The Commission to Study Offshore Wind and Port Development is scheduled for Monday, October 28th, at 4:30 p.m. The meeting will occur at 222 International Drive, Suite 175, in Portsmouth, NH. Time is running out as the leases will be sold on October 29th. This is an urgent nonpartisan request. To show up, look at some of the problems below and stop or delay this until more research can be done. The fragile ecosystem of the Gulf of Maine will never be the same if the Offshore Wind (OSW) leases are sold. It is a binding contract and will be more difficult to stop!!
We’d like to thank Julie for the Op-Ed. Send yours to steve@granitegrok.com
For what?
Electricity? If so, NY, NJ, and other eastern states have gone from $36pmh to $155pmh!! These increases are to absorb the cost overruns of OSW.
NH will not receive any electricity from OSW in the Gulf of Maine. According to BOEM we will receive cabling to Schiller station and Seabrook. Dangerous Lithium Battery storage is planned at Schiller!
OSW is a boondoggle. It is a subsidy grab.
Green?
Each turbine uses thousands of gallons of petroleum products. According to Ocean Wind, Bearings =187 gals of grease; Hydraulic pumping units =40 gals of hydraulic oil; gearboxes =106 gals gear oil; Transformer= 1,585 Dielectric fluid; Emergency generator = 793 gal. diesel; switchgear=243lbs sulfur hexechloride; Cooling system=3357 galproplene glycol; converter cooling=48 gal ethylene glycol. Transformers and reactors=79,252 gal. transformer oil; generators=52,834 gal diesel. There are more, but there are too many to list! Petroleum products to run the turbines are a must. Plus, the ships involved in maintenance, shipping from China, and incidental ships use petroleum products.
How is this remotely green? Or logical. One note to ponder, it requires diesel generators to get the blades up to speed of the wind to actually start making electricity.
The cabling for the Gulf of Maine OSW is enough to travel from Maine to Florida seven times! And it carries dangerous EMFs.
Jobs?
Foreign companies, primarily Danish hold all the leases. They use their own workers. In New Bedford only 11 workers in thousand plus were hired. The fishermen we offered a tiny amount of money for the destruction of their fishing businesses and loss of fish and shellfish.
All manufacturing is moving to China and will be shipped to our front door by China!
Plans?
There are no plans to decommission or dispose of the blades. They are not biodegradable. They actually contain highly toxic plastics and bisphenol A that are coming off the blades and entering the ocean and seafood, and no one is addressing these facts. A study in Sweden discovered this after one year of operation in the ocean, an extremely corrosive environment.
Environmental impacts study? None
Harms?
Over 250 cetaceans have washed up dead since January 2024 when OSW was running and surveyed! New studies have connected the sonar, seismic blasts, and temps, causing confusion to many fish and cetaceans. The US Navy was forced to stop sonar drills as cetaceans were discovered with brain hemorrhaging and confusion. Only a few of these deaths were propeller strikes and fishing nets. Why are the necropsies saying “inconclusive”? Because the OSW companies are giving NE Aquarium, Woods Hole, and Mystic Aquarium sizeable donations!!! In fact, NOAA has granted the OSW companies “incidental takes” beyond anything we’ve seen before.
Increased shipping traffic in the endangered Right Whale’s fragile feeding and breeding grounds. This is unconscionable! And these government agencies blame fishermen for deaths the OSW companies are responsible for.
Bat and bird deaths are common on land and sea. A study in Ontario found thousands of bats with brain bleeds at the base of wind turbines. Eagles and other birds are also at risk.
The cooling stations required to cool AC to DC power will take cold, 50-degree sea water and release it back at 90 degrees. Plus, they add chlorine to prevent erosion of the components. That will completely change the Gulf of Maine ecosystem.
How is the Coast Guard going to do rescues in the turbine fields?
Money?
Subsidies from the Green New Deal for OSW have caused a rush to develop without regard to the harm. There have been no studies or data. They are rushing this through before the subsidies end.
There are no US jobs or manufacturing as all the bids have gone to Denmark, France, and China (now does most of the manufacturing).
Lawsuits?
Vineyard Wind1 turbine malfunctioned during testing. One 350′ blade fell off, shattered fiberglass and foam from NJ to NL. Nantucket, to this day, is getting shards on their beaches and are suing. They are formally backing out of the good neighbor agreement with GE Verona. The blade failure was on July 13, and they are just now starting to remove large blade pieces off the ocean floor. The Lapland indigenous people of Scandinavia are in a lawsuit with Norway on their reindeer feeding grounds. The reindeer will not go near them because of the sound, vibration, and light flashing. The indigenous of Oregon have filed a lawsuit against OSW of Oregon. The lawsuits are piling up, but not in time to stop them or pause. The Preservation Society of Newport County says viewing wind turbines on the horizon will have a lasting impact on Newport’s tourism economy. These are just a few…
Maintenance and safety?
Fires are commonplace with these turbines, and they have no way to put them out. Farms in upstate NY and Penn fields are contaminated with harmful plastics and chemicals. It will be nearly impossible to extinguish a fire on a turbine 600+ feet in the air in the ocean.
OSW has yet to see a significant hurricane or nor’easter. They put breaks on the turbines after 50mph winds.
How are we going to protect our shores when many foreign companies, including China, are off our shores?
Vineyard Wind blade failure should be a wake-up call for everyone.
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Much of the data listed here can be found on BOEM and NOAA sites.
Nuclear technology has surpassed both solar and wind
If it’s really sustainable, why are companies like Amazon, Google, and Microsoft turning to nuclear? OSW companies are reporting losses in the billions! Stocks are taking a hit.
And more faulty blades off Cape Cod.
