Off-shore wind turbine blade snaps off into water and forces closure of Nantucket beaches

More absurd tales of environmental destruction, courtesy of the “environmentally-friendly” agenda, replete with catastrophic failures and lies—just a few days back, an off-shore wind turbine blade off the coast of Nantucket snapped and fell into the water below, polluting the water with shards of “nonbiodegradable fiberglass,” some of which eventually washed up onto the shoreline, forcing closures at a number of beaches. Here’s the story, from a Fox News report this morning:

On Tuesday, the Nantucket harbormaster announced that six of the Massachusetts town’s beaches would be temporarily closed after pieces of fiberglass washed ashore and said anyone walking the beach should wear footwear to protect themselves from the sharp debris.

Vineyard Wind, a joint venture between foreign entities Avangrid and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, which built wind farms off the coast of Massachusetts, said Tuesday that a blade from a turbine had snapped and that power production from the turbines was stopped immediately. 

Okay, let’s do a quick rundown of the implications of this event, to illustrate how disastrous this failure really is.

We’ve got shards of composite material made of glass and petroleum-based resin polluting the water—what’s this going to do to marine life? And the progressive leftists who think they’re the eco-conscious ones worry about plastic straws or some plastic bags? Imagine all the creatures that will be swallowing a synthetic glass! And, since the shards are washing up on shore, now people can’t even enjoy walking barefoot on the sand lest they get sliced up by razor sharp detritus, and they certainly can’t enjoy a swim or frolic in the water.

Per the Fox item, the company behind the broken turbine said that “nearly the entirety of the blade remains affixed to the turbine.” Yet, pictures shows the exact opposite, with the break looking like it happened almost right at the rotor:

Furthermore, the broken turbine is white, yet the large debris being pulled from the ocean and picked up along the beach are not:

And here:

Of course there wouldn’t be white paint on the foam core pieces, but all the paint is gone from the fiberglass exterior, meaning all that paint has been left behind. So not only do we have fiberglass and foam pollution, we’ve got paint chips floating in our oceans too.

Here’s another consideration:

Wind turbine failures destroy the environment, our quality of life, and livelihoods, yet they’re peddled as “clean” and “sustainable” and “eco-friendly.” What an utter con.

A blade snapping off of the machine is a massive failure, and it’s uncomfortably common, especially when you consider how huge these things really are; in May I wrote a blog on another turbine blade break.

According to industry experts, “blade failure” is the top wind turbine failure, with an estimated “3,800 incidents” each year. Now, that number is seemingly from 2020 (considering when that article was written) and is likely higher now, given the rapid expansion of the industry over the past four years. And, there’s no way to recycle these blades once they fail or are eventually decommissioned, and they’re hauled off to pile up in massive dumping grounds.

I have to wonder if the standard to which oil companies are held when their equipment fails will be applied to Vineyard Wind, meaning they pay their own cleanup costs, or if this will fall on the taxpayers? Something tells me it’ll be the latter, and as a matter of fact, pictures across X show public lifeguards cleaning up what’s washed up on shore—it’s already falling on the taxpayer to foot the bill.

How’s this for irony? Vineyard Wind and the Town of Nantucket entered into a “Good Neighbor Agreement” to support community projects related to “preserving cultural and historic resources,” among other things. Well, Vineyard Wind hasn’t been a very good neighbor, and I’d argue that New England lobster and Nantucket Sound are “cultural and historic resources” of great importance; more important than lining “green” corporation pockets with taxpayer dollars and subsidies for sure. 

If you thought that the “green” movement actually meant a cleaner and healthier environment for all to enjoy, you were sorely mistaken.

patano, CC BY-SA 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons\r\n\r\nunaltered

Image: patano, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons, unaltered.

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