“Experiment Gets An F-Minus”: Nantucket Residents Fume Over Broken Wind Turbine Blade Polluting Beaches

This article was originally published by Tyler Durden at ZeroHedge.

“The great Nantucket experiment gets an F-minus,” Kevin O’Leary, chairman of O’Leary Ventures, told Bloomberg, referring to the offshore turbine failure that resulted in broken fiberglass littering the pristine beaches of Nantucket last month. The turbine is part of the offshore Vineyard Wind project.

O’Leary continued, “It’s not a golden example of success in wind turbines, that’s for sure.”

The federal government ordered Vineyard Wind’s project south of Nantucket last month to halt construction and electricity generation following the blade malfunction.

Nantucket Current has confirmed this photo of the broken turbine approximately 15 miles off the southwest coast of the island. Source: Nantucket Current

The company managing the project determined the turbine blade failure was due to a “manufacturing deviation,” adding that before energy can be produced, all blades across the project will be inspected with ultrasound technology and drones, reported local media CapeCod.

Vineyard Wind CEO Klaus Møller stated, “We believe we have the right plan in place to recover the rest of the blade, secure any debris offshore and onshore, and safely and responsibly resume the installation program so we can put this project back on track to deliver needed clean power to the New England region.”

Nantucket is merely a casualty of the Biden-Harris administration’s push to ‘greenify’ the US economy with unreliable wind and solar. The admin has pledged to develop 30 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2030.

Now community leaders on the small island, home to some of Biden’s wealthy Democrat donors, plan to renegotiate the island’s “good neighbor” agreement with Vineyard Wind, according to Bloomberg.

Gabriel Frasca, chef and part owner of Straight Wharf Restaurant on the island, said the offshore wind power project sounds like a great idea in a vacuum, but this “well-intentioned idea” has “calamitous, unintended consequences.”

NET ZERO – climate zealots are very quiet over a wind turbine, the size of the Eiffel Tower collapsing in Nantucket

Also silent about the 300ft blade crashing to the ocean floor & sending shards of toxic fibre glass onto beaches & shorelines.

Shh… they’re saving the planet 🤡 pic.twitter.com/xHS00iL9ci

— Bernie (@Artemisfornow) July 20, 2024

The Biden-Harris administration pitched the American people that green energy was desperately needed to defeat ‘climate change’ and that these green projects would yield beneficial returns. We’re all glad Harris wasn’t the ‘Green Czar’… However, Democrats didn’t explain any consequences of broken blades and entirely left out that this type of power generation is unreliable if the wind doesn’t blow. Also, for solar, if the sun doesn’t shine, where does the power come from?

For Nantucket residents, the consequence of greenifying the power grid was at the expense of fiberglass shards.

Pat McEvoy, managing director at Canaccord Genuity and Nantucket resident, said the green energy push offshore “was jammed down our throats by the federal government.” He added, “We were not represented in this process.”

Even after the blade failure, Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey told Bloomberg on Monday, “We need to do everything we can to transition away from fossil fuels and we’ve got a huge asset resource just sitting out there in the ocean.”

Again, the view Democrats have in building out green projects is irrational because they are blinded by their ‘climate alarmist’ beliefs. Closing down coal and NatGas power generators for unreliable renewable energy is disastrous for power grids, especially when AI data centers, electric vehicles, and reshoring trends increase load demand.

Nantucket residents are furious.

Vineyard Wind environmental disaster one month continues. Shut it down now and dismantle. #mapoli #Ack4whales #Nantucket #rightwhales pic.twitter.com/ROD5wC06Bt

— Mary Chalke (@ChalkeMary40147) August 13, 2024