Another industrial offshore wind farm off the coast of the Vineyard is preparing to start construction.
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) approved Sunrise Wind’s construction and operations plan on June 21, according to a press release from the agency. This is the final approval the project needed from BOEM.
According to Ørsted, offshore wind construction will “ramp up” later this year, and Sunrise Wind is expected to be fully operational by 2026.
Sunrise Wind, an offshore wind project owned by Ørsted, will consist of 84 wind turbines, and produce 924 megawatts of power. According to BOEM, that is enough to power more than 320,000 homes annually. The project lease area is located around 18 miles southwest of Martha’s Vineyard, and will be providing power to New York. By comparison, Sunrise Wind will be located around 30 miles east of Montauk, N.Y.
BOEM’s approval follows the greenlight from the U.S. Department of the Interior in March, which included an environmental review of the project.
“BOEM’s approval of the Sunrise Wind project represents another step in building a thriving offshore wind energy industry,” Elizabeth Klein, director of BOEM, said in the federal agency release. “The Biden-Harris administration continues to demonstrate its commitment to advancing responsible projects like Sunrise Wind as part of our strategy to foster good-paying jobs for local communities, ignite economic development, and fight the harmful effects of climate change.”
Construction is underway for another Ørsted project even closer to the Vineyard. Revolution Wind, a 704-megawatt offshore wind project 12 miles from Aquinnah, will provide power to Connecticut and Rhode Island. The company completed installing its first turbine foundation in mid-May.
Revolution Wind will consist of 65 wind turbines and two offshore substations. The U.S. Department of the Interior stated the offshore wind farm will be able to power more than 250,000 homes in Rhode Island and Connecticut.
Meanwhile, Avangrid announced on Tuesday that Vineyard Wind 1 now has a total of 10 offshore wind turbines in operation, delivering 136 megawatts of power to the New England electricity grid. Avangrid states this is enough to power over 60,000 homes in Massachusetts.
Vineyard Wind 1 is located around 15 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard. The offshore wind farm will consist of 62 wind turbines generating 806 megawatts of power, which the Interior Department has said would be enough to power 400,000 homes and businesses.
Avangrid states the construction of Vineyard Wind has installed 21 turbines, and 47 foundations and transition pieces for more turbines.
I wonder if sunrise wind will give the Wampanoag
tribe on the Vineyard a million dollars for defiling
the sunset views?
So many bits of good news in this article! We are so lucky to have wind-powered energy! Can’t wait to see solar panels on every roof and a few small windmills in every yard, so that each home 🏡 is able to be energy independent (off the grid), similar to every family having a car or two to be transportation independent.
Keeping in mind that “every family having a car or two” is what got us in this predicament to begin with . . .
Juleann, are you opposed to people being independent?
Mary, are opposed to waste?
Albert, Nope, I’m not opposed to wasting energy when the solar panels provide free electricity. If every home we’re powered by solar, nobody else would care either.
This pretty ironic coming from someone who is literally telling us we can’t be independent to choose how we power and heat our homes. Ah, the liberal mind. Isn’t this rich?
Carl– I heat primarily with wood. I have a complete
radiant heating system in the floors powered by propane.
I have some small 1500 watt heaters that I sometimes use
in the shoulder seasons for spot heating rather than turn on the
radiant heat , as some rooms are too far away from the woodstove to get any meaningful heat from it.
It also takes a while to heat up the room with radiant and much of the heat is lost after I leave the room.
I can put solar electrical panels or solar water heaters on my
roof and do whatever I want with that energy.
No one is telling me that I can’t change my propane system
to oil, No one is telling me that I can’t put mini splits in, or a Rinnai
heater that can run on propane or kerosene. I also have south
facing windows that go up 2 stories, and I am legally able to put
a full sized greenhouse there for solar gain.
I guess you are upset because the “liberals” won’t
allow us to have nuclear reactors ?
What the fence are you talking about, Carl ?
Carl you have a choice.
You can choose modern electricity or use something that requires a smokestack .
What comes out of them is nasty, nothing you would want in your house.
Don,
Better check to see how carbon neutral burning wood is and double check to see how efficient it is. And government regulations are doing just that. They are limiting options as to how I can heat my home and cook my food. To Hess’s point sounds like Keller went for the smokestack option.
Carl Yeah, I have the smokestack option. I have
a Jotul woodstove that has a secondary combustion
chamber, has been inspected by the building inspector
and meets all current emissions ratings.
i only use wood that is being brought down for
reasons other than firewood. Like electric line clearing
or if the trees are dead and are a hazard. Or storm
damage and some waste wood from construction.
