We recently read about the agreements that several of the local coastal towns are considering with US Wind. If signed, these agreements will silence any opposition from the towns to the construction and operation of the mammoth wind farms planned off the Maryland-Delaware coast. When transforming vast regions of natural seabed into concrete, electrified cables and massive steel towers, the agreements prevent the towns from opposing the project when damage to their community becomes apparent. To date, only Fenwick Island has rejected any discussion of these agreements. We feel each of the other communities should do the same.
Ten million dollars over 20 years ... who knows if these guys will even be in business that long? They make it sound like a huge financial shot in the arm for our area ($100,000 per town per year) when in reality it's just peanuts to them in the form of a bribe.
Maintenance costs have already destroyed the economics of their existing projects: Some cables coming to shore are already compromised, many of the windmills are functionally inactive, and who can even guess at what new problems will arise in the future. Every time we turn around, there is a new, bigger and better windmill design that was never approved to start with. The ocean floor will be nothing but a huge concrete footing, and both the migratory birds and oceanic creatures that travel our shoreline have already been severely impacted by the very small amount of testing and construction that's been completed to date. The hum of electrical current traveling through the cabling could easily destroy our vibrant commercial and recreational fishing industry, to say nothing of the natural aesthetics it will ruin for our tourism industry. There just isn't enough money to pay for these colossal financial losses. Even New Jersey has told them, "Thanks, but no thanks.”
In 20 years, I predict we will have a far better, cheaper and greener source of energy while these guys will be long gone and possibly broke. They will have abandoned their projects and walked away from their financial commitments, leaving us with a battalion of dilapidated windmill skeletons on our horizon as well as a shoreline of mutilated birds and dead whales. The local taxpayer will be robbed and expected to pick up the pieces.
We already know how to create cheaper energy from small nuclear plants that can be built faster than the gigantic undertaking presented by these very costly and inefficient oceanic wind farms, and there are other, far more attractive possibilities still on the drawing boards.
In a different part of the world, the wind didn't blow across the North Sea like projected and Germany has already begun to find alternative sources for its energy. Why should Delaware be the next guinea pig for another Solyndra who proposes Pollyanna results?
Reject the bribe, and let's look elsewhere for our energy needs.
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