vast transformation requirement. They have certainly not approved it.
The offshore wind facilities will consist of great numbers of “floating turbines” operating at a scale and degree of reliability that hasn’t been verified to work in the real world. Such an assumption makes the entire plan not only technologically speculative but also enormously risky.
Extrapolating today’s small-scale facility cost would make the price tag for this project around $100 billion. That could rise significantly once large scale, hurricane-proof technology is developed and adopted, if it ever is. It is important the citizens of Maine be made aware of such great costs, as well as the far greater cost of the required electrification to place them into operation.
The state of Maine has initiated development of a facility to manufacture the floating wind turbines. This effort appears to depend entirely on getting a nearly half-billion-dollar grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation. But this grant is likely illegal as the program is for funding highway projects, not offshore wind development. We will explore that in this report.
On the environmental impact side of the equation, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) is in the process of leasing 15,000 MW of offshore wind development sites in the Gulf of Maine. The State of Maine’s proposed 3,000 MW development would come from some of these sites.
BOEM’s Environmental Assessment of this leasing program does not include the impact of building and operating the 15,000 MW generating capacity. They say that impact will only be assessed for individual leaseholds. This approach is mistaken as the full life cycle impact needs to be assessed prior to leasing, including the combined impact of all the leases taken together. A cumulative impact assessment is vital because it might affect the viability and nature of the leases.
The crucial need for a “cumulative impact” is also especially needed to assess the project’s impact on endangered whales, notably the endangered North Atlantic Right Whale. The Gulf of Maine is designated as critical habitat for Right Whales under the Endangered Species Act.
The Environmental Assessment does include the leasehold sonar surveys prior to construction. Recent analysis has determined such surveys are likely responsible for numerous whale deaths along the Atlantic Coast. It is therefore imperative the BOEM and NOAA carefully assess the potentially lethal impact of leasehold surveys on whales before any surveys are approved.”
End of Executive Summary. Now for the bad news.
BOEM has scheduled the Gulf of Maine lease sale for October 29, 2024, just before the elections. They are trying to beat the clock since President Trump has promised to kill offshore wind if elected. Of course, they may also try to award leases before the inauguration because the development of awarded leases is much harder to stop.
Note that at the end of the Executive Summary above, I discuss BOEM, including the leasehold sonar surveys in the Environmental Assessment (EA). That was promised in the draft EA, but in the final EA, just published to make way for the quick sale, that assessment was completely dropped. No doubt, this was to avoid the new findings that sonar surveys can cause whale deaths in large numbers.
If Trump wins, I would like to see a separate Transition Team for BOEM handing out resignation letters. BOEM’s blatant disregard for whale deaths is despicable.
The Report is here: http://www.cfact.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Maines-massive-floating-wind-folly.pdf
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