A Giant Offshore Wind Turbine Blade Breaks, Prompting Beach Closures
By Brad Plumer, The New York Times.
Excerpt: Debris from a damaged wind turbine blade has been washing up on the shores of Nantucket, Mass., prompting the closure of several beaches to swimmers and spurring an investigation into what caused the mishap. The damage to the blade occurred on Saturday evening at Vineyard Wind, the country’s second large-scale offshore wind farm, which is 14 miles off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard, Mass. It’s still under construction but the first turbines began generating electricity in February. The companies behind the project...plan to install a total of 62 turbines by the end of the year that could, at full strength, produce 800 megawatts of electricity, or enough to power more than 400,000 homes. The turbines being installed at Vineyard Wind are enormous, featuring 351-foot-long blades that can reach heights taller than the Eiffel Tower. ...the developers of Vineyard Wind said that while the fiberglass debris was not hazardous to people, they recommended that beachgoers not try to pick up pieces on their own. ...The incident comes at a turbulent time for the nascent offshore wind industry. Several proposed wind farms off the coasts of Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey and New York have been canceled or postponed over the past few years as inflation and rising interest rates have upended the economics of the projects. While many Northeastern states are still trying to build offshore wind farms, seeing the technology as their best option for generating emissions-free power, the projects have sometimes faced intense opposition from fishing groups and local homeowners....