U.S. Offshore Wind Projects: Eco-Consequences on the Firing Line (Part I: Icebreaker, Cape Wind, Block Island)

By Sherri Lange — January 6, 2021

[Click here for Part II: Vineyard Wind]

A proposed six-turbine project eight miles offshore, Icebreaker (Ohio) has been in the cooker for a decade or more ... The consensus is that even with the “poison pill” feathering requirement removed, Icebreaker faces enormous obstacles and crippling delays.

Going back to 2001, the Cape Wind (Massachusetts) project planned to erect 130 turbines in Nantucket Sound. The opposition was relentless, and eventually, “no turbines were ever anchored to the ocean floor, no blades ever spun, no power was ever generated.”

It won permits and was constructed, but the $300 million Block Island, RI project has been a monument to planning failures. Transmission cables, improperly trenched and insufficiently buried, are floating dangerously, requiring a shut down of the turbines to facilitate costly repairs.

Wind turbines are the ultimate in environmental consequence, wasting and contaminating land, water, and vistas, as well as harming wildlife and people. And all for nothing, wind energy is at once too expensive and unneeded.

Eco-harms? Ask the real environmentalists who live in the country only to find their pristine lives compromised by some of the biggest machines in the world.

Having plundered large areas of pristine forests, mountain tops, and farm land, the foreign multinationals have now arrived at coastal areas, arranging permits for shore substation and cable transmission insertions.

This string of effort stretches from Maine to Virginia. Even the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) admitted it had not anticipated the rush, and some of the consequences. “We are in an incredible growth period,” adds the American Wind Energy Association, which see as much as a $70 billion offshore wind ‘pipeline’ by 2030.

Icebreaker (Lake Erie, offshore Cleveland)

A proposed six-turbine project eight miles offshore, Icebreaker has been in the cooker for a decade or more.[1] In 2014, the Ohio Power Siting Board (OPSB) chair Todd Snitchler informed then-developer LEEDCo that the project was deeply flawed. Enter foreign billionaire, Fred Olsen Renewables Inc, Norway. With a new case number, new design, new application, the project was finally approved by the OPSB to the dismay and objection of many groups.

Two lawsuits are pending, and many questions remain as to whether the project can survive the numerous delays and hurdles, such as the mandate to produce mitigation processes for endangered and other wildlife, directly in the path of the six massive turbines. (The Staff at OPSB conditioned the permit with 33 caveats, some are onerous and, in our view, Project Killers. Even with the “feathering” restriction finally removed, remaining conditions are viewed as bulky, lengthy, and if one examines it carefully, some impossible.)

Developer has now reneged on the MONO BUCKET design, and even the design now is up in the air. Question: is this not now a completely new application?

Pushback against the project remains formidable. Several effective groups, both sides of the border, have resisted and delayed or otherwise intercepted all turbine efforts offshore: GLOW, Great Lakes Offshore Wind NYS, defeated. Toronto Hydro Energy Services’ plan for 400 massive machines in Lake Ontario, Canada, and other developer plans for hundreds, thousands more, quashed with an offshore moratorium (2011). 

LEEDCo/Icebreaker, permitted after an eleven year battle, has massive hurdles and two lawsuits to surmount. Likely delay and obstacles put before them by the OPSB staff is likely to defeat this would-be Great Lakes despoiler, Fred Olsen Renewables Inc. Norway.

(Meanwhile, another Great Lakes wind project by Diamond Wind, for 50 turbines, is likely to be terminated with the sheer force of activists and Great Lakes protectors such as Residents Sharen Trembath and Paul Michaelec, as well as New York State Senator George Borrello and Representative Chris Jacobs, to name a few.)

The number of active groups that continue to work to arrest the LEEDCo Icebreaker proposal are wide and deep. Great Lakes Wind Truth active for 11 years; Lake Erie Foundation, Save Lake Erie, Save Our Beautiful Lake Cleveland, Lake Erie Marine Trades Association, Michigan Boating Industries Association, are very active groups. Additional groups have registered their objections.

More international individuals and groups have logged objections (partial list here).

Over a decade, the developer has received $13.7 million (much of it DOE-funded) with the prospect of $126 million to come. A staggering amount for a government-enabled project that is undesired by the locals. We have heard the propaganda: jobs, manufacturing chains, cleaner air, no environmental harm ... saving the earth one turbine at a time ... reducing CO₂ and getting off the fossil fuel addiction. None of these claims are true or useful.

Among the proposal conditions that remain (paraphrase of partial list of to do’s), Icebreaker must

It is hard to imagine what kind of collision detection technology could be utilized. It is hard to imagine a viable monitoring plan for a proposal that without doubt will harm and kill species, some endangered.

The consensus is that even with the “poison pill” feathering requirement removed, Icebreaker faces enormous obstacles and crippling delays.

It is most likely that the two lawsuits, prevailing logic, and ongoing public objections, will terminate this proposal.

Cape Wind (withdrawn)

Going back to 2001, the Cape Wind project planned to erect 130 turbines in Nantucket Sound. This was within view of Cape Cod, Nantucket, and Martha’s Vineyard. Legal and financial setbacks ultimately tanked this project in 2017, not the least of which were successful objections that came from wealthy coastal community members.

Jim Gordon, a green energy entrepreneur, put $100 million of his own money into the adventure, which was eventually swept away. The opposition was relentless, and eventually, “no turbines were ever anchored to the ocean floor, no blades ever spun, no power was ever generated.”

Ian Bowles, then state secretary of energy and environmental affairs under former Gov Deval Patrick, who supported Cape Wind, along with other environmental groups, said: “The project unfortunately demonstrated that well-funded opposition groups can effectively use the American court system to stop even a project with no material adverse environmental impacts ...”

Even the proponent with deep pockets was surprised at the cost of promoting this project, the amount of money needed to sustain the idea, and the power of the opposition. (Mr. Gordon missed a construction deadline, and two local utilities cancelled contracts. He was ultimately denied permission to build the transmission line. This was death by a thousand cuts.)

(Note: the argument that offshore or onshore, have “no material adverse environmental impacts,” is typical lingo and should be completely discounted as disingenuous and pure propaganda value only.)

Block Island (Rhode Island): First Operational US Offshore Project

It won permits and was constructed, but the $300 million Block Island, RI project has been a monument to planning failures. Transmission cables, improperly trenched and insufficiently buried, are floating dangerously, requiring a shut down of the turbines to facilitate costly repairs.

It is difficult to say when these cables will be technically correct and functional. (Cables were placed with jet plow rather than the-suggested directional drilling.)

The cabling caper is expected to cost as much as a $100 million – another aspect of a hardly “green” endeavor. “Grover Fugate, director of Rhode Island’s Coastal Resources Management Council, said up to half a mile (800 metres) of cabling will have to have new sections spliced in and be reburied in the approach to Crescent Beach, with two cables affected – one running from Block Island and owned by Orsted and a second export line owned by power off taker National Grid.”

Watch for more cable issues, community pushback, and technical disasters. There seems to be no concerted plan for mapping cables offshore, leaving spaghetti-like incoherent and unmanageable underwater and land cabling connection issues (AC and some hoped for DC), each with its own electrical and pollution challenges.

Clearly, proper engineering protocols were not followed. Is this cutting corners, incompetence, or both? Will this pattern of hasty dangerous shortcuts continue along the Eastern Seaboard? See Part Two tomorrow on the dismal prognosis for U.S. offshore wind re Vineyard Wind, Nantucket.

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[1] Master Resource posts have tracked the long history of LEEDCo:

[Originally published at Master Resource.]

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