Governor Murphy’s grand designs for thousands of offshore wind turbines are going up in smoke.
Rumors of bailouts abound; now, the lead foreign company pursuing a project (Orsted) apparently warned that it’s “prepared to walk away” from East Coast wind projects (including Ocean Wind 2) during an event last week in the U.K. London as first reported by Politico.
Executives at Orsted — the energy giant New York and New Jersey are leaning on to meet clean energy goals — are “prepared to walk away” or delay some American offshore wind projects, including one of New Jersey’s three approved wind farms. https://t.co/5Tnx6AFHK4
— Ry Rivard (@ryrivard) June 14, 2023
“We do need some adjustments,” Orsted’s Vice President David Hardy also explained from the stage citing ongoing discussions with the Murphy Administration.
You can watch the event video here.
For what it’s worth (and it’s not much), the company previously insisted that the related Ocean Wind 1 project is going forward, but Orsted also needs to come up with the capital (hence the bailouts chatter) to deliver the initial wind farm. It’s not clear they’ll be able to find it in the current environment, and the resistance to offshore wind generally is growing fueled, in part, by mass unexplained marine mammal deaths.
“Under absolutely no circumstances should hard working middle class families – whether it’s here in South Jersey or anywhere across America – be forced to bailout the greedy foreign energy companies and their failing Green New Deal ventures which continue to put our wildlife in danger, our economy at risk, and our national security in jeopardy,” said Congressman Jeff Van Drew (R-Cape May County) earlier this week.
A full-scale wind industry collapse would be disastrous for Phil Murphy’s quixotic plans to make New Jersey’s energy sector carbon neutral well before mid-century (the year 2035).
