A Major Re-Assessment of the Viability of Offshore Wind Projects Is in Order If New York Gives A Damn About It's Citizenry
Guest Post by Roger Caiazza of Pragmatic Environmentalist of New York.
Last month I described a flurry of offshore wind related news and there have been enough stories since then for another update. In my opinion these latest revelations suggest that a reassessment of the viability of offshore wind projects is in order.
Overview
The Climate Act established a New York “Net Zero” target (85% reduction in GHG emissions and 15% offset of emissions) by 2050. It includes an interim 2030 reduction target of a 40% reduction by 2030. Two targets address the electric sector: 70% of the electricity must come from renewable energy by 2030 and all electricity has to be generated be “zero-emissions” resources by 2040.
The Climate Action Council (CAC) was responsible for preparing the Scoping Plan that outlined how to “achieve the State’s bold clean energy and climate agenda.” The Integration Analysis prepared by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) and its consultants quantifies the impact of the electrification strategies. That material was used to develop the Draft Scoping Plan outline of strategies. After a year-long review, the Scoping Plan was finalized at the end of 2022. Since then, the State has been trying to implement the Scoping Plan recommendations through regulations, proceedings, and legislation.
Offshore wind developments are a key Climate Act decarbonization strategy. There is a mandated target of 9,000 MW of offshore wind by 2035. The Integration Analysis projects that offshore wind capacity will exceed 13 GW by 2040. However, there are overlooked risks to this strategy that are now becoming obvious. The fact is that the huge, proposed wind turbines have not been field tested.
Turbine Blade Failures
Bud’s Offshore Energy reports that:
The “highly unusual and rare” talking point for turbine blade failures seems to have finally been discarded.
3 new GE Haliade-X blades failed shortly after installation at Dogger Bank and Vineyard Wind. A total of only 48 turbines had been installed.
One of the reasons for waiving the “pay as you build” financial assurance requirement for Vineyard Wind was “the use of proven wind turbine technology.”
Dr. Edgar Gunter (RIP 😢), founder of the University of Virginia’s Rotor Dynamics Lab, suggested the cause of the Vineyard Wind blade failure was not a material bonding problem, but rather “a classical torsional fatigue failure of the blade at the base.” (His message is below)
Bud’s Offshore Energy continues with some other thoughts:
The offshore safety regulator (BSEE) has a very capable technical staff and should produce an informed report on the Vineyard Wind blade failure. The concern is with the internal review process that has seriously delayed the publication of accident investigation reports and safety alerts.
Presumably, DNV, the Vineyard Wind CVA, will provide input into the BSEE investigation. Perhaps the effectiveness of the CVA process and quality control procedures should be separately considered.
Will Equinor, a major oil and gas producer, Dogger Bank partner, and offshore wind advocate, be investigating the Dogger Bank failures?
A comprehensive International data base on turbine incidents and performance is needed.
As previously noted, offshore substations are large structures. A closeup of the Vineyard Wind 1 substation is pasted below.
Consequences of Turbine Blade Failures
Paul Driessen points out that one broken wind turbine blade shut down Massachusetts beaches and asks what would happen if a hurricane struck. He describes the impact of the Vineyard Wind failure:
Shards, chunks and finally the rest of a turbine blade fell into the ocean. One blade … from a 62-turbine project that’s only three-fourths completed … broken by its own weight, not by a storm.
And yet beaches had to be closed amid peak tourist season, while crews picked up pieces of fiberglass-resin-plastic-foam blades, and boats dodged big pieces floating in the water. Worse, Vineyard Wind didn’t tell Nantucket officials about the problems until two days after the blade began disintegrating.
Each blade is 350 feet long and 140,000 pounds. That’s more than a fully occupied Boeing 737 jetliner. Vineyard Wind involves 186 blades: 65,000 feet (12 miles) in total combined length, weighing in at a combined 26,000,000 pounds!
Vineyard Wind will have 62 wind turbines and a total capacity of 800 MW. Driessen notes that:
The Biden-Harris offshore wind plan calls for 30,000 megawatts of generating capacity by 2030. That’s 2,500 gigantic 12-MW offshore turbines. That won’t even meet New York State’s current peak summer electricity needs, before all these extra demands kick in. Offshore wind’s contribution toward meeting future demands for all Atlantic Coast states could easily require 5,000 such turbines: 15,000 blades, weighing a combined 2 billion pounds and spanning a combined 5,250,000 feet (995 miles)!
