America's First Large-Scale Offshore Wind Project Finally Finishes Construction (wbur.org) 71
It's America's first large-scale offshore wind project, reports WBUR — enough clean energy to power 400,000 homes in Massachusetts from 62 offshore wind turbines generating 800 megawatts.
But it took a while... The plant's first construction delay happened back in 2019, they point out — and then "Just three months ago, when the project was 95% complete, the U.S. Interior Department issued a stop-work order." But after successfully challenging that order in court, and "with a stretch of good weather offshore, the developers behind the $4.5 billion project managed to get over the finish line."
The Associated Press notes it was "one of five major East Coast offshore wind projects the Trump administration halted construction on days before Christmas, citing national security concerns." Developers and states sued, and federal judges allowed all five to resume construction, essentially concluding that the government did not show that the national security risk was so imminent that construction must halt. Another one of the five, Revolution Wind, began sending power for the first time to New England's electric grid on Friday and will scale up in the weeks ahead until it is fully operational.
"That project is nearly complete as well," notes WBUR, "and will eventually be capable of powering up to 350,000 homes."
But it took a while... The plant's first construction delay happened back in 2019, they point out — and then "Just three months ago, when the project was 95% complete, the U.S. Interior Department issued a stop-work order." But after successfully challenging that order in court, and "with a stretch of good weather offshore, the developers behind the $4.5 billion project managed to get over the finish line."
The Associated Press notes it was "one of five major East Coast offshore wind projects the Trump administration halted construction on days before Christmas, citing national security concerns." Developers and states sued, and federal judges allowed all five to resume construction, essentially concluding that the government did not show that the national security risk was so imminent that construction must halt. Another one of the five, Revolution Wind, began sending power for the first time to New England's electric grid on Friday and will scale up in the weeks ahead until it is fully operational.
"That project is nearly complete as well," notes WBUR, "and will eventually be capable of powering up to 350,000 homes."
You know what? (Score:2, Funny)
I'm a fan of this!
Re: You know what? (Score:1)
Re: You know what? (Score:5, Informative)
the summary says it can power 400k homes in the first paragraph and 350k homes in the last.
Try reading it again. It says the project can power 400k homes and then there is another project called Revolution Wind that will be able to power 350k.
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The rest can use whatever resources are nearby for them. Seattle uses hydroelectric. Nobody there gives a shit that a wind farm in Massachusetts doesn't power their apartment.
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Windmills don't kill corn. Windmills don't kill clams. They might scare some fish initially due to low frequency vibrations but they will probably adapt. The bird-killing issue is a thing but they've found that they can minimize it somewhat with different paint on the blades.
Yes there are negative issues, just like any other infrastructure project, but you have to weigh them, and you can't let your own ideological alignment get in the way.
Trump hates windmills because he hates how they look near his propert
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There's also something about whales dying.
Are offshore oil rigs generally placed closer or further from the shore than windfarms? If they are generally further out, that might be the reason for a difference. Opposition to offshore windfarms seems to revolve mainly around the scenery.
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Ramming those big towering masts into the bottom of the ocean is going to disturb the already troubled (read: endangered, not necessarily the species, but the habitat) ocean environment.
That "powering 350k homes" wouldn't even be enough for Minneapolis... on a good, windy day.
Inland here, would you want them to 'eminent domain' your backyard and prize-winning garden to erect one? Even better, you can't directly access the power generated by the thing on your land... you still pay the same (probably a bit m
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mod parent troll pls (Score:2)
Your argument against wind power is that (1) soil on the continental shelf must never be disturbed (2) no single power project that, alone, powers less than the city of Minneapolis is worth doing (3) all inland power projects rely on eminent domain or somehow deny the landowner any revenue and (4) large-scale fusion implementation is just around the corner.
Are you listening to yourself? ::shrug::
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So... 1) we should destroy the coral and marine environments that have remained safe for hundreds of years just so we can power "AI"?
2) = No... if a true energy project (like fusion) became a feasible thing, that would be worth it... wind turbines and solar arrays can barely match the demand of the "precious" data centers under ideal conditions... when the world is beating on the thing, the big UPS isn't going to be nearly enough.
3) = If they don't "eminent domain" land, where are you gonna park your wind a
Re: You know what? (Score:4, Funny)
Wow... a whopping 350,000 homes (on a windy day)... what about the other 337.8 million?
My God, are there 337.8 million American homes without power today? You'd think that would have made the news or something.
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But... the power they use isn't Green (like all your EVs, because they're Green... what's the point of a Green vehicle if what it gets it's power from isn't Green) or renewable (like the limited amounts (the store of it is limited) of natgas used to power the power plants)... because it should be all Green/renewable (are they interchangeable?)
