Nightmare in Nantucket

The latest offshore wind disaster.

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By now, you’ve likely seen the ghastly images of fiberglass piling up on beaches and broken wind turbine in coastal Massachusetts.

This nightmare in Nantucket started Saturday, when unbeknownst to locals, a turbine belonging to the Vineyard Wind 1, south of Martha’s Vineyard, project collapsed and stopped functioning.

Vineyard Wind is currently the largest full-scale offshore wind farm. Per an August 2023 E&E News report, the project miraculously survived challenges as other projects folded.

It’s had its share of ups and downs.

Its developers won a contract to sell power to Massachusetts in 2018, then survived a near-fatal permitting snafu during the Trump administration, followed by a brief dockworkers strike earlier this year. It still faces a series of ongoing lawsuits that are trying to overturn its environmental permits.

But Vineyard Wind has escaped the cost increases that have plagued other projects.

This turbine has only been operational since January of this year, and the planned 62-turbines aren’t fully constructed yet. It’s reported the total cost fo the project will range between $2.3B-$2.8B.

Thanks to the Nantucket Currant - whose coverage has been excellent - this story isn’t going away. They first reported:

Vineyard Wind, the nation's first large-scale offshore wind farm, was shut down by the federal government on Tuesday after a turbine blade failure sent thousands of pieces of debris into the ocean and onto the beaches along Nantucket's south shore.

The federal Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement added additional information Wednesday regarding its shut down order, stating that “Following the July 13, 2024, blade failure incident at Vineyard Wind, BSEE has issued a Suspension Order to Vineyard Wind to cease power production from all its wind turbine generators until it can be determined whether the blade failure affects any other VW turbines. The Suspension Order suspends power production on the lease area and suspends installation of new wind turbine generator construction: Those operations will remain shut down until the suspension is lifted. BSEE has also issued a Preservation Order to safeguard any evidence that may be relevant to determining the cause of the incident."