Doug Sheridan observes…
“The WSJ Editorial Board writes, a giant wind boondoggle has blown the New Jersey Governor down. That’s the story of another failed green-energy project, as the follies keep being exposed.”
Doug Sheridan observes…
The WSJ Editorial Board writes, a giant wind boondoggle has blown the New Jersey Governor down. That’s the story of another failed green-energy project, as the follies keep being exposed.
The renewable energy firm Ørsted last week backed out of two megaprojects along the Jersey shore that it started planning in 2019. With his eye on support from the climate lobby for a White House run, Murphy courted the developments, which were meant to provide electricity for hundreds of thousands of homes. The company says cost overruns have made them impossible, and it wrote off $4 billion for the first nine months of this year.
Murphy fumed in public, saying the cancellation casts doubt on Ørsted’s “credibility and competence.” The Danish firm blames its withdrawal on rising interest rates and component costs, but it has said little about what made the New Jersey project uniquely impractical.
But it takes two to make a bad deal, and Murphy wants to shift blame for his poor due diligence on behalf of New Jersey ratepayers. The state prodded power company PSEG into a partnership with Ørsted, and PSEG bought a 25% stake in one of the offshore projects to prop up development. The utility sold its stake this year as cost overruns became critical.
Yet that was exactly when Murphy doubled down. He signed a bill in July to let Ørsted pocket federal tax credits it would earn from the wind farms, instead of using that money to reduce electricity rates, as it promised to do in 2019. The change would have cost New Jersey residents up to $1B, but affordable energy was never the point. Like many progressives today, Murphy was all in for the green bragging rights.
The New Jersey bust isn’t the only sign of wind industry woes. BP and Norwegian partner Equinor recently wrote-down a combined $840 million on New York state wind projects.
To Sum It Up: Developers often underestimate project costs so much that even a boatload of tax credits can’t make them economical. The best result of Ørsted’s failure would be for other states to re-examine their green follies. This one mote thing for voters to recall when politicians next try to sell their climate virtue.