The Biden administration earlier this month approved the construction of 195 wind turbines as close as nine miles from the southern edge of the New Jersey coast, causing an uproar from residents of coastal towns.
While the Biden administration and other environmental activist groups are bragging that the Atlantic Shores South project, nearly nine years in the making, is another milestone in the harvesting of green energy in the country, a former engineer of the United States Department of Energy raised the stakes that this is not the case. the project is harmful to tourism, the marine environment, but will increase energy costs up to 80% in the next 20 years.
The company behind the project, Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind, LLC (Atlantic Shores), has three separate leases covering more than 400 square miles with the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. There are plans for two separate projects with two leases located along the Jersey Shore between Atlantic City and Barnegat Light and a third lease located in an area of the Atlantic Ocean known as the Bight.
“Project 1 and Project 2 are expected to generate up to 2,800 megawatts of electricity, enough to power nearly a million homes with clean renewable energy,” according to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.
And while Atlantic Shores South says the project will generate $1.9 billion in economic benefits for the Garden State, an analysis by Edward P. O’Donnell and Whitestrand Consulting found that clients range from residential to commercial to industrial. throughout the country they will see a big rise. on their electricity bills.
“Offshore wind is not economically viable without substantial subsidies in the form of Federal tax credits and guaranteed above-market prices for the energy produced,” the analysis said. “The former is passed on to US taxpayers while the latter is a cost borne by NJ ratepayers. Furthermore, accepting the transfer of more offshore electricity into and through NJ requires major investment in improving and expanding the government’s transfer system.”
Construction of Project 1 is expected to begin in 2024 and will deliver its first power in 2027, bringing the Biden administration one step closer to putting 30 gigawatts of offshore power on the grid. country by 2030, to the acclaim of environmental groups like the Sierra Club.
“We are proud to see New Jersey move toward renewable energy and offshore wind development, and away from fossil fuels,” Sierra Club New Jersey Director Anjuli Ramos-Busot said in a statement. “New Jersey’s coastal air pollution is growing as we continue to lead the region in our transition to a cleaner, greener future for our community.”
The company believes that Project 1 alone will see New Jersey’s greenhouse gas emissions decrease by 4 million tons each year, create approximately 50,000 jobs, generate $1.9 billion in economic benefits, and generating enough clean energy to power 700,000 homes.
However, Dr. Bob Stern, a former engineer with the United States Department of Energy and a 25-year resident of Long Beach Island, said the figures for how many homes these plants will power are misleading. in a wonderful way.
“It’s a temporary resource,” Stern said. “I see these statements and they are carefully made as you can see the statement that says, ‘this project has the potential to strengthen 10,000 houses’, and that gives people the impression that this project itself will strengthen all those households. That’s not accurate because the estimate is that it will only work 40 percent of the time, so if you’re looking to power your house throughout the year this project won’t do itself.”
Even Orsted, a renewable energy company, says that with offshore wind there will always be “a willingness to use other sources, such as offshore wind, sustainable biomass, solar power and large battery storage, to help balance the grid and ensure the lights can stay on all the time.”
Orsted even stated that when the wind is very strong, sea turbines only work 1% of the time.
In the analysis, O’Donnell recalls New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy’s plan to have 11,000 megawatts of onshore wind by 2040. This means that Federal income tax subsidies will make up the total over $20 billion, which pales in comparison to the costs it will incur. consider expanding the generation and transmission system to move all that power off the coast and into the PJM grid.
“These ratepayer subsidies will exceed $100 billion over 20 years and increase electricity customer rates by 55%, 70% and 85% for residential, commercial and industrial customers,” the report said. said.
To put that in perspective, a ratepayer paying 16 cents/kwhr would see twice the price of 32 cents/kwhr, which would increase their annual bill by $1,000 by 2047. This would affect consumers across country.
As for how Stern sees his electricity bills going up, he worries about how this green energy project will affect marine animals like whales.
“The underwater noise that comes from all of this, the ship surveys that use noise instruments to determine the depth of the sea, then the noise that comes from assembling the foundations, and finally the operation of these large structures make a lot of noise underwater,” Stern said. We’re looking at it a lot and we believe it’s going to cause a lot of harm to the whales, to the dolphins, especially the whales that have to migrate to New Jersey to get to their destination.
But according to Stern it gets worse as the traffic of commercial ships, military, and fishing boats will not be allowed in the airspace.
“So they’re going to be squeezed into these narrow corridors,” Stern said. And it turned out that the corridors they are going to be squeezed into are also a place for whales to migrate. Now you are not only harming the whales but also harming the ships.”
In the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s Environmental Review, the agency acknowledged that Atlantic Shores South will have a significant impact on the North Atlantic White Whale, of which there are fewer than 400 left in the wild.
Stern, who organized Save Long Beach Island in an effort to reverse the project, said there is also fear among community members that the windmills, a major eyesore from the beach, they will have a negative impact on tourism.
The Long Beach Island Chamber of Commerce said in an email that it opposes the plan, but did not want to comment.
“What are we doing this for?” Stern said. “People are coming out saying we have to do this for climate change, but even the ministry’s documents say this has very negative effects on climate change because there is a process that bigger than the world.”
Stern, along with his colleagues at Save Long Island Beach, are not giving up and say they will take this to court.
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“This is an energy boondoggle,” Stern said. “Unfortunately, it’s also a dangerous boondoggle, and I believe the country will regret this.”
The Washington Examiner has reached out to the Bureau of Ocean Management and Atlantic Shores for comment.
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