He points out the obvious problem that the planned offshore wind facilities on the East Coast can all be affected by hurricanes:
Even more disturbing, the entire Atlantic coastline is hurricane country. Every year, almost without fail. The only questions are how many hurricanes, how powerful, and where each one will hit.
NOAA records for landfalling hurricanes – those that actually hit US beaches and cities – reveal that 105 Category 1-5 hurricanes struck the Atlantic seaboard, from Florida to Maine, from 1851 through 2023. Add in those that remained at sea, where the turbines will be, and that number could double.
Of that total, 23 were Category 3-5 (111-157 or higher mph winds). Most struck Florida, Georgia and South Carolina. But 39 made landfall between North Carolina and Delaware – and 19 hit Northeastern States, including nine Category 2-3 monsters (96-129 mph winds).
Mind you – these turbines will be weakened by constant corrosive salt spray and frequently by sub-hurricane storms. When the inevitable big hurricane roars up the coast, devastation will follow.
The 1935 Labor Day Hurricane clobbered Florida with 200+ mph devastation, Georgia with Category 1 winds. The Great New England Hurricane of 1938 smashed into New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts with 115-120 mph force. 1944’s Great Atlantic Hurricane – punished the coast from North Carolina to New Jersey and Massachusetts with Category 2 winds.
Edna hit the Northeast with Category 2 winds in 1954, Donna did it again in 1960, and Gloria clobbered the region with 96-115 mph blasts in 1985, even reaching New Hampshire and Maine! Isabel hit North Carolina and Virginia in 2003. The “minor” Category 1 hurricane of 2012, better known as Superstorm Sandy, was also devastating.
This summary includes just some that hit North and Mid-Atlantic States, and a few that slammed Florida, Georgia and South Carolina – all prime territory for forests of offshore turbines, fixed to the seafloor or insanely sitting atop enormous floating platforms off Maine and other states. They’d all flounder.
I have found one reference to offshore wind turbine expectations relative to hurricanes. Our EnergyPolicy (OEP) hosted a panel discussion on New York State’s emerging offshore wind market and the policy and business challenges facing this evolving sector, in its Energy Leaders Luncheon Series December 2019 event in New York City. The question was asked “Will wind turbines in New York be able to withstand a Category 5 storm?”
Clint Plummer who was the head of market strategies and new projects for Ørsted, the world’s largest owner, developer, and operator of offshore wind responded that “wind turbines are designed to withstand a Category 3 hurricane, and they have built into their permit applications an insurance fund that can pay for repairs in cases of catastrophic loss from a storm more severe”. He said “a Category 5 hurricane has a return period in excess of 100 years, while the design life of a wind farm is 30-35 years, so wind turbines are not designed to withstand a Category 5 storm because they are not expected to experience one”. “Anything less than that up to a certain speed is just a really good day for producing a lot of wind power,” he said
At the time of this response, the offshore wind turbines proposed were smaller. Since then, the quest for higher capacity availability has led to bigger turbines that recent events suggest may not be as robust as the smaller designs. It is conceivable that when a hurricane with intensities like those observed inevitably reoccurs after the massive build outs proposed are in place, that many (most?) wind turbine blades will fail. Driessen argues that it will take months or years to replace widespread broken wind turbine blades and that it may require the construction of alternative generating sources:
Hopefully, politicians and bureaucrats could expedite new gas turbine and modular nuclear power plants. That would mean only a few years of deprivation and blackouts, instead of many years, perhaps decades.
Otherwise, floating slabs of broken turbine blades would endanger boats for months or years, until they are retrieved, hauled ashore and landfilled. Cleaning up billions of sharp shards of fiberglass – each an inch to a couple feet in length, and nearly invisible – would likely take decades, during which time they would impale and imperil beach walkers, swimmers, fish, whales, dolphins and other marine life.
I’m not a microbiologist, but I’m not aware of any microbes that devour fiberglass, resin or plastic foam.
With no bonds or requirements that Big Wind cover cleanup and turbine removal costs, electricity-bereft taxpayers and ratepayers would be left holding the bag.
Before we rush any further into this “renewable energy transformation,” can we first have some realistic, commonsense analysis? Can we at least think before casting our ballots this fall?
Maine’s Floating Turbines
As if the construction of wind turbines on fixed platforms is not enough of a challenge there are proposals for floating wind turbines. Bud’s Offshore Energy noted that recent bids on lease areas were much lower than previous sales.
