By David Wojick

The Government of Maine has really big plans for floating wind, a floating net zero fantasy, in fact. Since floating wind power is the next big green thing, it is worth taking a close look at this ruinous vision.

Floating wind is a fad, not an established technology. It has yet to be built at utility scale or tested in a hurricane. The world’s biggest grid-connected system is a tiny 50 MW and just came online off Scotland.

The cost of floating wind is necessarily much greater than fixed wind. A fixed wind tower sits on a simple monopile, while a floating tower sits on a huge complex structure called a floater. We are talking about massive 500-foot towers with 500-ton turbines on top and 300-foot blades catching the wind.

The floater has to be large enough to keep this monster tower from blowing over. Then, it has to be even bigger to contain enough air to be buoyant. It also has to be anchored to the ocean floor in ways that require a lot of different mooring lines.

The small existing floating generator systems cost around three times what fixed wind costs per MW, but the big and hurricane-proof generators might cost even more. Over a hundred designs have been proposed, which shows just how immature Floating wind technology is.

Which brings us to Maine’s floating green dream, a costly nightmare for its people. When it comes to electricity use, Maine is a small state with average generation of just around 1,500 MW. But in an act of madness, they passed a law saying they will buy 3,000 MW of floating wind. Fixed wind is not an option because the Gulf of Maine is too deep.

How do they justify buying so much floating wind? Simple, it is a net zero fantasy. They have a 115-page “Maine Offshore Wind Roadmap” that explains it.

For a start, they shut down all their existing combustion generators, mostly burning either gas or wood. Maine is 90% forest, so there is a lot of wood. Then, they electrify all the other forms of combustion. For example, 60% of homes are heated with fuel oil, so they switch to heat pumps or something that works in really cold weather. Of course, all the cars and trucks are electric.

The projected cost of the 3,000 MW of floating wind is huge. Using the reported three times fixed wind figure, I get a rough estimate of $50 billion for construction and an equal amount for financing and profit, giving a total cost of around $100 billion. It could be a lot more once large-scale and hurricane-proof technology is developed if it ever is.

Apparently, the astronomical cost is no object because it is never mentioned. Not in the law, roadmap, or various technical support documents. Jobs are frequently mentioned, but they are part of the cost. But then, too, there is the much larger cost of the energy transition, without which the floating wind is simply not usable.

Clearly, the floating wind development may never occur, which brings us back to the present day, where things get really crazy. The State of Maine has started the process to build a huge new port specifically to handle this floating wind fantasy. I am not making this up.

With fixed wind, the shore facility is merely a marshaling yard where the pieces are held until barged out to the offshore site for assembly. There are just four big pieces: the monopile, tower, turbine, and blade set.

Floating wind is completely different because the huge floater is built at the port. The tower, turbines, and blade set are mounted on the floater there as well. Then, the whole assembly is towed to the site and anchored to the sea floor using eight or more mooring lines.

So this is really a highly specialized shipyard, a floater factory, not a port. There will have to be one or more dry docks to build the huge floaters in, plus a great deal of specialized equipment, especially cranes. Reportedly, steel floaters for a 15 MW turbine could typically weigh 3500 to 4500 tons, while concrete floaters would be in the range of 17,000 to 22,000 tons.

The final configuration is completely unknown until the floater design is finalized. Note, too, that this shipyard might only be in operation for the few years it takes to build 3,000 MW of floating wind generators.

The presently estimated cost of this shipyard/port is a bit under a billion dollars but it could easily be more depending on the complexity of the design. The cost of a unique new system tends to go way up when the engineering is actually done.

Starting this billion-dollar port project now is just foolish. It is highly likely that the required energy transition will not occur. The electricity will be very expensive, perhaps four to five times the present cost. Plus, we have no idea what the technology will look like, assuming it can be made to work in the tempestuous waters off Maine.

The people of Maine are unlikely to accept these onerous conditions, nor should they. This whole nutty project needs to be reconsidered.

Humanity has only been on this 4-billion-year-old Earth for a “microsecond.

Published June 17, 2024 at America Out Loud NEWS

Paul Driessen is senior policy analyst for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org), and author of articles and books on environmental, climate and human rights issues.

Ronald Stein  is an engineer, senior policy advisor on energy literacy for the Heartland Institute and CFACT, and co-author of the Pulitzer Prize nominated book “Clean Energy Exploitations.”

Earth’s climate has changed many times over four billion years, and 99.999% of those changes occurred before humans were on this planet. During that short time, humans adjusted their housing, clothing, and agriculture in response to climate changes. Can we now control the climate?

Except for decades-long droughts or massive volcanic explosions that ended some civilizations, humanity generally adjusted successfully – through a Pleistocene Ice Age, a Little Ice Age, a Dust Bowl, and other natural crises.

After putting our current “microsecond” on this 4-billion-year-old Earth into its proper perspective, we might therefore ask:

• With today’s vastly superior technologies, why would humanity possibly be unable to adjust to even a few-degrees temperature increase, especially with more atmospheric carbon dioxide helping plants grow faster and better, providing more food for animals and people?

• How dare the political, bureaucratic, academic and media ruling elites who propagate GIGO computer predictions, calculated myths and outright disinformation – tell us we must implement their “green” policies immediately and universally … or humanity won’t survive manmade climate influences that are minuscule compared to the planetary, solar and galactic forces that really control Earth’s climate?

