White House Tells Agencies to Tackle Offshore Wind Projects
Let’s not forget the numerous problems these projects have caused, especially near Nantucket.
The New York Times learned that Susie Wiles, the White House chief of staff, and Stephen Miller, a senior White House adviser, have told numerous non-energy agencies to step up and tackle offshore wind projects.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order in January to halt new or renewed offshore wind leases.
Why would President Donald Trump’s White House include non-energy agencies?
The Health and Human Services Department (HHS) has been studying whether wind turbines emit “electromagnetic fields that could harm human health.”
The Defense Department wants to know if the turbines “pose risks to national security.”
Seems reasonable to me:
Last week Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health and human services secretary, said he was working with Doug Burgum, the interior secretary, Howard Lutnick, the commerce secretary, Chris Wright, the energy secretary, and Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary, as part of a “departmental coalition team” to investigate the risks from offshore wind farms.
“We’re all working together on this issue,” Mr. Kennedy said during a cabinet meeting.
Brigit Hirsch, a spokeswoman for Lee Zeldin, the Environmental Protection Agency administrator, said on Tuesday that he, too, is involved in discussions about offshore wind at “a high level.”
And Sean Duffy, the transportation secretary, last week canceled or withdrew $679 million in federal funding for marine terminals, port improvements and other facilities that were designed to support the offshore wind industry. Mr. Duffy called them “wasteful wind projects.”
Let’s not forget the numerous problems these projects have caused.
The New England fishing industry has launched a massive fight against the projects, claiming the turbines affect their jobs.
Fishermen held a large protest at the Vineyard wind site near Nantucket, MA, after a blade fell into the water, leaving the beaches filled with sharp fiberglass shards.
“The blade collapse was an eye-opener to a lot of people who before didn’t know that offshore wind is a disaster for the ocean,” said Captain Shawn Machie.
Machie added: “We feel like our jobs are just accepted as collateral damage. We are regulated for sustainability. And that makes sense. We need regulation. But offshore wind is allowed to kill fish and wreck nurseries without any manageable stopping point.”
Not to mention that a blade could fall on a ship!
Fisherwoman Sue Zarba pointed out that the companies placed the turbines in a tuna fishing ground: “You can’t fish around the turbines, you can’t trawl.”
The blade failure also infuriated Nantucket residents. They want to shut down all these wind projects.
[Featured image via YouTube]
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A blight on the planet, never mind the remaining descendants of the dinosaurs.
Agreed!
They should expand the project in the same manner for these boondoggles:
Inland windmills
Solar farms
With respect to solar farms, some of the nation’s highest quality farmland is being converted to “green power.” A total waste of our resources.
There have been interesting results from bifacial solar panels being mounted vertically, with rows spaced in parallel, the land being cultivated between the rows. I suspect that plant yield will be somewhat lower. I haven’t seen any data on that yet.
From the New York Times story.
“At the Health and Human Services Department, for instance, officials are studying whether wind turbines are emitting electromagnetic (EM) fields that could harm human health.”
How do wind turbines emit electromagnetic radiation?
More from the article.
“Mr. Kennedy has warned that the subsea cables used in offshore wind farms are emitting an electromagnetic field that can harm people and whales.”
How us that? What frequency EM? If Kennedy believes this, he’s an idiot. The attenuation of EM waves in water, especially seawater is very very high. Only extremely low frequency waves can propagate. Low meaning 76 Hz (76 cycles per second). EM waves propagate in the atmosphere in the kilohertz and megahertz range. There has been research on using underwater EM waves for communication. Again the amplitude is very low.
Even microwave radiation is non-ionizing. Your oven cooks with EM as a thermal effect. So are there non-thermal effects of non-ionizing radiation?This has been a controversy for many decades. I wrote a report for a company on this subject a long time ago. I conclude no and still do. I base my conclusion on the absorption cross section for biological cells. Once you get to ultraviolet light, 75 x 10^14 hertz, the EM becomes ionizing. This is what causes a sunburn which is a radiation “burn” not a thermal burn.
So absolutely no danger to humans or whales or fish from whatever EM comes from the subsea cables. Most Americans, especially government officials are woefully ignorant of even the most basic physics.
To be clear, I very much oppose wind turbines because of acoustical, aesthetic, and other effects having nothing to do with EM radiation. If the article is correct, which is a major assumption for the NYT, my opinion of Kennedy has fallen.
Given a choice between believing absolutely anyone else on Earth and the New York Times, I would believe absolutely anyone else. Especially when the subject relates in any way to the Trump administration.