By the way, all of that wood would naturally
degrade over the course of about 10 years and release
the same amount of carbon as me burning it. One could
make the argument that since some of the ash from my
stove actually “lock’s up” carbon in the form of
biochar which I put in my organic garden, that in the long
run my wood stove is actually reducing the amount
of carbon in the atmosphere. And let’s
not even mention that the particulate matter
that my stove emits reflects sunlight back
into space and is actually helping keep the
planet cooler. It’s more complicated
than you think.
50 percent of EV users say they won’t buy another one again. Wonder why?
andy– it’s actually about 45 % but who cares about the actual
numbers?
But the reason, since you are wondering about it, is that the charging
infrastructure for long distance travel is not up to where it should be.
There are a lot of reasons for that, and we can point fingers at this or that
politician, but ultimately the free market is failing to meet the
unpresented demand. Yup– the free market is behind the curve
on this one. By the way, EV owners are generally very happy with
the cars themselves. Like , oh I don’t know– 95 % of them ?
I can make up numbers too.
Since you like anecdotal evidence, I have never met an owner
of an EV that didn’t love the performance of the drive train, and
the ridiculously cheap cost to operate them.
Don, every person I know who owns an EV loves it. One person said it only costs $5.84 for a fill-up. Gas car is ten times that.
Who cares about infrastructure? Charge at home for majority of charging. The oil barons are spreading lies about missing infrastructure. Take a look at maps—charging stations are everywhere!!
Mary– you are quite correct as usual. But I think the
issue of travelling long distances is not quite
resolved in the eyes of most privileged Americans.
To them, it is an extreme inconvenience to have to wait 30 minutes
or so to charge their car. Not only that, but they actually have
to plug the car in themselves !!!!!!! — UNACCEPTABLE. !!!!!
Also , the right wing media plays it up whenever there is any
kind of disruption in the system. For instance, it was fox’s top
story for days after people had not adequately anticipated the
problems with ev charging after the eclipse. Too many people
expecting to just charge when they wanted and not
enough chargers. That was real– but mostly the fault
of the owners who did not prepare and charge in advance.
Also , ev’s have some limitations concerning extreme
temperatures. Once again, fox had their top story for days being
that electric school busses in Vermont would not adequately charge
in sub zero temperatures.
Anyway, it’s little wonder that those who feed from the right wing troth
of misinformation are afraid.
Just look at Carl’s comment and my
response about liberals
telling us what we can use to heat our houses . And he’s a really smart guy. Imagine what the dummies think….
Yes the liberal math is everyone meaning all is 45% and not 100%. And charging stations charge close to what it costs to fill up your car at a gas station but only 10x as long. And you can only charge to 80% compared to filling 100% of my gas tanks capacity. So who is the dummy?
Carl–https://www.investopedia.com/cost-to-charge-ev-road-trip-5219817#:~:text=The%20cost%20of%20charging%20your,%2410%20and%20%2430%20per%20charge.
I don’t know what kind of car you drive, but it’s been a long time
since I could fill any car I drive for about $20. Unless
of course it’s almost full to begin with.
“Actually about 45%” is not an actual number. It’s an estimate, which is as accurate as a guess. Do people reread what they post?
The hot air regarding who brags the longest and loudest about what good stewards of energy one is, should be enough to heat an uninsulated 3000 sq foot yurt for the next 10 winters.
Jackie— andy claimed 50% blah blah blah.
that may be a specific number but it is of course not true.
Do you really believe that andy’s claim is dead accurate?
EXACTLY 50% –I agree It’s a guess– just like mine. We both get
our guesses from polling data. But at least I am honest
and say “about” because that’s the truth.
Why aren’t you berating andy for his guess, and his lie ?
Could it be because a former president is telling lies about electric cars? Maybe? And his supporters are damaging infrastructure? Why?
When people realize that a few solar panels on the garage, paired with an electric car, can create nearly free transportation, they will switch.
EV sales just keep on growing.
Windmills and radio towers are ugly, they must be eliminated….
A double edged sword. We all know our climate is rapidly changing and we are to blame so alternative energy production without carbon emissions is essential. But what is the best way to accomplish this? Is it to displace the historic fisheries of the Northeast? Run electromagnetic energy in amounts unprecedented in our or any time through the productive marine environment that surrounds us? Environmental impact statements rushed through the usually long and well researched process to speed up delivery of ever more power… not one word about conserving and living within our means…. Yes, we need alternative ways to produce power. I fear the effort underway and gaining speed daily will go down in time as a huge mistake. I hope I’m wrong.
