Guest Post from Master Resource.
The Great Lakes “Icebreaker” project, with $13 million of DOE/taxpayer money wasted, is a boondoggle waiting to end. Yet the Chicago Tribune tries to gin up hope for an expanded project to prop up the Net Zero narrative. Sherri Lange of North American Platform Against Wind Power and Great Lakes Wind Truth responds in her letter-to-the-editor below.
Dear Editor,
I read the piece by Nora Schoenberg, “Illinois may be up to bat next to build first Great Lakes wind farm after Cleveland drops project” (Chicago Tribune), with interest.
We respectfully point out that the Icebreaker failed for numerous reasons, not all financial, not all regulatory.
The mass outpouring of objections, literally from the entire globe, it is certain had some impact on the OPSB (Ohio Power Siting Board), and in 2014, then Chair Todd Snitchler agreed with many objectors, showed that the bench line for safe harbor for the project had not been achieved.
There was a laundry list of “to do’s” that included: errors, omissions, contradictions, and minimal analyses. More in-depth study of bird and bat populations, mortality and pre and post construction studies of various kinds were needed, impacts of ice throw and impacts to boating communities, were part of his and our objections. These were presented by leading objectors from both sides of the border.
These objections remain in situ. No reasonable proposal to protect wildlife has ever been proposed by the Developer, who morphed from LEEDCo, to Icebreaker. In essence, the over-riding objection of contaminating 20% of the world’s remaining fresh water reserves still is place, and will be forever. Each wind turbine contains lubrication and oil of some 800 gallons, which requires replenishment and cleaning. Knowledge of the environmental impacts grows by the hour, and offshore wind generation generally is being regarded through financial losses lenses more carefully.
We would ask regulators and policy makers in Illinois to examine the exorbitant cost of offshore, the failures at various projects internationally, the damage to oceans and the quintessential harm to economies, local and more broadly, as the sweep of eco virtue signalling is clearly in a death spiral.
Polluting the Great Lakes is not a good idea, and only breeds grief in the making; we fully imagine no State or province can manage the obstacles, because they are truly GINORMOUS. And impractical. And requiring magic glasses. It’s time to allow the Ontario sensible moratorium, and the Icebreaker meltdown, to be the gold standard.
Chicago may wish for a larger project, not a demonstration project, but the grim realities will match the egotistical idea.
Let it go.
P.S. Toronto Wind Action achieved the first offshore moratorium for the Great Lakes with the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority, matched finally by four other moratoria including the offshore Provincial moratorium, which persists to this day. This was achieved, by convincing legislators to abide by an ‘abundance of caution.’ The Icebreaker did not survive the scrutiny and obstacles of literally tens of thousands, and in the end, did not end with a bang, but a whimper.
#GreatLakes #IceBreaker #Offshore #Wind #LakeErie
LOL - the first thing I thought of when hearing that wind turbines had been proposed for Lake Erie was what my Aunt Flavilla told me years ago. She used to live in Buffalo, which like Chicago, is a very windy city. She described how she was walking on a sidewalk and the wind picked her up, right off her feet, and blew her about 6' in distance. So yes, they have plenty of wind - too much - probably enough to tip the turbine towers over. I also remember that Watertown, NY, up on the northeastern shore, has the greatest snowfall depth in the state. Some winters, they don't shovel the snow - they tunnel through it.
Of the myriad reasons to not put wind turbine in the Great Lakes here are the most egregious and most dangerous: Water spouts are a form of water borne tornado (they occur in the Great Lakes); 20 million people draw their drinking water from Lakes Erie and Ontario; Wind Turbines burn, explode, fall down, and leak; and international ships traverse these lakes day, night, in storms and fog. (Keep the Baltimore bridge disaster in mind.) These traits and the intermittency of the power mean that they should not even have been contemplated. We would be able to hear all the way upstate the screams and howls from New York City if wind turbines were put in Cannonsville or Pepacton Reservoirs (NYC's water source). Any agency that attempts to authorize these things in the Great Lakes or any drinking water source ought to have their agency chief impeached.