((By the way, there's tons more coal than natgas, tons more oil)... oh, and burning natgas for power still pollutes)
Build more nuke plants... and take care of the fuel
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But... the power they use isn't Green (like all your EVs, because they're Green... what's the point of a Green vehicle if what it gets it's power from isn't Green) or renewable
Yes, you make an excellent argument for constructing more renewable energy generation facilities. I'll even include nuclear in that, if you can get the price down to where it's competitive, without compromising on safety.
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How do they handle tornados and hurricanes?
I can't remember the last time a tornado picked a nuclear plant up and moved it into the county... can you? The worst would be having to take an hour and restring some power lines, and fuel up the backup generators.
Do you have a few thousand wind turbine blades (which aren't a universal part... has to be a blade for that specific model) in storage someplace (along with spare parts for every critical component), along with the 50,000 replacement solar panels? What
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If every American had their own unshared home lots of them would probably be unpowered.
Re: You know what? (Score:2)
These numbers are normally based on average power production rather than peak. On a windy day it will be more. But, yes, one small offshore wind farm is going to have a limited impact on the total US supply. You would need to build more.
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These numbers are normally based on average power production rather than peak. On a windy day it will be more. But, yes, one small offshore wind farm is going to have a limited impact on the total US supply. You would need to build more.
Well yes, you would. What I think is the problem is so many people only think gargantuan. Like one humongous power station for the country. And unless it it that scale, there is no use for it. Except that concept won't work.
Electrical power sources are all over the place, They get switched onto and off of the grid all day every day. They are all important.
I always thought the total supply, or the size of individual stations was only useful for gee-wizzing. What is truly important is having the power
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Well, considering the stupid rush to build LLM-AI data centers, this is the time to be worrying about what's going to feed their power-hungry appetites.
You're gonna want nuclear and fusion, wind and solar ain't gonna coast you through several days of calm winds and cloudy skies.
This whole LLM-AI thing is too soon and too un-thought out... will it be worth all the hassle in two years? Do we even need it at all?
Sure, it's a quick way for your kids to cheat on their homework, and it helps you enter data into
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Well, considering the stupid rush to build LLM-AI data centers, this is the time to be worrying about what's going to feed their power-hungry appetites. You're gonna want nuclear and fusion, wind and solar ain't gonna coast you through several days of calm winds and cloudy skies.
This whole LLM-AI thing is too soon and too un-thought out... will it be worth all the hassle in two years? Do we even need it at all?
While a different subject - The AI push is not sustainable in the present form. This form is a bubble that is going to burst. Whatever AI we end up with will be much less power hungry.
"Don't worry, my 70 year old mom is there to hold your hand and explain these foreign concepts to you"
Did I offend you somehow? All apologies.
Perhaps people are not thinking strategically. Allow me to illustrate. If I had a country that I thought might be an adversary, I would encourage them to build as large and as few humongous power generation facilities, using the oft heard "economies of scale" argument.
When if we ev
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More? We'd have to build a copy of the USA next to it that only consists of wind turbines and solar panels.
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Ohh... haha. :-P
You got me there because I didn't reinforce/reiterate the very obvious fact that that wasn't referring to just Massachusetts (I know, I'm an idiot for that... after I put my computers back together, I'll go hide in the corner)... congrats, you made me feel like 0% less intelligent than I was before
I'll just go back to fixing my Bitcoin miner's power supply.
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(I know, I'm an idiot for that... after I put my computers back together, I'll go hide in the corner).
Is that some sort of flex? You put a computer together? Egads . . . no one else on this site has probably every put a computer together.
congrats, you made me feel like 0% less intelligent than I was before :-P
I'll just go back to fixing my Bitcoin miner's power supply.
Hey whatever you want to do with your time . . .
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Oh, and I don't pay for my power, so the miner is free to run as much as it wants (there aren't meters for each apartment) (and gives me a little bit of forced air heating in the bedroom... an apartment with boiler radiated heat)... the tower in the livingroom also mines (keeps out there fairly warm... both certainly help keep the MN winter cold at bay).
Actually, I've built about 350, maybe 400 (160 were Fujitsu Lifebooks... assembled from 300+ Lifebook's parts), the rest were desktops built from Lenovo des
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That's in absolutely perfect conditions. Divide 400,000 by 3 for a reasonable average, by 6 for a calmer day, and realize that there will be days when the whole project produced nothing.
Got backup?
In January the BPA had a 13 day run where the 2800 MW of installed wind produced less than 10% of nameplate. Hopefully the offshore turbines will do better.
