There Once Was a Blade From Nantucket -- Doomberg

 Aug 04, 2024

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“There is no such thing as accident; it is fate misnamed.” – Napoleon Bonaparte

The 1930s were distinctly warm years in many parts of the world, including the Atlantic basin. Although hurricanes were not yet named and tracked to the extent they are today, meteorologists tell us that the decade saw an unusually high number of powerful storms. Among them are the Category 5 Freeport Hurricane of 1932 and the Great New England Hurricane of 1938. The latter raced up the Atlantic Coast, ultimately crashing ashore on Long Island, New York, and then again in Connecticut. The regional damage was profound:

“Wind, fire, floodwaters, and tidal surges all caused damage in New England. In New London, Connecticut, the tidal surge drove the five-masted school ship Marsala into a warehouse complex along the docks, setting off a short circuit and fire which consumed a quarter-mile area of the business district – the worst calamity in New London since Benedict Arnold burned the city in 1781. Firefighters bravely fought the fire in waters up to their necks as the storm surge and fire were driven by strong southerly gales. The fire was only brought under control with the shift of the winds to the northwest…

The Blue Hill Observatory at its 635-foot elevation in Milton, Massachusetts, just south of Boston, recorded a gust of wind out of the south at 186 mph with a sustained wind of 121 mph between 6:11 and 6:16pm. Only one anemometer survived these winds, which remain the second highest winds ever recorded on earth.”

Ahead of its time | PBS

To our younger readers, it might defy indoctrination to learn that high temperatures and hurricanes existed before the advent of global warming despite atmospheric CO2 levels that were 25% lower in the 1930s than they are now. Alas, both expressions of nature are firmly caused by global warming today, but if the West installs enough wind turbines and solar panels, the planet will cool, and hurricanes will no longer disrupt lives—or so the thinking goes.

The path of the Great New England Hurricane eighty-six years ago took the eye of its storm near Martha’s Vineyard, where one of the largest and most controversial solutions to global warming is under construction today. Known as Vineyard Wind, the project boasts of being the first commercial-scale offshore wind development in the US, a key milestone toward the Biden administration’s aggressive goal to install 30 gigawatts (GW) of wind power along the nation’s coasts by 2030. Many have doubted the feasibility of that objective, and after the catastrophic events of the past three weeks, few could blame them:

“Two weeks ago, Vineyard Wind was touting how it had grown to be the largest offshore wind farm in the country when it brought its 10th turbine online. It’s all come crashing down since. Over the weekend, one of the blades on the offshore wind energy company’s turbines broke –  spilling white and green fiberglass debris into the ocean. On Thursday, a large chunk of the blade separated from the turbine and tumbled into the water.

Officials with Vineyard Wind and the turbine’s manufacturer GE Vernova are investigating how the 107-meter blade folded over, but the project’s been shut down indefinitely until federal regulators can figure out what went wrong. It’s a major setback for Vineyard Wind, which boasted its planned 62-turbine project about 14 miles south of the Island as being the ‘forever first’ commercial scale offshore wind energy project in the US.”

Debris, green in all the right ways | NBC

As our friend Robert Bryce recently noted in his excellent piece “Breaking Wind,” the disintegration of this 70-ton football-field-length blade levied incalculable damage to sensitive ecosystems, littered historic beaches with heaps of garbage, and should call into question the wisdom of the entire offshore wind concept. Occurring within the line of sight of one of the wealthiest and most environmentally progressive communities in the country, this scandal will either be the beginning of the end of the offshore farce or a tortured exercise in luxury insistence. It’s time to reassess the possibilities.

 

Verifying once again that the strongest proof of an event’s predictability is to have predicted it, the current fiasco should come as no surprise to long-time Doomberg readers. Our forecasts from last year have aged rather well:

“During our July [2023 Pro Tier] Doom Zoom presentation—Doom Scrolling: Searching the Globe for Things to Worry About—we made the case that the wind sector might be teetering on the verge of collapse. We argued that the never-ending pursuit of longer blade lengths would be the industry’s undoing, that the resulting balance-of-system stresses were being wholly underestimated, and that the existing fleet of turbines in the field are stationary point-sources of future liability for those who installed them. We repeated our claim that levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) estimates were tantamount to fraud, and that the veil would soon be lifted, causing significant disruption to the entire wind value chain.”