William, no one said a peep about electromagnetic energy in our oceans (even though were ALREADY cables sitting on the ocean floor!) until the windmills showed up.
William– that permitting process took decades.
And that’s not including all the impact statements from the
Cape Wind project.
The EMF is negligible as the cables are buried 10 ft beneath the sea floor.
There is no evidence to support any claim that off shore wind farms
hurt anything but a few clams while cables are being laid.
The fishing industry is not being displaced.
I have certainly advocated for conservation of electricity.
but go to fox “news” and listen to the bird brained millionaires
talk about how “they” are coming for your a/s, ceiling fan, stove,
washing machine, etc,
There is even some orange blob out there that claims toilets
don’t flush and showers don’t shower, and has made it a political
point to make sure no electricity is ever conserved.
I’m sure that idiot who claims he leaves his vehicle running just
to piss liberals off probably leaves his windows open while the a/c
is on. He can afford it since he made millions selling poison to ignorant
people.
Homo Insanitis is hell bent on destroying the Earth.
“Have I not reason to lament what Man has made of Man?” –
– William Wordsworth
Martha –Some people actually understand the problem and are trying to
something about it. Others however, have an inability to understand that
there are solutions to countering the problem.
Some are as simple as using energy efficient light bulbs, using a clothes line
and building whirligigs in the ocean.
Some are even so hell bent on destroying the earth that they
deliberately leave their ICE vehicles running while they go to the
liquor store or church, just to piss liberals off .
Martha, agree that we are destroying our
earth—physically and politically!
Here’s one right wing politician,
Bjorn Hocke:
https://www.politico.eu/article/german-far-right-leader-found-guilty-of-using-banned-nazi-slogan-bjorn-hocke-afd-alternative-for-germany-thuringia/
Conservatives around the world, including
the US, are becoming more radical.
Why have we gone backwards?
Mary –I think it’s a little unfair to the nazis to compare
our modern right wing “conservative “party in America to them.
There is a path to follow here :
“For fourteen long years these parties have raped German freedom, beaten German men with clubs. Before two or three months pass this terror will be removed if you vote for National Socialists.” Adolph Hitler July 1932 .
Sound familiar ?
I can’t wait for the MAGA maggots to cry about that comment.
Martha, there’s a documentary about Senator Tammy Duckworth—one of her teachers kept her and her siblings after school some days to clean up, then gave them money for a snack at the Taco Bell next to the school. That teacher knew the family was going hungry and he found a way, with dignity, to help feed the family. Take ❤️heart, there are good people in the world.
Wonder why is rhetorical Keller. Yes the free market is responsible because the free market knows sales growth is lower than expected and wont spend the capital for new infrastructure for a slowdown. That’s what free markets do. To blame them for pursuing their own self interest is dumb. Oh, they should sacrifice profits in order to worship at the feet of climate hysterics
wrong again andy
https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/20/cars/electric-cars-sales-gas-cars-dg/index.html
They are worshiping at the feet of the oil barons.
Keller I said lower than expected. I did not say not growing
andy– “expected” by whom ? Some so called
financial “expert”? Some people expected that
COVID would not get close to killing one thousand
Americans. Some people expected that Vineyard wind
one would never get financing— or that Biden would
pick Fetterman as his running mate, and Hillary would
win the 2016 election. Expectations are just guesses.
I’m gonna stick with reality— EV sales are increasing
rapidly and the “invisible hand of the free market” is
busy doing something else for the oil propagandist
who are convincing ignorant and gullible people
that their EV’s are going to catch fire and they won’t
be able to charge them. Purposeful lies, told right here
on this site to forward some sort of twisted agenda.
Just for the record, a car catches fire
every 3 minutes in this country. (174,000) per year.
gas powered gars catch fire at a rate 61 times
that of EV’s . Yet the myth persists and the liars
continue to lie.
Keller. When the ROI changes for any given industry, the Capitalists change their decisions to make sure they dont spend unwisely. That happens with everyone every day when the equation changes. Your own spending habits change based upon circumstances. So your useless comment ”expected by who” means expected by the entity spending the money. If EV car growth is assumed to be 15 percent per year and now based upon empirical evidence, trends, price of gas, price of labor and lithium it seems it will grow only 7 percent. Would you not now expect capital spending to be different. Instead your comments above-non sequitur throw no light on the argument. You simply want to negate for nothing but an emotional reason due to your disdain for me.