“How do wind turbines emit electromagnetic radiation?”
They have generating equipment in them. They’re not pumping air to shore underwater.
“Only extremely low frequency waves can propagate. Low meaning 76 Hz (76 cycles per second).”
You mean, like standard residential wall=socket energy (60Hz)?
And standard utility long-distance transmission lines (higher voltage but also 60Hz)?
I fully expect that the undersea cables are going to use the same frequency specs as the industry standard for power transmission.
Nothing to do with the standard power line frequency which is 60 Hz in the US and 50 Hz in Europe. EM waves in water attenuate very rapidly with frequency. One approach to underwater EM communication uses ultra low frequency EM around 76 Hz which implies a very long wavelength. There are tricks like propagating the wave at the air-water interface.
The two parameters that determine attenuation are conductivity and permittivity. Water, especially seawater, has a moderate conductivity. certainly not an insulator, but a poor conductor compared to copper. The classical reference on this stuff: “Dielectrics and Waves by Arthur R. von Hippel first published in 1954. Good foundational reference.
The power line frequency used in the US and Europe comes from the magnetization curve of iron. Power transformers and use iron core to enhance the coupling. Transformers step up or step down the voltage. The very high voltage used in long distance transmission must be stepped down for residential use. The power lines you see on utility polls run at about 20,000 to 50,000 volts. The long-distance lines use hundreds of thousands of volts to minimize loss. That has to get stepped down before it gets to your house. So there are at least 3 stages of voltage step down.
Wind Turbines have a generator at the top to convert the mechanical energy of the rotating blades to electrical energy. That generator uses high strength permanent magnets which use neodymium, a rare earth. There would be some incidental EM radiation from the generator at the blade frequency or whatever frequency the gear box uses. But the NYT article cites undersea cables as a source of the EM wave emitted into the water. This wave would undergo severe attenuation propagating underwater. It’s all a non-problem.
You seem to be piling on, intentionally conflating communications technology, where the object is to expend power efficiently to maximize signal, with power distribution technology, where the object is to minimize transmission losses and nobody (but regulators) cares about any incidental signal. But once you’ve done that, incidental signal occurs, and it’s right in the range that you yourself says is most harmful to marine life.
Nobody cares that it’s non-ionizing, that’s only one of the ways it could be dangerous, One example: marine life is sensitive in a number of ways to even “harmless” EM fields, because they can disrupt their navigation, which depends on much weaker natural fields.
The earth’s magnetic field is temporally constant at approximately one gauss at the surface. One theory has it that whales navigate by some kind of internal compass that detects this static field. A propagating EM wave has a time varying magnetic component and would be much too weak for a whale to sense.
I never said propagating underwater EM waves are harmful to anything. For EM waves to be harmful, they have to be both ionizing and and intense enough to produce an effect. Propagating waves have no static magnetic component. Do the underwater power lines have a DC component?
He is right about this, in addition the power cables are shielded with lead, aluminum and steel braid. So both capacitive and electromagnetic leakage should be nearly nonexistent.
That’s been long established.
quoe.. only exemelu low fequency can popagate…. and you then cite <76 cps. Duhhhh.. what is the frequency of ALL mains current in the US? Duhhhh.. idnit 60 cps? WHich means, by your marks, the mains current the windmills produce IS within the range that DOES propagate.
Nice try…. ride the pine.
“There is a wind farm in Nantucket…”
“Where people fish to fill their buckets.”
I’ve never been good at this
The buckets are bare
The windmills are there
(next)
Trump said he was going to relocate the wind farms off the coast of Venezuela so they could be used to blow drug boats out of the water.
I like that. Every little bit helps. When did he say that so I can go watch the full conference?
I was reading between the lines.
I like the way you read.
The vile, stupid and evil Dhimmi-crat apparatchiks love their windmills that produce trivial amount of electricity at scale, are unreliable, are costly to maintain and, at the end of the day, are just a massive waste of money and resources.
Not to make light of the fact that lage numbers of these same people are collecting YOOOOOOGE profits from these boondoggles. Carefully planned to do just that. Too many fokes will do anything to put money in both pockets.
Just float a rumor that the blades are manufactured from compressed cocaine, and Nantucket residents will disassemble them themselves.
Please, all you need to know:
Green_oceans.org
The fact that those on the left work so hard to jam windmills and solar farms down everyone throats and are totally silent about the wildlife and environmental impacts they cause should alert you as to how seriously they take their religion.
and “religion” it definitely IS. An evil heresy, into the bargain