A lot going on, I know; e.g.,everybody good with their nomination signatures to get on the CD1 ballot …?

But I didn’t want to let this go by without flagging. Citing “higher proposed contract costs”, Rhode Island Energy, formerly National Grid, announced Tuesday that it declined the Revolution Wind 2 offshore wind proposal, the sole bid received in the most recent offshore wind solicitation.

Commonwealth Magazine calls this development “ominous”. No, actually, it is good news for our electric bills, at least short term.  What is ominous is that the project may come back around, like an even more expensive bad penny.

… developers hope to rebid the contracts in the state’s next procurement in 2024, presumably at much higher prices.

“Much higher prices”??  Yikes, even before that, federal subsidies; installation and maintenance costs; its intermittency requiring either back up generating capacity or expensive battery storage; and state mandates for ratepayers to purchase it make wind power significantly more expensive than fossil fuel and nuclear. And looking ahead, wind power is projected to cost three times natural gas power, per the US Energy Information Administration .

The other major downside of offshore wind, as referenced above, is that it is “highly intermittent”; a.k.a., unreliable. The solution almost blithely proposed by renewables advocates is for the grid to purchase industrial battery storage; on the tab of the ratepayer, we should note. But battery storage is costly and the mining of a key component, lithium, is highly toxic.

It is important to identify the party responsible for this madness. It is not Rhode Island Energy.  While they reiterated their support for “expansion of offshore wind in Rhode Island” in their statement Tuesday, they are just carrying out orders. 

Culpability for the mandate to move Rhode Island away from reliable, reasonably priced fossil fuel energy sources towards expensive, not-ready-for-prime time energy sources rests entirely with the state’s leaders and legislators.  They harbor intense, gauzy illusions about the feasibility and necessity of transitioning 100% to expensive, not-ready-for-prime time energy sources. They seem, at least at this point, comfortable – a little too comfortable – with saddling state rate-payers with exorbitantly high electric bills that will result in zero benefit to the planet and the state.

But for the moment, let us just dwell on Tuesday’s modest win and add a few other items of “good news”. Speaking of wind power, in case you missed it, someone has made the ground-breaking, greenhouse gas-busting discovery that ships can be propelled across the water … oooo, by wind.  And it turns out that the Terminator, thank heavens, has been on the global warming case for a while. Don’t miss his new-fangled, zero emission way for you to dry your laundry, not to mention his … umm, novel carbon-capture method for tailpipe emissions.  (Do NOT try this at home – or anywhere – kids.)

Still to be determined is whether the above newly-discovered wind method of propelling ships can be adapted to power Arnold’s private jet.

[Image: Nicholas Doherty via Unsplash]