October 16, 2015
Work has begun on the first offshore wind farm in the United States—just east of Long Island off Block Island, 14 miles out beyond Montauk Point.
“It’s a small project but this is a big deal,” commented Gordian Raacke, executive director of Renewable Energy Long Island. “Paraphrasing Neil Armstrong, this is one small step for offshore wind power but it could turn out to be a giant leap for America’s energy future.”
The five six-megawatt wind turbines to be erected by Deepwater Wind will provide 30 megawatts of electricity—all the electricity needed by Block Island, now dependent on diesel oil generators for electricity.
Deepwater Wind, based in Rhode Island, has also sought to build a second, larger wind farm east of Long Island—to service Long Island.
But in the most myopic of decisions, the trustees of the Long Island Power Authority (LIPA) voted last December not to go ahead with this 210-megawatt wind farm. The LIPA trustees are appointed by the governor and leaders of the Legislature. Under the original legislation creating LIPA, the trustees were supposed to be elected by Long Islanders.
“We want wind!” people at that LIPA meeting began chanting.
The vote “signals that the LIPA board, PSEG Long Island and the governor were not serious about their commitment and are not going to uphold their commitment” for renewable energy, charged Lisa Dix, New York representative of the Sierra Club. “Their position is unacceptable. Long Islanders have been waiting for a really long time to have this promise fulfilled.” PSEG is the New Jersey company that Governor Cuomo arranged to be the major operating electricity utility on Long Island starting this year, along with a major reduction in LIPA staff and power.
Jeffrey Grybowski, CEO of Deep-water Wind, said, “...LIPA/PSEG missed an opportunity to build a 21st century energy supply for Long Island and a new local industry employing hundreds for years to come.”
Raacke adds: “It was utterly disappointing.” And multiplying that disappointment, he said, is the push by PSEG and LIPA for “peaker” electric-generating plants burning oil and propane. They are supposed to be used during high-demand or “peak” periods. The electricity generated by the Deepwater Wind turbines would have come at “a third of the cost of the ‘peaker’ plants,” he said. “And these ‘peaker’ plants are not only very costly but they are very polluting.”
Although this is the first offshore wind project in the U.S., in Europe “offshore wind is a booming industry and a major source of energy,” Raacke said. “There are thousands of megawatts of installed wind that have been in use there for decades.” He recounted a visit to an offshore wind farm off Copenhagen, Denmark, and the wide support he found for it among Danes. He said offshore wind has “enormous potential” for Long Island and the U.S.
The Deepwater Wind project for Long Island would have built wind turbines 30 miles east of Montauk Point. They would not have been visible from Long Island. The electricity would have come to the Long Island through an undersea cable.
At the same LIPA meeting at which they voted against a wind farm, the trustees extended a contract to continue bringing electricity from the FitzPatrick nuclear power plant in upstate Scriba. The trustees apparently have forgotten one of the main reasons LIPA was created—to stop the now defunct Long Island Lighting Company from opening the Shoreham nuclear plant and building other nuclear power plants.
When will Long Island join Rhode Island, which owns Block Island, in harvesting the power readily available offshore?
Journalist and Sierran Karl Grossman is a member of the Long Island Group and professor of journalism at the State University of New York/College at Old Westbury. He is the author of six books and his investigative reporting appears regularly online at CounterPunch, the Huffington Post and other sites. For nearly 25 years, he has hosted a nationally-aired TV program, Enviro Close-Up.