ERMAGERD
This is a red alert now, ladies and germs.
The pristine, rarified sand of Martha's Vineyard, MA - so recently defiled by Ron DeSantis's anti-illegal immigrant grandstanding, but just as swiftly swept away - is under assault again. This time, from a foe the inhabitants are all in favor of - like illegals - as long as it's located somewhere else and their precious island remains uncontaminated by the sight and sound of them - again oddly enough, how residents treat illegals.
Just two short days ago, I told you all about a massive wind turbine off the coast of Nantucket upon which one of its brand-new second set of three yet-to-be-operational blades had failed catastrophically.
...A closer view of the turbine captured by a New Bedford fisherman named Anthony Seiger shows the blade might be mostly "intact," but holy crap. It's so completely delaminated it looks like a football field-long package of fettuccine.
Photo of the damaged Vineyard Wind turbine shared with me by Anthony Seiger, a commerical clammer out of New Bedford, who captured it while out on a fishing trip @NewBedfordLight pic.twitter.com/Brr2PPUiTK
— Anastasia E. Lennon (@aelennon1) July 16, 2024
The operators of the Vineyard Wind project had taken two full days before alerting the townships on the island that said 300+ foot blade had blown itself to smithereens. The project operators did note they'd picked up three large fiberglass pieces out of the ocean nearby and that the blade was still largely "intact," hanging like wet noodles from the turbine.
None of this was news to the folks on Nantucket as they had closed their beaches and were already busy trying to corral the volumes of styrofoam and fiberglass washing ashore in sizes huge or small and insidious.
The towns are in the nascent planning stages of how to go to war with the wind farm operators and GE, who manufactured the blades.
A statement from Select Board Chair Brooke Mohr on the Vineyard Wind debris incident.
— Town of Nantucket (@TownofNantucket) July 17, 2024
As a reminder, representatives from Vineyard Wind and General Electric will be at tonight's Select Board meeting. Join us at 5:30 PM or participate online.
Details: https://t.co/pkEPATpKL5 pic.twitter.com/VYfHElp7N5
Yesterday, as the cleanup continued and the corporate tap-dancing commenced, the tons of fiberglass dangling off the towering structure decided to slip into the ocean on their own and not wait for the rescue net the company was trying to rig to catch it.
Vineyard Wind has informed Nantucket officials that the damaged 300-foot blade that detached from the turbine yesterday morning has settled on the ocean floor.
— Nantucket Current (@ACKCurrent) July 19, 2024
The size of a football field, the blade was attached to "the largest turbine in the western world." pic.twitter.com/dxkDwaMGML
Awkward.
Per USCG, there's a piece of debris about 300 feet. A Haliade-X 13 MW turbine blade is about 350 feet: https://t.co/ERm6kFlfri pic.twitter.com/VSTWlXYrUI
— Anastasia E. Lennon (@aelennon1) July 18, 2024
The 300-foot blade remnants floated sadly atop the waves like Wilson the volleyball - posing a significant navigational hazard - before eventually slipping below the surface and coming to rest on the ocean bottom like a deformed leviathan who'd fought its last round. Yet another plan needs to be hatched to get that sucker out of there...eventually.
A massive section of a damaged 350-foot turbine blade from a wind farm off the coast of Nantucket that detached Thursday morning has sunk to the ocean floor, town officials said Friday.
The large piece of fiberglass “will be recovered in due course,” they said.
“Approximately half of the fiberglass shell of the blade remains attached, while most of the foam fill dislodged during the initial failure last Saturday,” Nantucket officials said in an update posted on the town’s website. “Monitoring of the remaining attached piece is ongoing, and a plan is being developed for its removal.”
There's still plenty to scrape out of the water and sand as it is at this moment.
...Crews are also collecting debris from areas that are more difficult to reach, the town said. The debris floating offshore is a “mix of foam and fiberglass pieces of varying sizes,” and crews “will continue efforts to collect debris offshore to lessen the amount of debris landing on Nantucket beaches,” town officials said.
With the arrival of a north wind on Friday morning, most debris path modeling programs showed that the flotsam and jetsam of the renewable energy, non-recyclable blade would be passing south of Nantucket, providing a bit of a breather for efforts on the island.
...Some debris was found on Nobadeer Beach Friday morning. It was collected by Vineyard Wind's cleanup team, now made up of 56 employees and contractors on island.
...Vessel crews will continue efforts to collect other debris offshore to lessen the amount landing on Nantucket beaches.
...Vineyard Wind is managing all current and future cleanup efforts. No town staff are engaged in picking up debris anymore, except to serve in advisory roles, the town said.
Cleanup crews will also be monitoring some north shore areas including Jetties Beach to ensure no debris is present for Saturday's annual triathlon. Offshore crews are collecting pieces that ended up on Tuckernuck and Muskeget.
But the debris is still IN the ocean, and lots of it. Odds are it's going to wash ashore somewhere.
And so some of it has.
Breaking… offshore wind toxic debris is now being found on Martha’s Vineyard (Chappaquiddick) beaches. #mapoli pic.twitter.com/UZ6yOEps7T
— Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance (@MassFiscal) July 19, 2024
MA Gov Maura Healy, who has been nearly as rabid and intractable a renewable advocate as verminous Murphy of New Jersey, had her Bojangle shoes on at a press conference yesterday.
