Six months ago most political, business, and community leaders in New Jersey were calling ocean wind turbines a good idea. Only a handful of ocean front homeowners, fishermen, and climate scare skeptics like me opposed them.
Now it seems like most shore residents and visitors are against them. We are persuading politicians, the media, and people around New Jersey and the country to stand with us.
This change started when whales began to die. Since December, 11 whales and dozens of other marine mammals have washed up dead on New Jersey beaches. This happened when survey ships in the area were using sonar and ocean floor drilling to find suitable sites for wind turbines.
A traditional windmill turns a stone wheel to grind grain into flour. A wind turbine turns magnets around coils of wire to generate electricity.
Orsted and Atlantic Shores plan to build 400 giant wind turbines 9 miles off our beaches from Seaside Heights to Wildwood. Each wind turbine would be 1,047 feet tall – twice as high as the Washington Monument, and 400 feet taller than the Ocean Casino in Atlantic City.
These towers and their spinning blades would be clearly seen from every beach and boardwalk. So will their red blinking safety lights at night. Their noise would be heard for miles. Viewing the ocean horizon would be like looking at an industrial park, yet few people cared about this until the whales died.
Several federal and state agencies and environmental groups claim that these deaths have nothing to do with wind turbines. However, these same people blamed sonar tests for killing whales 20 years ago when petroleum companies used them to search for places to locate offshore oil rigs.
Whales and other marine mammals have very sensitive ears. They find their way underwater by making sounds that bounce off nearby objects. The truth that offshore wind proponents don’t want to admit is that loud explosions used in sonar tests hurt their ears and make marine mammals unaware of their surroundings. This often causes them to panic and swim into the beach or passing ships.
Each of the 400 wind turbines will cost roughly $10 million. That comes to $4 billion. They will also require years of dangerous and expensive repairs and maintenance at sea. Since wind turbines wear out after 25 years, more money will be spent to remove, replace, and safely dispose of them.
Many people and corporations stand to make huge profits from this. Many of them have already hired lobbyists and consultants. They have also made generous donations to political campaigns and “grants” to towns, colleges, community and environmental groups.
We will have to pay roughly two to three times more for electricity because of this. Electric rates for businesses and government agencies will go up the most. We will pay in the form of higher taxes and prices. Residential electric bills paid by voters will probably see only small increases.
“Free” energy from wind is expensive because it’s wasteful.
Since the amount of energy produced is intermittent and cannot be controlled, there are times when too much is produced, meaning, greater than demand or more than the power grid can handle. When there is no market for the extra electricity, the excess is “dumped” or discarded.
There will also be times when there is not enough wind and supplemental sources will be needed such as gss, oil, nuclear, or other fossil fuels to keep the lights on.
Wind turbines save very little fossil fuel because they need 100 percent backup. When wind slows down or stops, backup generators or other sources will be immediately needed to inject electricity into the grid.
This problem makes the threat of electricity shortages real as government and environmental groups continue to make it difficult for traditional power stations to operate by opposing pipelines (B.L. England), while hastening the transition to all-electric vehicles.
Also, electricity dumping from offshore wind turbines will happen because there is no battery system available to store it efficiently. We lack the technology and enough rare earth minerals to make batteries big enough.
How much wind energy will be dumped and wasted when it’s too windy? How much fossil fuel will be burned by backup generators when the winds don’t blow?
The Atlantic County Utilities Authority (ACUA) has had five wind turbines on its property in Atlantic City since 2006. To the best of my knowledge, they have never reported how much wind energy has been “dumped” from the project when it is produced when not needed. How much money and fossil fuel is wasted on backup generators when there is not enough wind?
For years, the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities fooled the public into believing that “green” energy is profitable and pays for itself. It forces electric companies to pay top dollar for all electricity produced by wind turbines and solar panels, even when it is not needed. It also forces consumers to pay subsidies to the owners of wind turbines and solar panels.
Nuclear power plants produce carbon-free electricity without these problems. They produce steady, reliable power 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 52 weeks a year. They are also far less expensive than wind turbines.
Additional reactors can easily be added to the existing nuclear power plant in Salem for far less than the cost of 400 unreliable wind turbines in the ocean. Nuclear plants actually save fossil fuel. Wind turbines only pretend.
Europeans are waking up to this. For the past 30 years, Germany invested in wind while France invested in nuclear. For years, cheap natural gas from Russia covered up the failures of Germany’s “Energiewende” green energy program. When the war in Ukraine cut that natural gas, Germans chopped down trees for firewood and bought expensive nuclear electricity from France.
Most European countries are now slowing or stopping their wind energy programs. That is why a Danish company like Orsted is trying so hard to sell its wind turbines in America. Meanwhile, Communist China is building nearly two new coal power plants each week.
We still have time to stop offshore wind turbines in New Jersey. Both Orsted and Atlantic Shores need additional federal funds and guaranteed rate hikes to move forward with their projects.