• How dare those elites tell Earth’s poorest people and nations they have no right to seek energy, health and living standards akin to what developed countries already enjoy?

Scientists, geophysicists, and engineers have yet to explain or prove what caused the slight change in global temperatures we are experiencing today – much less the huge fluctuations that brought five successive mile-high continental glaciers, and sea levels that plunged 400 feet each time (because seawater was turned to ice), interspersed with warm interglacial periods like the one we’re in now.

Moreover, none of the dire predictions of cataclysmic temperature increases, sea level rise, and more frequent and intense storms have occurred, despite decades of climate chaos fearmongering.

Earth continues to experience climate changes, from natural forces and/or human activity. However, adjusting to small temperature, sea level and precipitation changes would inflict far less harm on our planet’s eight billion people than would ridding the world of fossil fuels that provide 80% of our energy and myriad of products that helped to nearly double human life expectancy over the past 200 years.

Today, with fuels, products, housing, and infrastructures that didn’t even exist one or two centuries ago, we can adjust to almost anything.

When it’s cold, we heat insulated homes and wear appropriate winter clothing; when it’s hot, we use air conditioning and wear lighter clothing. When it rains, we remain dry inside or with umbrellas; when it snows, we stay warm indoors or ski, bobsled and build snowmen.

Climate changes may impact us in many ways. But eliminating coal, oil, and natural gas – with no 24/7/365 substitutes to replace them – would be immoral and evil. It would bring extreme shortages of reliable, affordable, essential energy, and of over 6,000 essential products derived from fossil fuels.

It would inflict billions of needless deaths from diseases, malnutrition, extreme heat and cold, and wild weather – on a planet where the human population has grown from 1 billion to 8 billion since Col. Edwin Drake drilled the first oilwell in 1859.

• Weather-related fatalities have virtually disappeared, thanks to accurate forecasting, storm warnings, modern buildings, and medicines and other petroleum-based products that weren’t available even 100 years ago.

• Fossil fuels for huge long-range jets and merchant ships move people, products, food, and medications to support global trade, mobility, health, and lifestyle choices. Indeed, more than 50,000 merchant ships, 20,000 commercial aircraft and 50,000 military aircraft use fuels manufactured from crude oil. 

• Food to feed Americans and humanity would be far less abundant and affordable without the fertilizers, insecticides, herbicides, and tractor and transportation fuels that come from oil and natural gas.

• Everything powered by electricity utilizes petroleum-based derivatives: wind turbine blades and nacelle covers, wire insulation, iPhone and computer housings, defibrillators, myriad EV components and more.

Petroleum industry history demonstrates that crude oil was virtually useless until it could be transformed in refineries and chemical plants into derivatives that are the foundation for plastics, solvents, medications, and other products that support industries, health and living standards. The same is true for everything else that comes out of holes in the ground.

Plants and rocks, metals and minerals have no inherent value unless we learn how to cook them, extract metals from them, bend and shape them, or otherwise convert them into something we can use.

Similarly, the futures of poor developing countries hinge on their ability to harness foundational elements: fuels, electricity, and products made from fossil fuels and other materials that are the basis for all buildings, infrastructures, and other technologies in industrialized countries.

For the 80% of humanity in Africa, Asia and Latin America who still live on less than $10 a day – and the billions who still have little to no access to electricity – life is severely complicated and compromised by the hypocritical “green” agendas of wealthy country elites who have benefited so tremendously from fossil fuels since the modern industrial era began around 1850. Before that:

• Life spans were around 40 years, and people seldom travelled more than 100 miles from their birthplaces.

• There was no electricity, since generating, transmitting, and utilizing this amazing energy resource requires technologies made from crude oil and natural gas derivatives.

• That meant the world had no modern transportation, hospitals, medicines and medical equipment, kitchen and laundry appliances, radio and other electronics, cell phones and other telecommunications, air and space travel, central heating and air conditioning, or year-round shipping and preservation of meats, fruits, and vegetables, to name just a few things most of us just take for granted.

There are no silver-bullet solutions to save people from natural or manmade climate changes. However, adjusting to those fluctuations is the only solution that minimizes fatalities which would be caused by the callous or unthinking elimination of the petroleum fuels and building blocks that truly make life possible and enjoyable, instead of nasty, brutish and short. The late Steven Lyazi put it perfectly:

• “Wind and solar are … short-term solutions …. to meet basic needs until [faraway Ugandan villages] can be connected to transmission lines and a grid. Only in that way can we have modern homes, heating, lighting, cooking, refrigeration, offices, factories, schools, shops, and hospitals – so that we can enjoy the same living standards people in industrialized countries do (and think is their right). We deserve the same rights and lives.

• “What is an extra degree, or even two degrees, of warming in places like Africa? It’s already incredibly hot here, and people are used to it. What we Africans worry about and need to fix are malnutrition and starvation, the absence of electricity, and killer diseases like malaria, tuberculosis, sleeping sickness and HIV/AIDS…. We just need to be set free to [get the job done].”

Eradicating the world of crude oil usage, without first having a replacement in mind, would be immoral and evil, as extreme shortages of the products now manufactured from fossil fuels will result in billions of fatalities from diseases, malnutrition, and weather-related deaths, and could be a greater threat than any climate change to the world’s eight billion population.

Please share this information with teachers, students, and friends to encourage Energy Literacy conversations at the family dinner table. 

Click this Link to Sign up for Energy Literacy from Ronald Stein