“Public and regulatory pressure continues against LEEDCo. Freeing the fresh-water lakebed from a billionaire foreign developer using US taxpayer dollars is Step One. Step Two is bringing New York Governor Cuomo’s green fantasy back to earth.”
This Thursday, September 17, 2020, the Ohio Power Siting Board will revisit the LEEDC0 decision of this May that placed significant environmental conditions on the project.
For years, MasterResource has followed the LEEDCo (Lake Erie Energy Development Corp) offshore wind application, what is now owned by Icebreaker Windpower, Fred Olsen Renewables. The massive-sized 6-turbine 20.7 MW project offshore Cleveland has produced a decade of controversy and false starts, and no electricity, with generous DOE funding underwriting the futility.
LEEDCo is on life support. The Ohio Power Siting Board (OPSB) approved the project in May subject to 33 conditions, the most significant being the turbine blades must be “feathered” or shut down at “night” (usually dusk to dawn) during the eight months of migration of many species. The developer has called OPSB’s key condition the “Poison Pill.” This Thursday, September 17th, the OPSB may make a final determination.
…This post summarizes the criticism of Biden’s pro-fracking position from Bill McKibben (New Yorker), Emily Aiken (Heated), Joe Romm (Front Page Live), and David Roberts (Vox), as well as from The Sunrise Movement, 350.org, Greenpeace, Natural Resources Defense Council, The Wilderness Society, Center for Biological Diversity, and the Sierra Club.
…“Offshore wind is not cost-effective, and the forecasts of rapidly declining costs through increasing economies of scale are unrealistic. Absent continued subsidies … it is unlikely that any offshore wind facilities will be developed.”
“The experience with offshore wind projects in Europe over the last decade has demonstrated that newer, larger turbine technologies have been accompanied by significant reliability and maintenance issues, causing the amount of electricity that these turbines generate each year to decline by almost half over 10 years.”
An important data source for offshore wind is a new study by Jonathan Lesser, “Out to Sea: The Dismal Economics of Offshore Wind,” just released by the Manhattan Institute.
This major study reviews the history of offshore wind, the subsidies to date in the Northeastern U.S., offshore projects and proposals to date, the cost of offshore generation versus its alternatives, and the environmental tradeoffs involved.
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