Nailed it | Doomberg Pro presentation, July 2023

The outfit that manufactures these monstrosities, GE Vernova, was spun out of its parent General Electric in April of this year and now trades as an independent public company. Naturally, the first question on its most recent earnings call with analysts concerned this affair, and the CEO’s answer inspired little in the way of confidence:

“It's been 11 days since the event. And just to reinforce at the start, we have no indications of an engineering design flaw that's important at the beginning. As we said in the prepared remarks, we have identified a material deviation or a manufacturing deviation in one of our factories that through the inspection or quality assurance process, we should have identified.

Because of that, we're going to use our existing data and reinspect all of the blades that we have made for offshore wind, and for context in this factory in Gaspe, Canada, where the material deviation existed, we've made about 150 blades. So that gives you an indication and context of the work ahead.

But to be clear, this is work we know how to do. I mean, the industry uses non-destructive testing, think ultrasound, think radiologists, but for a blade to identify deviations. We are going to go and do this on every blade, prudent, thorough process. We're not going to talk about the timeline today. We have work to do. But I have a high degree of confidence that we can do this and we'll do it in support of both the customer and the agency and move forward from there.”

Imagine if the operator of a nuclear power plant gave a similarly rambling answer and refused “to talk about the timeline” in the aftermath of a serious accident. Surely, outfits like the Sierra Club would be all over the situation, demanding immediate government action to protect the environment. If you ever had any doubts about the flagrant hypocrisy of such organizations, this press release should forever remove them:

“We appreciate the tireless work of Nantucket residents, visitors, town staff, and volunteers who took action to get blade debris out of the water and off the beach as quickly as possible. The Sierra Club is concerned about Vineyard Wind’s delay in providing notice to Nantucket officials and the public, and urges the developers to do everything possible to prevent similar actions in the future. Now we must all work to ensure that the failure of a single turbine blade does not adversely impact the emergence of offshore wind as a critical solution for reducing dependence on fossil fuels and addressing the climate crisis. 

Wind power is one of the safest forms of energy generation. We advocate for offshore wind projects that ensure environmental protection, labor rights, and local community benefits. Responsible development of this important industry is crucial to advancing clean energy while simultaneously producing secure, family-sustaining jobs and supporting healthier communities. There are rigorous processes in place with federal, state, and local governments to regulate the offshore wind industry as it grows, and Sierra Club advocates have consistently called for this important oversight. We will continue to do so.”

In recent years, the Sierra Club has dedicated much of its public relations to minimizing the impact of offshore wind on birds, whales, and the ocean environment by arguing that “the environmental consequences of not speeding up offshore wind development are arguably worse than delaying it,” a clear contender for one of the least scientifically justifiable phrases on record. When it comes to technologies such as wind and solar, all tradeoffs—even those net-negative on the ledger—are perfectly digestible.

Doesn’t count | EPA/Justin Lane

Beyond the dubious environmental effects, there is also the questionable financial prudence of pursuing wind energy development. Despite claims that wind is the cheapest form of available energy and oodles of taxpayer money directed to the industry, we have yet to surface a profitable enterprise in the sector. Inspecting GE Vernova’s quarterly financials, we learn that its Wind segment posted revenues of $3.7 billion for the first six months of 2024, but lost $289 million in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA). In the same period of 2023, the segment posted an EBITDA loss of $519 million. Management commentary specific to its Offshore Wind business was appropriately gloomy:

“In our Offshore Wind business, we continue to experience pressure related to our product and project costs as we deliver on our existing backlog. Although we are deploying countermeasures to combat these pressures and are committed to driving productivity and cost improvement for our new larger turbines, changes in execution timelines or other adverse developments likely could have an adverse effect on our cash collection timelines and contract profitability, and could result in further losses beyond the amounts that we currently estimate.”

Adverse developments, indeed.

This particular adverse development is regretfully in its opening act. As Bryce correctly points out in his piece, the Vernova blade fell into the sea during a period of relatively calm weather, raising concerns about how the others might fare in more severe conditions. How well would the blades of Vineyard Wind have stood up to the Great New England Hurricane of 1938? Hurricanes Edna, Donna, or Bob? The Perfect Storm of 1991? How much environmental damage and destruction of shareholder value must occur before the commitments to these giant monuments to confused reasoning are met with abstersion? For reasons beyond our comprehension, the environmental left seems intent on finding out.