Pull the Plug on the "Empire Wind" Boondoggle

Last month, the Norwegian company Equinor announced that it had secured a $3 Billion credit line to proceed with the "Empire Wind" farm - 80,000 acres (125 square miles) - to be built just 12 miles off the south shore of Long Island. A huge wind farm half as big as Nassau County itself.

New York's (NYSERDA)"agreed price" for the electricity to be generated - to be paid by Long Island ratepayers: a staggering $155.00 per MWH.

That is more than FOUR TIMES the average going rate for electricity in America: Gas fired power plants average $45 per MWH; Nuclear plants average $35 per MWH. And New York has agreed to annual 1.5% increases - for the next 25 years

Long Island already pays more for electricity than anywhere else in America. A huge competitive disadvantage that has driven tens of thousands of manufacturing and service jobs off Long Island. With Empire Wind those prices will go up again.

What is worse is that the Empire project is entirely a foreign operation: The company Equinor is Norwegian - using oil revenues from Norway's huge oil production "sovereign wealth fund"; and the manufacturing of the huge turbines - with rotator blades 10 stories high - is to be done by Vestas, a Danish windmill company. Their huge profits will all go offshore.

The aesthetic effect will be to destroy the sea views from Long Island - making the ocean horizon a cluttered mess of whirling industrial windmills. And at night, a mass of bright blinking warning lights.  The environmental impact will be worse, with tens of thousands of migratory birds killed.

The area of the windmills would be a dangerous "no go" zone for sailors and boaters - and for maritime navigation generally - as any boat that inadvertently sailed - or drifted - into the wind farm.

All that might theoretically be worth the cost, if the electricity generated was cheaper - or at least competitive.  But it's not:  $155 per MWH is far too expensive.  It is economy-destroying.

Empire Wind is a hyper-expensive boondoggle.  The only people getting rich off it - aside from its foreign owners - are the New York politicians and lobbyists who have sold us out once again.

The US Department of Energy and EPA need to kill Empire Wind now - before it starts.  Before it does fatal damage to our environment and Long Island's energy affordability.