Proposed Offshore Windmills Are Cancelled

By Dan Rattiner

Last Friday, the Long Island Power Authority (LIPA) cancelled their plans to build giant metal windmills 60 feet high in the ocean off the beaches of Long Island. The windmills, 40 of them, would comprise a wind farm six miles off, but visible from shore and would alter the landscape of this place for those who use the beaches here. Most people, however, thought that if this was a price to pay for having cheaper electricity, or electricity from a power source other than carbon based products, they were surely willing to make the sacrifice.

The plans for the wind farm were put on paper in 2002. The estimated cost of the project was $112 million. There was some discussion about them both pro and con. Would ships run into them in the fog? Would the blades shred passing flocks of birds?

By 2003, the bids went out on the wind farm and the bid for building the project was won by FPL Energy, an American firm, at $356 million. This was certainly a shock, but it didn't deter LIPA.

By 2004, however, estimates for the cost of the construction had ballooned to $500 million. LIPA hesitated. In 2006, the estimated cost was $650 million. Then, more studies were done and in 2006, it was concluded the 40 windmills would really cost $770 million.

About a month ago, the number being bandied about was $850 million. And then, last Friday, it was conceded the actual cost might be as much as $1 billion. LIPA President Richard Kessel, who has fought all these years for this project, now had to announce that it was all over. The wind farm would not be built. It was just too expensive.

Mr. Kessel has been a proud, effective President of LIPA for the past ten years. During that time, by the creative use of small localized power generators, underwater grid wiring that connected us up to both New Jersey and Connecticut and employee cost cutting, he has changed what had been a company with poor service, frequent power outages and the highest cost per kilowatt in the lower 48 states into a smoothly running organization that has a record for few power outages, rapid response times and electrical prices more in keeping with what is going on with the rest of the country.

So, what went wrong? And how could a project that was originally scheduled to cost $112 million turn into something in the one-billion-dollar range without adding or subtracting anything from the plan? How do you fool Mr. Kessel?

The answer is beyond the ability of this newspaper to answer. However, I have some theories.

One is that Kessel was lied to. It is common knowledge that on a big project like this, there are cost overruns. Those bidding on these jobs expect that things might double in price from how they started out, due to both unforeseen circumstances and lowball bidding. After all, you aren't going to win the contract if you don't lowball a complicated project. But an increase seven times the price of the winning bid? And there has not even been a shovel in the ground?

Another possibility is wishful thinking. Kessel frequently said he thought that future technology would result in lower costs and higher output, which would put everybody's fears to rest, in spite of cost increases for the initial construction.

Another possibility is that politics were involved. The pipeline people, the refinery people, the oil well exploration people and the retail gasoline people might have stirred up just enough bad publicity to keep it from taking off. Those that have done the math say that even at $1 billion, these windmills could provide clean, natural electric power at a rate just $5 a month more per rate payer than what it costs currently.

Still another possibility involving how all this fell apart is corruption and greed. Long Island, particularly the western part of this county, off the beach of which these windmills would be built, has a long history of building big municipal projects with everybody's hand in everybody else's pocket. From the scandal that was the Southwest Sewer District up through the Shoreham Nuclear Plant, monies got away - never to be accounted for and never returned.

The granddaddy of this sort of thing was the Shoreham Nuclear Plant, which in the end, never opened for business. That project started out in 1970, with an approved cost of $300 million, took ten years to build and wound up costing $6.3 billion. This was because the power company didn't have a clue as to how to build a nuclear plant, the original design was poor and the Nuclear Regulatory Agency kept changing the rules involving safety and environment while Shoreham was under construction, so the whole thing had to be built, torn down and rebuilt about five times. What a debacle. In the end, patched up with bandaids and safety pins and Scotch tape, they fired it up, it worked for a day and then they shut it down, never to run again.

The truth is, however, that building offshore windmills for wind power is not the most complicated thing in the world. Europe uses them. Japan uses them. They are basically nothing more than overblown desk fans, but with thin, sharp, long blades. They've been built by the hundreds in the oceans and by the hundreds of thousands on land, both in this country and overseas. Had Kessel taken his time and gotten an experienced European offshore windmill builder to bid on this project, people say there would have been a different outcome.

Meanwhile, it's back to the drawing board. And we continue pumping carbon dioxide fossil fuel fumes into the air. And Long Island continues to not do its part.

Back to Contents