Trump Hatred Of Wind Power Comes To New England: He Stopped A Nearly Completed Offshore Wind Project

The Trump administration has unwisely paused
a nearly complete offshore wind project off
the coast of Rhode Island. 

Donald Trump is continuing his war on wind power, doubling down since my August 22 report on the issue.   

An almost completed wind farm off the coast of Rhode Island is almost complete, but Trump pulled the plug on it anyway. 

Per ABC News:

"Danish wind farm developer Orsted says the Revolution Wind project is about 80 percent complete, with 45 out of 65 turbines already installed. 

Despite that progress - and the fact that the project had cleared years of federal and state reviews - the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management issued the order Friday, saying the federal government needs to review the project and 'address concerns related to the protection of national security interest of the United States.'"

The Trump administration didn't say what those security issues are. My guess is there aren't any, it's just that our Dear Orange Leader just hates wind power, and that makes him feel insecure?

Rhode Island Gov. Dan McKee and Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont decried the stop-work order and will do everything they can to reverse the Trump decision. 

Revolution Wind is evaluating the financial effects of stopping construction. They are also considering legal options, as you would expect. 

Of course, we live in a new, rough era now. Even if judges rule against Trump, as they probably will, Trump will just ignore any rulings. 

Workers who have been building the work farm are perplexed and angry.

Union members are hoping to get back to work, somehow. The construction jobs required skilled labor, and payed six figures. Trump killed some really good jobs. 

Per USA Today:

"'A lot of building trades workers, a lot of union workers, voted for Donald Trump and his team. But they didn't vote to have union jobs shut down,' said Patrick Crowley, the president of the Rhode Island AFL-CIO, which represents the contractors. 'It shouldn't work like this.'"

Not everyone opposes Trump's move against the Revolution Wind Farm. For instance, the fishing industry in Rhode Island is generally against the wind farm, saying it would damage fishing grounds and negatively impact the ocean. 

 The wind farm is fairly far offshore, located about 15 miles south of the Rhode Island shore; 32 miles southeast of Connecticut and 12 miles southwest of Martha's Vineyard. 

This project was going to be Rhode Island and Connecticut's first offshore wind farm, and would be able to power more than 350,000 homes.  

By the way, this affects us here in Vermont, since we're part of the New England electrical grid. 

Per offshorewind.biz:

"Katie Dykes, Commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) pointed out that ISO New England, the regional grid operator, said it was counting on that supply to keep the grid stable.

In a statement on August 25, ISO New England said it was expecting the project to come online and that the project was included in its analyses of near-term and future trip reliability. "Delaying the project will increase risks to reliability,' ISO New England stated."

Trump's move against Revolution Wind has other left companies wondering if their in-progress green energy projects will get the axe. Environmental groups are wondering the same thing. USA Today again: 

"'Pulling the plug sends a chilling signal to investors and developers that the U.S. cannot be relied upon to honor it commitments, even when project are 80 percent built  While China outspends us four-to-one one energy and transmission infrastructure to power its AI driven economy, the U.S. is stopping a fully permitted, privately, capitalized project that would strengthen our energy security. That is a dangerous path. Investors, workers, and ratepayers deserve better," the American Council on Renewable Energy said a statement. 

The wind farm off the coast of Rhode Island that Trump and this minions are stopping ongoing construction. Or at last trying to get something transactional about it. 

As Axios notes. Earlier this year the Trump Interior Department halted the Empire Wind project off New York's coast, which crews had already 

 Earlier this year, according to Axios, Interior temporarily halted Equinor's Empire Wind project off New York's coast, which had recently begun construction. We don't know what will happen with that, but did say that New York Gov. Kathy Hochul signaled to him some willingness to move forward on a gas pipeline project. 

Elsewhere, court documents released about a week ago say that the Trump administration is reconsidering prior approval for the Maryland Offshore Wind Project. That one is a planned $6 billion wind project offshore of Ocean City, Maryland. 

This fight over turbines, as mentioned, is just part of Trump's personal hatred of wind farms. The speculation is he considers wind turbines built off the coast of his Scottish golf course ugly, so as revenge he's going to fightable wind project. 

But who knows?

Here's one of the latest things he's had to say about the, per the Washington Post. 

"'They're ugly, they don't work, they kill your birds,' Trump said. 'They're bad for the environment. And if you look at them from a house, your house is worth less than 50 percent. So I'm trying to have people learn about wind real fast.'"

All of what he said is not true, or, at the very least, exaggerated. Unless you're taking about matters of taste. If you think they're ugly, then to you, they are.  

As for birds, cats kill a staggering 2.4 billion with a "b" birds annually. Glass windows are the demise of almost 600 million birds each year. Collisions with vehicles kill about 214 million birds. And wind turbines kill about 230,000 birds annually. So it's an unfortunate, but small percentage. 

I'm not sure how wind turbines are bad for the environment, at least compared to the fossil fuels that are changing the climate so radically that they could become an existential threat to humanity if we keep burning oil and gas and coal the way we are now. 

