Blue State Governors have been scrambling to pad their resumes with whale-killing offshore wind projects on ocean-area “leased” by the Biden administration. But no amount of subsidies has made them even appear profitable, and caps on rates in at least one state have become a deal breaker.
Ørsted, a key corporate player in the Biden administration’s offshore wind agenda, has backed out of the Maryland Public Service Commission’s (MPSC) orders approving the company’s Skipjack 1 and 2 projects off the Maryland coast, the company announced Thursday. The company said that inflationary pressure, high borrowing costs and supply chain problems have combined to make the state’s subsidies economically unviable, but that it is not yet abandoning the projects and will continue to pursue permits, according to a regulatory filing with the MPSC. …[AND!]
“The statutorily-mandated caps on the residential ratepayer impacts have very little room left,” an MPSC spokesperson told the Daily Caller News Foundation. The state cannot raise those caps in the absence of legislative action, the spokesperson added.
What sort of impacts? Ørsted canceled projects on the coast of New Jersey last fall, but Governor Murphy isn’t giving up. He’ll have windfarms on his resume, or else! The ‘or else’ is the taxpayer-backed subsidies followed by those electric rate increases they need in Maryland.
The newly-contracted projects are also expected to increase utility rates in the state. Residential electricity rates are expected to jump by $6.84 per month, commercial rates would increase by $58.73 per month and monthly industrial rates would rise by $513.22, according to E&E News.
As a longtime observer of government schemes, I can say with some authority that some zeroes are missing from these numbers. The subsidies, handouts, and incentives will increase, as will the rates. Niggling details in the pursuit of any boondoggle with which the peasants need not show concern about how politicians waste their money.
And don’t overthink it with ideas like, what if we take away the fake free money? Will investors and manufacturers find something else to do with their time and resources? Build a natural gas pipeline or invest in fracking infrastructure?
That’s not what we are faced with, and despite wind advocates making wind even less affordable and viable, they want what they want, and it’s not their money they are wasting (on both sides of the equation. It belonged to you, your children, and your grandchildren.
I’d look for Maryland to find a way to make Offshore Wind happen without regard to cost (to wallets or wildlife), just like in New Jersey.
Bonus: Unrelated to wind but related to the debate: The Fossil Fuel Hoax.