Keller can you or anyone else on this cite tell me what the earths temperature will be after we spend say 40 trillion dollars on climate mitigation. I want to see how much it drops in return for my tax dollars. Please let me know. surely the people who want to spend trillions have a temperature goal in mind. Or should we just spend it to feel good or it doesnt matter as long as it is done. What is the answer please.?
Andrew, the interesting thing about solar and wind power: it’s nearly free, therefore, better for your pocket book.
By the way, in the US we’re spending more than one trillion a year for fossil fuels. It only costs one million to switch entirely (yes, everything!) to renewable energy. Why haven’t we switched already!?!
I can answer that: Oil Oligarchs!
andy– the short answer is that I don’t know.
But I do know that if we do nothing, the temperature
will go up faster than if we do something.
I also know that spending trillions of
dollars to repair the damage from more intense hurricanes
and weather events will not drop the temperature either.
That cost will be reflected in insurance premium increases,
and do nothing to insure a more stable climate in the future.
https://www.climate.gov/news-features/blogs/beyond-data/2023-historic-year-us-billion-dollar-weather-and-climate-disasters
I’m sure you could care less about the personal suffering since
you have made it very clear that money is more important than
the quality of life.
and 2024 sure is off to a hell of a start.
Don, here’s a fun fact: Amazon is changing
over to an all-electric fleet of vehicles in
ten years or less.
That Bezos guy, he isn’t interested
in making money. 🤣🤣🤣
https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/transportation/everything-you-need-to-know-about-amazons-electric-delivery-vans-from-rivian
Like I said before, people will switch to an
electric car when it works for their own
bottom line, and not before.
What might happen is that the Jones
family will have an extra $10 grand a year from using solar, and that adds up over the
years to a nice little increase in their
standard of living.
We get to watch. If we have solar,
our own standard of living increases nicely
too. If we insist on using gasoline and
heating oil, well, we will watch the Jones
family buy nicer jewelry, newer cars,
bigger houses…
Expected by who?
Andrew, the oil barons have a unique position of power. They receive more money than any other industry from each family. Consider the enormity of that much money! It’s TRILLIONS per year! We CAN blame them for pursuing their own selfish interests. There is nothing “free market” about an industry that creates oligarchs in Russia and billionaires in Texas who, literally, buy the politicians off.
Juleann, since gas cars are destroying the environment, driving electric cars can heal the environment.
(There are migratory birds not migrating anymore because the earth 🌍 has warmed so much).
Horrible just horrible every one who loves the ocean and fishing around the island are going to be very disappointed in the years to come when there is a dead zone around the vineyard
John– I am curious as to how you can get a correlation between some
sort of hypothetical “dead zone around the Vineyard ”
and windmills 15 to 30 miles off the coast. I’m asking a serious question.
I am actually curious as to how that could possibly happen. You know,
like that whole cause and effect thing.
I remember the day Neil Armstrong walked on the moon.
I lived in Southern New Jersey at the time, and the next day it
started raining in my town. It rained for 4 days, and the ignorant
people who could not fathom how anything that we did in space
could in anyway help humanity blamed a human walking on the
moon for that rain.
Or maybe you are just concerned about the warming climate.
You didn’t actually specify what you thought was “horrible” .
Now that could certainly cause dead zones all around the world.
Including the Vineyard.
And i can explain how that could happen if you would like .
You have a knack for proving your own opinions wrong. How are people that blamed a man walking on the moon for bad weather any different than the ones who blame my gas stove for the same thing!
John– you have a knack for making a serious
complicated and dangerous problem seem like
nothing. At least in your willfully ignorant mind.
YOUR gas stove is not the problem. It is the cumulative
effect of humans releasing 81,730,000,000,000 pounds
(that’s 37.15 billion metric tons)
of carbon into the atmosphere every year and expecting
nothing to happen because of that.
To ignore that is as stupid as thinking a man walking on
the moon made it rain in N.J for 4 days.
Stupid is as stupid does.
John, enjoy your gas stove. Over time our society will slowly transition to to all electric. In the meantime, just enjoy what you have.
What will make it dead?
Boats?
Fishing?
Oil drilling rigs and production platforms?
Whose oceans?
John, some other people might be curious about, not a dead zone of fishing around the island, but the types of animals that can and cannot survive the hotter water from burning fossil fuels.
The lobster 🦞 for instance, can’t migrate very well, so they are just dying. And since they don’t wash up on the shore like a whale or turtle, no one can see the lobster 🦞 are dying en masse.
Warmer waters allow new species to flourish.
Or an invasive species. Like the beetles eating the pine trees. Watch our forest disappear.
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