Tag: floating wind

Maine’s floating wind program takes another hit

The US Energy Department recently suspended a large grant at the University of Maine for research on floating wind technology. The full significance of this suspension will not be known until it plays out, but it is useful to see the context. This research plays a central role in Maine’s massive offshore wind development program, which CFACT has been fighting for some time with sizable success.

From CFACT

By David Wojick

The US Energy Department recently suspended a large grant at the University of Maine for research on floating wind technology. The full significance of this suspension will not be known until it plays out, but it is useful to see the context. This research plays a central role in Maine’s massive offshore wind development program, which CFACT has been fighting for some time with sizable success.

Maine averages just a mere 1,500 MW of electricity consumption, but they want to have a crazy 3,000 MW of offshore wind. This target assumes complete electrification of cars, trucks, home heat, etc. – the full transition, which is never going to happen.

Even worse, given the great offshore depths, this has to be floating wind which costs around three times as much as fixed bottom wind, which is already way too expensive. Floating wind is also environmentally destructive with a vast undersea web of anchoring cables.

It also requires a big factory to make the huge floaters that carry the turbine towers. Maine’s objectionable choice of a factory site is Sears Island, the largest uninhabited and undeveloped island on the East Coast. Maine legislator Reagan Paul’s district includes Sears Island, and she is adamantly against this project. CFACT has worked closely with her in this fight.

Central to the Maine plan is the use of floating wind technology being developed by the University of Maine. You can see some of their research work funded under the now stopped grant here: “Optimized Floating Offshore Wind Turbine Substructure Design Trends for 10–30 MW Turbines in Low-, Medium-, and High-Severity Wave Environments”.

https://www.mdpi.com/2411-9660/8/4/72

Thus, the DOE funded research that was just stopped is on the critical path for the Maine plan. In fact, the University researchers were in the process of building, launching, and operating a small-scale version of their floater design. The floater is sitting at a dock waiting for its turbine tower to be erected.

However, Maine’s entire offshore program has already been stopped, at least for now, which might make the research moot. This stoppage is an event that CFACT likely played a key role in.

The Sears Island floater factory was going to cost a lot of money, so Maine applied to the US Transportation Department for a roughly half billion dollars grant to pay for most of it. DOT had already given a similar huge grant to California.

CFACT research found that this DOT grant program was intended for projects that improved US freight traffic, which a floater factory certainly does not do. Thus, the grant would be a misallocation of federal funds.

So we filed a complaint with GAO’s Fraud, Waste, and Abuse Reporting System. They examined it and sent it to the DOT Inspector General. Not long after that, DOT notified Maine that their grant application would not be funded.

It is possible that DOT turned Maine down for other reasons, but the timing makes it likely that we blew the telling whistle. Of course DOT did not say the grant would be inappropriate as they had already made one just like it. But President Trump was about to take office, so maybe they decided it was time to abandon Biden’s illegal grant practice once it was pointed out.

For more on the foolishness of the Maine program see my report here: http://www.cfact.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Maines-massive-floating-wind-folly.pdf

Getting back to the DOE research grant stoppage, it would be great if they were joining EPA and Interior in carrying out the President’s policy of stopping offshore wind. EPA and Interior have each recently stopped a major offshore wind project.

However, as with the DOE research stoppage, all of these actions are temporary, at least on paper. Each says there is an investigation going on, as does the President’s offshore wind executive order.

So, there is a lot left to be done when it comes to stopping offshore wind. CFACT will be active throughout this process. Stay tuned to see how it all plays out.

Floating wind madness in Maine

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.

From CFACT

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.