"Environmentalists and different folks are willing to destroy the environment in order to protect the environment," say fishermen in the Gulf of Maine

The Biden Administration and the Department of Energy plan to approve a lease of 2 million acres of ocean off Maine for floating wind turbines that have not been tried in the United States.

A report on Fox Business highlighted the head of the New England Fishermen’s Stewardship Association, who is sounding the alarm about the potential environmental devastation that looms in the Gulf of Maine as a result of an offshore wind farm recently approved for construction by the Biden Administration and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. The Biden Administration plans to lease two million acres of the ocean for a wind farm constructed with floating wind turbines. This experimental technology has not been tried in North America before.

Two weeks ago, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), an agency within the Department of Interior, announced the finalization of what is known as a wind energy area (WEA), which is an area of ocean approved for the construction of 32 gigawatts of wind turbines. Potential environmental devastation could occur because offshore wind farms have been approved for floating wind turbines because the water is very deep. According to Dustin Delano, COO of the New England Fisherman’s Association:

The water is so deep that they can’t use traditional fixed pilings, so…they are talking about these giant 300 by 300 concrete bases, with a 1,000, 1200 or 1300 foot high turbine that will be on top of that, with massive anchoring systems using chains the size of pickup beds, with scope on those chains with as much as 7 to 1 or 9 to 1, so with every tide change and every wind change, all of that chain is going to be scraping across the bottom, and destroying everything in its path.

CNN could not contain its glee with its report about the upcoming construction of the floating wind turbines, under the headline “The future of wind energy in the U.S. is floating turbines as tall as 30 Rockefeller Plaza (which is 850 feet tall):”

The gigantic machine with 774-foot diameter blades and tethered to the seabed with thick metal cables, is planned to be put into the water 20 miles south of Maine’s tiny Monhegan Island by the end of the decade. It is expected to generate up to 15 megawatts of electricity—enough to power thousands of homes— and will be just one in an array of 10 such turbines that would together produce up to 144 megawatts of clean energy.”

The Maine turbine array will join the ranks of only around 20 deepwater “floaters” around the world, located mostly in Europe. Developers government officials and experts say these floating turbines are the future of the wind industry and are eyeing projects that could each deliver clean electricity to 750,000 homes.

“That number is set to explode,” Henrik Stiesdal, the Danish wind turbine inventor and pioneer. Stiesdal was the first to pioneer the three-blade turbine that has become the icon of wind energy. In a sign of the times, his company is now focused on putting floating turbines in deeper water.

My take: What we are seeing here is the wind industry and its sycophants in state and federal government fighting back because onshore wind projects are being rejected all over the U.S. Robert Bryce has chronicled 423 rejections of wind projects in the U.S., making it increasingly difficult for wind companies to build onshore wind farms. Wind companies have responded by moving to offshore wind projects because the oceans are controlled by state and federal government officials eager to virtue signal their support of “fighting climate change” and get in on the grift.

The statement from Dustin Delano with the New England’s Fisherman’s Association that “environmentalists and different folks are willing to destroy the environment to protect the environment” captures the insanity of the “energy transition” and its grift and corruption. With the U.S. presidential election coming later this year, the current Administration is moving as fast as possible to get as many wind and solar projects approved as possible in case they are voted out of office.

Only a change in the Administration can stop this madness. Hopefully, the most destructive projects, like this massive offshore wind farm in the Gulf of Maine, can be stopped before irreparable damage is done to the environment.

The big problem is that the Orwellian-named Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) was written so that wind and solar projects will continue to be subsidized for decades, perhaps 30 to 40 years, according to a Wood McKenzie report, even if they damage the environment and destabilized U.S. power grids.

Only a change in Administration and repeal of the IRA can stop the environmental and economic damage caused by decades-long subsidies, the resulting overbuilding of wind and solar projects, and the attendant massive deficit spending.

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