Developer Pulls Plug on 2 Major Offshore Wind Projects, Deflating Biden Green Energy Schemes
These projects had been cited as proof that….Bidenomics was working. Who could have guessed that high inflation and surging interest rates were not conducive to the completion of vast wind farms?
I recently reported that investors are fleeing renewable energy funds due to rising costs and escalating rates. Shortly after, I noted that “Sustainability Funds” are not sustainable.
We may have reached the “sudden” point in the collapse of green energy. A primary developer has just pulled the plug on two major offshore wind projects, which are deflating Biden’s green energy schemes.
Danish energy developer Orsted said Tuesday night it is scrapping two large offshore wind power projects off the coast of New Jersey, adding uncertainty to a nascent industry the Biden administration and many state governments are counting on to help transition away from the burning of planet-warming fossil fuels.
The projects had been controversial but the company leading them said they would help New Jersey by creating hundreds of jobs and investing millions of dollars in clean energy in the state.
However, the company said it is canceling its Ocean Wind I and II projects in southern New Jersey, citing supply chain issues and rising interest rates. The offshore wind farms were going to be located off the coast of Atlantic and Cape May counties.
Government officials had cited these projects as proof that….Bidenomics was working. Who could have guessed that high inflation and surging interest rates were not conducive to completing vast wind farms?
The Denmark-based energy firm said its board of directors voted to ax its high-profile Ocean Wind 1 and Ocean Wind 2 twin projects in response to changing macroeconomic factors, including high inflation, supply chain bottlenecks and rising interest rates. The projects had been personally backed by Democratic New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy and cited by the White House as proof of “Bidenomics” working.
“We have no choice but to cease development of Ocean Wind 1 and Ocean Wind 2,” said David Hardy, Orsted’s group executive vice president and Americas division CEO. “We are extremely disappointed to have to take this decision, particularly because New Jersey is poised to be a U.S. and global hub for offshore wind energy.”
“We remain committed to the U.S. renewable energy market, building clean power that will create jobs across technologies and states from the Northeast to Texas,” Hardy continued. “Offshore wind energy remains an integral solution to helping the U.S. meet its clean energy ambitions, including job creation, a domestic supply chain and a reinvigorated maritime industry.”
It turns out that the good people of New Jersey don’t seem too broken up about the loss of the projects. HotAir’s Beege Welborn reviewed local opinion on this development.
The funny thing is, not a soul in the comments on his post has tissues out weeping in concert with [New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy] over the lost wind farms. The New Jersey residents who have bothered to scribe a thought are damn near universally shouting “HUZZAH!!” with a few berating their gov for extra good measure. He’s taking a thumping – I can’t find one sympathetic word.
Jerseyites were put off by the Danish wind giant’s arrogance almost from the very beginning, no matter where they stood on Global Warming and renewables. And it didn’t matter how much money or job promises the feds or Murphy shoveled at communities as time went on – attitudes and resentment against the projects became damn near implacable.
This might also be good news for the whales and other marine mammals who make their home off the Eastern seaboard.
The latest whale to wash up on the East Coast was found Tuesday, August 29 in Loveladies on Long Beach Island. An adult female Pygmy Sperm measuring 10 feet 9 inches long and weighing over 800 pounds was stranded on the beach at Seaview Drive. Trained Marine Mammal Stranding Center (MMSC) Staff as well as members of the Long Beach Township Beach Patrol assisted in making the animal as comfortable as possible, by keeping her upright and wet as she lay on the beach.
The whale was eventually carried in a stretcher onto a truck to be moved off the beach. The stranding team rushed the whale to the MMSC’s veterinarian. Upon examination, the whale was lethargic and unresponsive. According to the MMSC, when a cetacean (ie. dolphins, whales) is stranded, their own body weight causes crushing damage to their internal organs. The MMSC veterinarian decided to humanely euthanize the whale to prevent further suffering.
I managed to snag an interview with a resident, who also seemed happy with the news.