 

Rare Rhode Island/Massachusetts Tornadoes Friday Morning

Screenshot from a Tesla video on I-295 in
Rhode Island shows the tornado crossing the highway. 

 While I was a post for this blog thingy early Friday morning and noticed quite a thunderstorm complex coming into Connecticut.  

At the time the forecast included a very low but not zero chance of tornadoes in New England, all the way into Vermont.  I wrote that I thought the Green Mountain State was pretty safe from a twister, but I wondered about far southern New England.

Well, I was right to wonder, as it turns out.  

A pretty concentrated area of tornadoes hit Rhode Island and southeastern Massachusetts a bit later Friday morning, causing quite a lot of damage, but no super serious injuries.

The most impressive tornado took an off and on path through Scituate, Johnston, and North Providence, Rhode Island. It was an EF-2 with top winds of 115 mph.  It was the strongest Rhode Island tornado since August of 1986,

Dramatically, the tornado crossed I-295 in Rhode Island, lifted a car several feet in the air, turned it around and then slammed it back down on the highway. The woman driving the car was taken to a hospital but her injuries were reported to be relatively minor. 

One house directly struck by the tornado lost most of its roof shingles, had windows blown in and the front door was dislodged from its frame. Hundreds of trees were uprooted or snapped off.

There were at least three other tornadoes in that general area, according to the National Weather Service office in the Boston area.

 An EF-1 with 80 to 90 mph winds caused damage in North Attleborough and Mansfield, Massachusetts. Another, higher end EF-1 with winds of up to 110 mph caused roof and tree damage in Weymouth, Massachusetts. A weaker, brief tornado, an EF-0 with winds of up to 90 mph, caused a little more damage in Stoughton, Massachusetts.

Meteorologists will be investigating other damage in Scotland, Connecticut to determine whether yet another tornado touched down there. 

So, four, possibly five tornadoes in southern New England. Like I said the other day, it's almost as if we have another tornado alley in that region.  

Here in Vermont, the weather Friday stayed well-behaved.  I saw no reports of any severe weather.  Although one or two instances of flash flooding had been considered possible, I have no reports of any high water or washouts. 

Today might not be the nicest Saturday ever, with clouds and plenty of light showers around, especially north. It'll be a cool one, too, as temperatures will barely make it to the low 70s in the warmer spots and many places will stay in the 60s. 

Autumn is coming!

Henri Gone; Underperformed Thank Goodness But Still A Very Weird Storm

  Check out this graphic from NBC10 in Boston showing
the bizarre path of Henri through New England. Notice
at one point it ended up passing over the spot
where it came ashore a day earlier.

 I've been intentionally mean to former Hurricane/Tropical Storm Henri because I've been calling it a weird storm right along.  

I can't help it. It was a  very weird storm, with its odd path almost north from a spot off of North Carolina straight to New England. 

Then, almost due west from landfall in Rhode Island to the Catskills, then it's remnants staggering very slowly east again across southern New England to near the Maine coast this morning. 

I brought this tidbit up once, but I'll have to do it again, because this is weird, too.   

Earlier this summer, Tropical Storm Elsa made landfall on July 9 at 12:15 p.m. in Westerly, Rhode Island. On Sunday, Henri made landfall at 12:15 p.m. in - you guessed it- Westerly, Rhode Island.  The exact center of Henri's remnants was hard to discern late yesterday, but it appears that center passed over Westerly again on its way eastward toward the coast.  

Oh, and get this: In 1985 there was another Tropical Storm Henri, a weak thing that limped ashore in - oh why not? Westerly, Rhode Island. 

I'm joking around a bit with 2021's version of Henri, but of course it did do quite a bit of damage, just not nearly as much as it could have had things gone just a little differently. 

Rainfall totals from Henri closed in on nine inches in and near New York City.  Quite a few homes and buildings suffered serious flood damage and many highways closed because they were under water.

As Henri's remains drifted across southern New England Monday, it managed to produce at least three weak tornadoes in Massachusetts.  Each one had winds of only 60 to 70 mph, had brief paths and caused minor damage.

Here in Vermont, there was a tremendous sigh of relief on Monday.  Nothing really bad happened with Henri.  There could have been some very destructive flooding in southern Vermont. Those expected floods would have come during the same week as the tenth anniversary of Tropical Storm Irene's deadly, massive flood in Vermont. 

Henri's rains mostly missed the Green Mountain state. Instead, benign tropical showers scattered themselves through southern Vermont Sunday and Monday amid all the humidity hanging around the state.  Northern areas got pretty much no rain at all from Henri.

To the folks that are mad or upset that Henri turned out not as bad as feared and the forecasts were "hype," listen up.

Yeah, if the forecasts disrupted your plans, that's an inconvenience. Count yourself lucky.  What if it was worse than expected, enough to threaten your life? As for me, I'll go with the inconvenience, thanks.

We're now just entering the peak of hurricane season, and several systems are starting to bubble up in the Atlantic, Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico.  It's way too soon whether any of these will have an effect on the United States.

If any of these storms do approach land, I'm OK if they are as weird as Henri was.  I just don't want them to be any worse than Henri. Time will tell.