Obviously, the astute state chief executive said, something went wrong, but no worries.
DO TELL
...Gov. Maura Healey on Thursday said state officials were on site with workers to clean up and remove debris, Axios Boston reported.
“We see the success of wind and wind turbines around the world that have been operating well and safely for decades,” Healey told Axios. “Obviously, something went wrong. There was a problem. We need to understand that, get to the bottom of it and make sure it’s addressed.”
“The offshore wind industry is a critical component of Massachusetts’ economy and the country’s transition to clean, affordable energy,” Healey said in a later statement to The Light. “It is essential that we gain a full understanding of what happened here and how it can be prevented in the future.”
I love how offshore is a "critical component" of the state's economy. The only part of the state's economy I see flourishing under her Green transition mandates are the utility companies and the Green grifters.
MA is among the top ten in the country for utility costs. It's so Godawful expensive that "to save money on utility bills," they literally go as far as recommending citizens dry their clothes outside "even when it's cold."
Experts offer tips on how to save money, including air-drying your laundry even when it's cold outside. ... That's right. What's a good fabric softener for February in New England?
Forbes may have ranked Massachusetts the most environmentally friendly state in the nation back in May, but that doesn’t mean our energy costs are anything to celebrate.
Solar panels, proper insulation, and heat pumps can help you save money, but when we do pay for energy, we’re shelling out a lot. The state ranks sixth in the nation for energy costs, according to a study WalletHub released July 1.
It sounds like residents are getting hosed. Great job there, governor.
Eversource and National Grid, the major utilities in Massachusetts, are requesting rate hikes to enhance the power grid and accommodate the growing demand from electric vehicles and heat pumps. They are requesting approximately $2.4 billion over the next five years for grid improvements to convert the grid for renewable energy production and make it more resilient and capable of handling the surge in electrification. That is because Biden’s and the state’s climate agenda will result in Massachusetts homes consuming nearly three times as much electricity by 2050 than they do today. To deliver all that power, Eversource and National Grid will have to invest billions in grid infrastructure upgrades with ratepayers picking up much of the cost. The two utilities have asked the state Department of Public Utilities to begin the process of recouping their investments in converting the electric grid by raising rates over a five-year period.
Eversource is looking for state approval to pass on nearly $400 million of its costs over the next five years, while National Grid is seeking reimbursement for about $2 billion. Both utilities plan to recover money for other grid fixes through their regular rate filings. If these “electric sector modernization” plans get approved, five years from now, the average Eversource residential customer will pay nearly $5 a month more than today, while National Grid residential customers will pay an additional charge of nearly $7 a month, and neither amount includes the cost of the increased power that the home may be consuming by then. Current electric bills for both utilities average just over $200 a month.
In the meantime, Healy's little wind farm has just blown unknown volumes of toxins into the Atlantic. What about fishes, big and small, ingesting slivers and chunks of fiberglass and styrofoam? Fiberglass is damn near forever, is it not?
Nantucket is waking up.
“This is an unacceptable outcome of the development of wind in Nantucket’s offshore waters with serious and unknown ramifications.”
— Nantucket Current (@ACKCurrent) July 19, 2024
- this from the Nantucket Land & Water Council, which is celebrating 50 years as the island’s environmental watchdog this year
And you can bet the few Republicans in the MA House pounced.
...Republican state representatives this week cited the ongoing Vineyard Wind incident in their unanimous opposition to a Democrat-backed clean energy bill.
House Minority Leader Brad Jones called the legislation, which seeks to expedite the permitting process for clean energy projects, a “missed opportunity” to address the “catastrophic failure” of the turbine, the State House News Service reported.
“We don’t know whether it’s a one-off. We don’t know whether it’s something much more serious and systemic that’s going to repeat itself,” Jones told the News Service. “We’re lucky there were no fatalities or injuries, but there were obviously beach closures, and obviously that’s not something that you want to see on a recurring basis, not very sustainable from an energy perspective.”
Tempers are fraying. It's as if everyone - who were, of course, little people traditionally ignored - who'd opposed this from the beginning and still got it shoved down their throats were just awarded the largest "I told you so, now what are you going to do about it?" in history.
Pronk got out of his seat, started walking toward Moller and yelling at him to listen to Ray while she was speaking. A number of Vineyard Wind employees jumped up to get between Pronk and Moller, while Select Board chair Brooke Mohr yelled “sit Dan!”
— Nantucket Current (@ACKCurrent) July 19, 2024
The Biden administration has been handing out approvals for these offshore monstrosities in a headlong rush to get as many on the board as possible before they themselves are blown out of the water.
The blue-voting states that have enabled this disaster have no one to point the finger at but themselves.
If more debris makes it ashore in tony areas like Martha's Vineyard, maybe even Obama's back beach, we'll get to see just how many more of those 62 turbines finally get built offshore there.
Can't have the garbage floating downstream, you know, after they worked so hard to keep it out of sight in the first place.
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