The Collapse of Offshore Wind Power Is Only the Beginning - Highlighted Article

From: AEI

By: Benjamin Zycher

Date: February 12, 2025

The Collapse of Offshore Wind Power Is Only the Beginning

The “clean energy transition” — the wholesale replacement of conventional (for the most part fossil) energy with such unconventional technologies as wind and solar power — has been the raison d’être for great masses of the well-off living in comfort in Western economies for many years. And they now are grieving. Why? Because that transition, aided with massive subsidies and guaranteed market shares and other policy subventions, is collapsing both in the United States  and in Europe.

Again, why? Because unconventional energy is not and cannot be competitive. Even with the policy favoritism bestowed upon it, it imposes very large economic and environmental costs upon large numbers of ordinary working people. Let us begin with recent cancellations of offshore wind power projects in the United States. In January, “Orsted A/S recorded a … $1.7 billion hit on its earnings as the costs of offshore wind farms, particularly in the US, keep rising.” Also in January, “Shell disclosed a $996 million write-off following its withdrawal from the Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind project.” In early February, the New Jersey State Board of Public Utilities “cancelled the bidding process for the state’s fourth offshore wind solicitation, citing the uncertainty driven by recent federal actions affecting the industry.”

It is easy enough to blame Donald Trump’s recent executive order “withdraw[ing] from disposition for wind energy leasing all areas within the Offshore Continental Shelf (OCS),” but that is a mere symptom of a far more fundamental reality: Offshore wind power is even less economic than other forms of unconventional electricity; ultimately, the excess costs for all of them must be paid by power consumers and taxpayers. (continue reading)

The Collapse of Offshore Wind Power Is Only the Beginning