David Wojick describes the curious first lease for floating offshore wind turbines in the Gulf of Maine. The State of Maine was awarded the lease which is described as a research lease rather than a commercial development lease.
To begin with, the lease is for a 144 MW “research array” of turbines, as it is called. Well, 144 MW is huge for research. The South Fork Wind site (fixed, not floating) that is already running is a 12-turbine, 132 MW commercial facility, so this array will be bigger than commercial.
It could cost $3 billion-plus the cost of the factory to make the dozen or so floaters. Different websites suggest different turbine sizes from 10 to 12 MW. Of course, if this is really research, they might use a variety of sizes, but the total is still huge.
Why so big is the first mystery, and the official explanations are far too vague to justify it. They mostly talk about research into things like efficiency, supply chain, and even jobs.
Wojick makes a couple of other points. This “research” lease development is occurring at the same time there are commercial developments underway so the results will not benefit project developments. The payment structure of this project is mirky: “if a Purchase Power Agreement (PPA) is supposed to pay for the array, plus profit, then it is very much a commercial development meanwhile research is expensive and unpredictable so how can there be an advance PPA to pay for it?”.
He suggests that there is another possibility: “This project is not about research it is about building the floater factory and demonstrating the University of Maine technology.”
There is a monster wild card in the floating wind game, and that is the factory. Fixed bottom wind is very simple onshore. All you need is a good dock, a big crane, and a place to sit the components until they are taken to the site and installed. There are just a few simple components — monopile, tower, turbine, and blades. It is all made elsewhere.
Floating wind is made from scratch onshore then towed as a whole to the offshore site. The Uni-patented technology uses concrete floaters which might weigh 15,000 tons or more and are complex structures. Factory construction of floaters will be a huge job.
This fact about floating wind is seldom mentioned, and when it is, the language is usually deceptive. The industry talks about “ports,” not factories, and the Maine floater factory is called a port. See my. note that the factory will be operated by Diamond.
So here is what might happen. As part of the “research” Maine builds the floater factory and enough floaters to demonstrate that the patented Uni- technology works. Developers of the 15,000 MW of commercial Gulf wind have to choose technologies for their various sites. If they choose any other technology, out of over a hundred candidates, they will have to build the factory to make it.
Once the floater factory is built then a powerful incentive to use it exists. Given that they are talking about $100 billion in floaters the developers, the State of Maine and the University of Maine will make a huge amount of money. Of course, the money has to come from somewhere so expect the ratepayers in Maine to be on the hook for that. Wojick concludes:
Mind you I am not claiming this is what is going on, but it certainly makes sense out of this supposed research array. The primary obstacle is that the Uni-technology has never been built at 10-12 MW scale and it might not be feasible. Also, the factory design that I have seen does not work, but that is a separate issue.
Hot Air Renewable Notes
Beege Welborn has a nice overview article: Blade Failures Continue and Don’t Go Missing in an Offshore Wind Farm on the Hot Air website. The article describes blade failures in Missouri, covers the problems at Vineyard Wind, notes that the plans for huge offshore wind farms require mind-boggling amounts of material, and notes that there are radar interference issues with planes and offshore wind farms.
Finally, the article includes a reference to an incident where “wind industry henchmen are showing their true colors during citizen meetings”. The thug” walked up and grabbed” a bag belonging to a woman showing fiberglass shards that washed ashore from the damaged turbine while she attempted to explain her concerns about offshore wind development at a Newport, RI wind farm forum. The guy had been featured at Senator Sheldon Whitehouse’s website until the incident. Thankfully, the goon’s facing assault charges.
Conclusion
The Hochul Administration’s Integration Analysis projects that offshore wind capacity will exceed 13 GW by 2040. These latest revelations suggest that a reassessment of the viability of offshore wind projects is in order.
The technology has not been tested on the scale proposed and it sure appears that there are survivability issues even without storms. What could possibly go wrong?
#ClimateAct #NewYork #Climate #VineyardWind #Wind #Offshorewind
Roger Caiazza blogs on New York energy and environmental issues at Pragmatic Environmentalist of New York. This post represents his opinion alone and not the opinion of his previous employers or any other company with which he has been associated. Roger has followed the Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act) since it was first proposed, submitted comments on the Climate Act implementation plan, and has written over 450 articles about New York’s net-zero transition.
These green gifter villains are gonna be hard to combat