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*whispers like a ghost* nuclear and fusion
Target Practice (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, until Kegsbreath and Trump decide to use it for target practice.
Re:Target Practice (Score:5, Interesting)
The American people might not have learned anything from 9/11 but the Iranian government definitely did. If they commit a serious terrorist attack on America the public will let Trump do whatever the fuck he wants just like we let Bush Jr do whatever the hell he wanted. It would basically send a third term of Trump.
I'm sure that fact has not been lost on Donald Trump. And I'm sure it's not a coincidence that he fired half the anti-terrorist people in his administration right before attacking Iran or that he put a 22-year-old grocery store clerk in charge of anti-terrorism.
That last one is so fucking insane you would have to Google it to believe it but it's real. The guy in charge of stopping a second 9/11 is in his twenties.
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Minor one-offs (Score:3)
What I'm talking about is something that kills at least a thousand Americans. Ideally you want about 3,000 dead Americans so you can top the 911 numbers so that you can call it the worst terrorist attack in American history.
With something like that you could blame the Democrats since they are currently shutting down DHS to prevent Trump from killing more US citi
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Re:Target Practice (Score:5, Informative)
The American public is already letting la Presidenta do whatever he wants. The Christian Maggot Nation does not care how many Muslims die just so la Presidenta's ego is in tact. The Epstein-Iran war will not end as long as the Epstein files are making headlines.
And I am sure it is all lost on la Presidenta, as are most things (them signs all over the White House are there so he can remember which rooms his dementia in). Any dolt could have predicted Iran would close the Straits of Hormuz; hell the Pentagon has known this for years. You can guess what la Presidenta's belief was: the U.S. produces all the oil we need. Too bad for him the oil for gasoline is refined from dirty (high sulfur) oil. The U.S. does not produce it. Refiners long ago found they could import the dirty oil for cheaper than light Texas crude.
This is yet one more example of la Presidenta thinking that experts know nothing. His "reasoning" contradicted the experts so the experts must be wrong.
la Presidenta destroys everything he touches; his companies, the judicial system, American science, etc. He looked out at world and found something new to destroy.
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It's always funny reading this and seeing you argue with yourself, rsilvergun.
"The American people might not have learned anything from 9/11" = what're we supposed to learn from something that wasn't carried out by the people blamed for it? So, some people who couldn't even pass basic pilot training managed to turn a plane (a 767) in such a tight 180, there's trained pilots still wondering how they managed that turn. Did the US eradicate terrorists totally, or just do the war so they could plant a little
Re:Target Practice (Score:4, Insightful)
If they commit a serious terrorist attack on America the public will let Trump do whatever the fuck he wants
The American public are already letting Trump do whatever he wants. About the only thing that reigns him in is the bond market, because he can exert no control over that.
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If they commit a serious terrorist attack on America the public will let Trump do whatever the fuck he wants
I hope you recovered from whatever accident put you asleep for the past 2 weeks.
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Depends on the terrorist attack and the motivations behind it.
Bin Laden intentionally targeted a massive facility full of thousands of civilians because he knew it would enrage America and make us lash out. It united the country around Bush, and had exactly that affect.
Now imagine if instead of targeting such a facility Iran went for economic and political targets. Assassinating politicians, particularly those on the far right who are advocating for war. Attacking oil infrastructure, especially wells and re
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https://www.serendipity.li/wot... [serendipity.li]
9/11 was an oil grab... nothing more (we plant our little flag next to the wells and celebrate success).
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Also, Iran attacked Turkey, which was basically their last remaining friend in the Islamic worl
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Isn't the Apocalypse like 30 years overdue (roughly, in line with the Second Coming)? Last I looked out the window (like 2 minutes ago), everything was still where it was an hour ago. Are you waiting for a guy walking on water? We get that every winter here in MN (ice fisherman).
Are you saying there's something wrong with Christianity? From my fifth floor apartment, there's nothing wrong with it (in and of itself)... the stuff that has happened with the church is not Christianity's fault... that's the D
national security concerns (Score:5, Insightful)
aka donald trump's silly grudges
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This is his (much overused) go-to excuse so he can try to rule by fiat and bypass Congressional approval and some/most Judicial review - it's usually complete bullshit. I think even his die-hard supporters are (more) dubious now.
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It'll be about birds killed, most likely.
Of which under a million were killed by wind farms annually. On the other end of the scale, over a billion were killed annually by domestic cats. Somewhere in the middle lies other bird killers like buildings (birds flying into windows).
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This is his (much overused) go-to excuse so he can try to rule by fiat
That and "national emergency".
