3-minute read
Audrey Lane
| Special to the USA TODAY Network
See the broken Vineyard Wind turbine blade from above. Video.
Vineyard Wind turbine blade located south of Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard broke on July 15, sending fiberglass, foam and balsa wood into the ocean.
As the crow flies, it’s roughly 250 miles from the Jersey Shore to Nantucket Island, located off Cape Cod in Massachusetts. Despite the proximity, it’s entirely possible that many New Jerseyans didn’t pay attention to what happened in Nantucket this summer. After all, we have our own beautiful beaches. But given the Murphy Administration’s commitment to building wind turbine farms off our Jersey Shore, it’s worth paying attention —because Nantucket is a cautionary tale.
On Saturday, July 13, one of the turbine blades from Vineyard Wind, an offshore wind development company, broke apart littering the ocean with floating debris and depositing sharp fiberglass on the shoreline prompting beach closures and warnings for beachgoers to wear footwear.
The turbine blade that broke was 351 feet long — taller than the Statue of Liberty.
Garden State Initiative has been one of the leading skeptics of the economic and fiscal viability of the project since the announcement of the Ørsted projects throughout 2022 and 2023. GSI raised concerns about the long term impact on energy costs to taxpayers, the immediate economic impact on the tourism industry, and potential adverse impacts on marine mammals who were washing ashore with regularity before Danish power company Ørsted abandoned their failed Ocean Wind I and Ocean Wind II projects late last year.
In addition to our existing concerns, the turbine failure in Nantucket has given rise to two uncomfortable questions: What’s the plan if the turbines fail? Who picks up the tab?
Who picks up the tab if a wind turbine fails off the Jersey Shore?
Let’s start with the answer to question No. 2, because it will come as no surprise that New Jersey’s already overburdened taxpayers and ratepayers would be on the hook for any remediation. There is no contingency plan. New Jersey has planted its flag as a “global leader in offshore wind technology” without environmental or economic guardrails.
According to an independent, state-by-state analysis conducted by a large law firm with extensive regulatory experience with energy and utilities matters, New Jersey doesn’t currently have a decommissioning plan for offshore wind facilities. That means the costs for wind turbine disassembly, off-site disposal, site restoration, and/or recycling of project-related components and materials would be borne by the state. One analysis estimated the cost to decommission a single wind turbine could “conservatively” be pegged at $532,000. That means the 195 turbines planned as part of the Atlantic Shores project off the Atlantic City coast would cost New Jersey residents over $100 million should it go under and/or fall victim to a catastrophic failure.
Regrettably, these costs are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the New Jersey Energy Master Plan and its mandate that New Jersey attain 100% clean energy by 2035. In fact, our analysis estimates the NJEMP will cost the state $40 billion — which would drive more people and jobs from our state.
Renowned energy expert Mark Mills, with whom GSI collaborated on our most recent analysis of NJ’s Energy Master Plan, stated in May 2024: “Given that New Jersey currently obtains over 90% of all the state’s energy from hydrocarbons, 98% of vehicles on the roads use petroleum, and 85% of the state’s residential homes and commercial buildings are heated with natural gas or propane fuel … reducing those metrics to zero in just over 10 years will have enormous economic and social consequences — punishing current and future New Jerseyans who are least able to afford higher energy costs and creating disincentives for industries and businesses to locate or remain in the state.”
In our view, the turbine failure in Nantucket this summer is yet another reason for New Jersey to reconsider our accelerated “all-in” pursuit of unrealistic and untested energy sources. Instead of allowing ideology to drive our energy policy, New Jersey needs to focus on commonsense principles like reliability, affordability and sustainability.
We can achieve these energy goals by bringing together elected officials in both parties, the state ratepayer advocate, business groups, labor unions, environmentalists and residents from every corner of the state to find solutions that both make our state more prosperous, while also ensuring a healthier environment. Thoughtful and measured steps forward into the realm of new energy technology will allow us to keep walking barefoot on the beach in New Jersey.
Audrey Lane is the president of Garden State Initiative after previously serving as its policy director. Lane served as a government policy and strategic messaging professional on both the municipal and state level and served as an elected councilwoman in her home borough of Mountain Lakes. She is a graduate of Johns Hopkins University and was selected as a member of the American Enterprise Institute Leadership Network in 2021.
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Publish date : 2024-08-27 03:06:00
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