Flipper appears to be happy developer just pulled plug on two wind projects off the New Jersey coast. #Biden #GreenEnergy #HappyAnimals pic.twitter.com/htpr8BgUDk
— Leslie Eastman ☥ (@Mutnodjmet) November 2, 2023
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Comments
Wonderful news
“Developer pulls the plug”
Loosely translated means they took the money and run.
But, did the robbers use a “gub” while pulling the heist?
It’s hard to say. Their hand was quicker than my eye.
I think it looks more like they are worried about 2024 and cutting off of the subsidies.
What money did they take?
How the left copes with the cognitive dissonance of despising oil because of oil spills that injure animals yet push windmills that slice and dice birds and kill whates, and solar panels that fry birds, baffles me.
Idiots, utter idiots. Colleges aren’t sending their best.
Windmills that, by the require vast amounts of oil to produce and to keep running.
They are no longer common but I bet those vertical “egg-beater” wind units chopped up even more birds than the three-blade prop jobs.
Although they had 1001 drawbacks, 502 disadvantages and 66 side effects, they had one thing going for them—They were GREEN!
Yeah, but it took a lot of paint to make them green
It is far cheaper and safer to buy Arab oil and ship it half way around the world in gigantic super oil tankers than risk transporting domestic oil through underground pipes.
New Jerseyites didn’t want to have to do all the shivering needed before wind power could be noticed.
I think a lot of New Jerseyites weren’t thrilled with the prospect of looking at them offshore. Same is true in the West, but we’re ignored.
Question: How did these projects ever make any economic or environmental sense?
The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind
The answer is blowin’ in the wind
What governments dont understand about economics (well they do, but they pretend for the sake of votes from voter ignorance):
If government decrees that each homeowner shall hire two people to dig a hole in their yard in the morning and two people to fill in that hole in the afternoon it creates four full time jobs.
But what’s the catch? The homeowners don’t want holes dug in their yards so they are being forced to pay for services they don’t want. An economy can only grow — and be sustained — if there is a mutual exchange of wealth, where both parties benefit.
Where is the exchange of wealth in building wind farms? That’s why they fail.
What’s going to happen to these giant windmill farms when their operators eventually go bankrupt? Are we going to have dilapidated eyesores scattered across our littoral waters for decades?
The 145 unit farm in the cornfields nears me were to have put in escrow the money to decommission them
$250,000. That’s it. For all 145.
I doubt that would cover removing 2 of them. And there’s still hundreds of ton of concrete left below the surface
Some greedy landowners are going to be stuck with them
Uncertainty kills investment. If you have a million dollars to invest and have a coin-flip chance of doubling it or losing it all, you might as well go to a casino. There are so many unknowns shoving their noses into this tent that a million dollar investment has about this same chance of being returned without any more money than somebody would make investing in T-bills, and that’s not providing the Greens get it scrubbed at the point of maximum loss.
When you knew that it was over you were suddenly aware
That the bottom line was turning to an ultimate despair.
Biden green new deal is trillion dollar fraud.
Won’t lower temps by 1 degree.
Even though the projects are cancelled, will the Federal government remove the optimistic assumption of the power that they theoretically were going to produce from their projections for shutting down more reliable power sources?
Subotai Bahadur
I would love to know the details, starting with how much the price they were going to get for the electricity.
Oops. No, I’m not incoherent. I blame my fingers.
… how much they were going to get …
I believe the larger problem to be increased borrowing costs. The tripling + of interest rates made these investments unsustainable at the contracted rates per kWh. The companies demanded a renegotiated rate per kWh to reflect their increased cost of (borrowed) capital.
The rise in interest rates is really causing a good deal of mal investment to be ID and rejected by a somewhat more functional capital market. In the near zero interest rate era all sorts of dumbass ideas took root b/c of cheap borrowing costs. Now that rates are closer to normal many of these bad ideas are getting tossed overboard. See X (Twitter) firing the least productive 80%+ of their workers, other tech firms ditto, even some DEI and woke HR downsizing. More to come I hope.
I suspect that the major engineering issues behind wind turbine bearing and gearbox failures had something to do with it. Finally, what’s been long discussed within that industry is coming to the foreground. Long overdue.