I'm hoping the silver lining we'll get out of the debacle of the last ten years is a renewed respect for federalism and separation of powers. I'm not holding my breath. People are stunningly resistant to realizing it won't always be your friends and allies wielding that power you want to hand out. "We can let the President use his judgement, surely he'll use it with restraint and for the good of the entire country; if he errs, how bad can it be?"
Very, very bad, as it turns out.
Cool, I guess? (Score:2)
So how is this going to affect consumer electrical rates in Massachusetts? Anybody documenting this?
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Re:Cool, I guess? (Score:5, Informative)
According to filings I was able to find, The Commonwealth has a 20 year procurement contract with Vineyard Wind for 6.5c/kwh (2017 dollars, about 8.5c/kwh today). Or $85/MWh
In January the average wholesale electricity price was about $124/MWh.
This doesn't mean the average customer will see a ~30% drop in their utility bill of course, but this is definitely adding cheaper power to the market which in turn should bring utility bills down.
=Smidge=
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That ain't too bad, though that average wholesale price of $124/MWh seems kinda high. Would have to do some poking around for comparison data later to see other regional pricing schemes.
Fwiw the consumer (not wholesale) price per kWh around here is $0.12-$0.13 which is roughly the same as the wholesale price you indicated for Mass. Quote a difference. We don't have many solar or wind inputs.
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I got the average price by downloading the Jan 2026 data set from here and using the average() function in a spreadsheet; Max is 681, min is -538 (excess renewables tend to drive wholesale prices into the negatives). Bulk average is 124.
https://www.iso-ne.com/isoexpr... [iso-ne.com]
=Smidge=
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According to filings I was able to find, The Commonwealth has a 20 year procurement contract with Vineyard Wind for 6.5c/kwh (2017 dollars, about 8.5c/kwh today). Or $85/MWh
In January the average wholesale electricity price was about $124/MWh.
This doesn't mean the average customer will see a ~30% drop in their utility bill of course, but this is definitely adding cheaper power to the market which in turn should bring utility bills down.
=Smidge=
Averages aren't really a useful way to determine if a generating asset will have an impact in wholesale markets. For one, wind output is highly variable but follows broad seasonal and daily patterns. It's very possible for the bulk of the output of the wind farm to be in periods when power would already be cheap. One particular bit of trouble you run into is the wind lowers the price in off-peak hours, but the system still needs expensive power units to stay online to help cover the peak hours (imagine a co
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Congrats, sciencebard! Someone who actually knows their shit!
"1,000,000 points for Gryffindor!"
I'd tag wind and solar as backups for when the 'grid' needs a little extra... maybe they can charge the warehouse-sized battery backup for the precious data center... but there's no way the wind and solar farms are going to meet the needs of "Clod".
The dream of 100% "going green" is a ways off... the best bet is fusion (it needs funding and some research, but it's possible to build a Stark Enterprises ARC Reactor
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Assuming, of course, the customers actually see any decrease at all... very most likely, it won't change one cent (possibly even go up... gotta pay for the installation of the things, maintenance costs, some guy to scrub the barnacles off the mast, and pad the C-suites pockets).
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This is a procurement contract. It has been agreed that the Commonwealth will buy electricity from them at (effectively) 8.5c/kwh and give permission to Vineyard Wind to build their wind turbines in the designated location.
It is entirely on Vineyard Wind to deliver their end of the bargain. Everything you mention - installation, maintenance, profits - is entirely on Vineyard Wind. They are locked in to selling their electricity for 8.5c/kwh because that's the contract terms. If they can't make a profit at t
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Video of offshore wind turbine installation (Score:5, Interesting)
https://www.srviral.com/conten... [srviral.com]
Not how I thought it was done.
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Its actually how most fixed offshore installations are done. A ship goes out and installs a jacket (the legs, which fun fact are just tossed into the water and float and towed out to where they need to be until they are sunk in a controlled manner), and another ship comes afterwards and just sets a pre-fabricated thing on top. Seeing basically an entire oil platform lifted from a barge onto its jacket is one of the single most impressive things I've ever seen. The ships that do that are frigging massive.
htt [youtube.com]
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Wow, I did not expect that the ship would have to be on its own stilts! It makes sense, but I hadn't expected it. Pretty neat.
But, it also tells me why people who live on the shore don't want them. If you're paying a premium for ocean views, and instead see those, well, I get it. Did not know they were so close to shore.
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Because ... (Score:2)
"Just three months ago, when the project was 95% complete, the U.S. Interior Department issued a stop-work order."
... as a hoity-toity resident of Martha's Vineyard, there's only one thing that looks more attractive than an offshore wind farm. And that's an abandoned offshore wind farm project.