whatyareckon

Some of America’s biggest planned offshore wind projects have recently been axed, with more to follow. Deemed ‘uneconomic’, potential investors and financiers are running a mile from what portend to be enormous white elephants.

Where the true cost of onshore wind power is phenomenal, the cost of the offshore stuff is astronomical.

Going offshore brings with it exorbitant maintenance costs (think operating any metal-based machinery in a salt-laden marine environment), as well as the repair and maintenance of hundreds of kilometres of undersea cable, the cost of which often runs into the hundreds of millions of dollars for each operating project, over time.

Let’s face it, apart from the subsidies it attracts, there is no economic basis for wind power, anytime, anywhere, ever.

As Warren Buffet put it: “We get a tax credit if we build a lot of wind farms. That’s the only reason to build them. They…