Republican Congressman Jeff Van Drew is working to get Republicans in the House of Representatives to make blocking New Jersey wind turbines part of any future budget deal. Several Democratic state senators and Assembly members are working with Republicans to block future state funding and rate increases to pay for the project.
To stop this project, Democrats and Republicans need to repeatedly contact their state and federal representatives of both parties to make their feelings known.
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Seth Grossman is the president of LibertyAndProsperity.com. Email him at info@libertyandprosperity.com. He is an attorney with offices located at 453 Shore Road in Somers Point.
Excellent overview !!
Grossman’s a liar. His rant against the proposed wind turbine projects is so filled with disinformation and lies it’s laughable. The real reason he’s opposed to these devices is he believes they will effect coastal property values. The rest of his objections are nonsense.
Please specify one fact you claim is not accurate. Thanks.
The property values will continue to rise, whether there are wind turbines or not.
The wind turbine project needs to be paused and need better information such as studies from other parts of the world that have wind turbines.
And independent studies, not company studies that will be doing the work.
This sounds good in theory but the reality is troubling when whales start dying at this rate and that is just from the sonar scanning.
Follow the money…I am assuming there are major world corporations that will be building this and will make a lot of money and that they most likely have ties to politicians. They usually do.
Green energy can also be dirty energy in a different way.
Excellent, thoughtful points made by Mr. Grossman which I am sure many were unaware of including myself.
No to these wind turbines.
It is already a disaster so let’s avoid a bigger disaster.
Liberals love this green energy crap which ends up costing more, financially and in other ways.
King Governor Phil is pushing for this crap.
Follow the money, it never lies…
The dept of energy management reported that there is harm to Marine life from windmill development.
The windmill project should be paused until we can figure out what is going on… then make an educated decision on what is best for the people and Mother Earth…
I wish someone would publish facts and data and set the biased opinions and emotions aside.
In a June 12 comment on this website it was written “I wish someone would publish facts and data and set the biased opinions and emotions aside.” I hope to do this, not to bias your opinion on the question of offshore wind farms, but to rebut one of several incorrect “facts” that appeared in the long post published on June 9. The poster wrote :
“Most European countries are now slowing or stopping their wind energy programs. That is why a Danish company like Orsted is trying so hard to sell its wind turbines in America. Meanwhile, Communist China is building nearly two new coal power plants each week.”
Let us look at the facts relative to offshore wind farms in both Europe and in China.
Since 2010, England has heavily invested in wind energy. Presently about 25% of electric energy in England is generated by wind, half onshore and half offshore. England continues to rapidly expand wind farms, mainly offshore.
In Germany, shortly after taking office, Olaf Scholz’s government announced the aim to bring the share of renewables in the power mix to 80 percent by the end of the decade, from nearly 45 percent in 2022. Continued falls in the cost of offshore wind, and the turbines’ increasingly high and reliable yields have bolstered confidence that the technology can become a pillar of the German energy system.
The government aims to install 70 GW of wind capacity in German waters by 2045. Dr. Robert Habeck, German Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Climate Action said “….we now want to drive the expansion of offshore wind energy forward in a targeted and coordinated manner.”
In China, in 2021 alone, China built more offshore wind capacity than the rest of the world had built in the last 5 years put together. It commissioned 16.9 GW of offshore wind capacity, which accounted for 80% of all new capacity in 2021 worldwide. That massive expansion had meant that China today operates almost half of the world’s installed offshore wind, with 26 GW of a total of 54 GW worldwide.
OK, so it appears the post on June 9 was less than truthful in writing “Most European countries are now slowing or stopping their wind energy programs.” Unfortunately this was not the only questionable statement made in the June 9 post. It is important to understand not everything published should be assumed to be correct.
Persons are to be encouraged to express their personal opinions, but these opinions should not be presented, or accepted, as facts. They are opinions, and sometimes opinions are based on incorrect information or based on a biased outlook.
I do not know if I am for or against off shore wind farms. What I believe is we can learn from the experience of other countries who have had years of actually operating off shore wind farms.
I note that the European countries with off shore wind farm experience are still studying their effect on sea life and many related questions are as yet not conclusively answered. I count their actual experience to be a bit more reliable than scientific projections that we seem to be debating. S
cientific projections tell us what is expected to happen. Actual experience tells us what did happen.
JIB Train
You did not address what I wrote: “Europeans are waking up to this. For the past 30 years, Germany invested in wind while France invested in nuclear. For years, cheap natural gas from Russia covered up the failures of Germany’s “Energiewende” green energy program. When the war in Ukraine cut that natural gas, Germans chopped down trees for firewood and bought expensive nuclear electricity from France. Most European countries are now slowing or stopping their wind energy programs”.
You said nothing to refute this. There have been many news stories of new opposition to wind energy in England and Germany. Here is a link to one of them: https://www.dw.com/en/germanys-challenges-for-2023-energy-unity-and-china/a-64240063
If you fact check Mr. Grossmen’s statement you will be able to know for yourself just how much disinformation it contains.
Please send me key word or link to any “fact check” that disputes any fact set forth in my post. Thanks.