Cervantes, in his classic novel, “Don Quixote,” tells of a confused protagonist who, with a wild imagination, develops a habit of seeing what he wants to see, loyally enabled by his well-intentioned sidekick, Sancho Panza.
Windmills figure prominently in the storyline, and one can’t help but reflect on that irony concerning New Jersey’s offshore wind turbines.
There are numerous questions on offshore wind.
Among these are what will it cost and who will pay for it? What is the effect of its construction on marine mammals? How will it impact our fishing industry and the families who have made their living in it for generations? What about cable landings and substation placement? Should government at any level be leading “megaprojects” like offshore wind?
While these are all important concerns that should be given thoughtful consideration, my reservations are less pragmatic, and even a bit selfish.
As a native New Jerseyan, I’ve learned to shrug when my out-of-state friends smugly sneer, describing their impression of our state based on whatever they see as they traverse the Turnpike on their way to Vermont or Nantucket.
You really can’t blame them since their recollection is an endless stream of refineries, tank farms, smokestacks and defiled marshland that serve as home to two-headed turtles.
I’m happy to let friends continue in their ignorance, never extolling the beauty of our farmland, rolling horse country, mysterious pinelands, or our pristine shoreline.
Their enlightenment might result in a new wave of Land Rovers double-parked in front of the local Starbucks, only adding to the visual and audio cacophony New Jerseyans have learned to live with.
As a long-time resident of southern Monmouth County, I’ve been fortunate to enjoy the unadulterated setting of peaceful beaches, relatively untouched by human slovenliness.
I can honestly say there is nothing more relaxing than on a Sunday afternoon, sitting on a beach in September, reading a book or half asleep, being treated to the distant voice of Bob Popa narrating a Giants game as it drifts from the radio of a beach-going neighbor.
My experience is not unique. Each year there are millions who find their way to the beaches of Monmouth, Ocean, Atlantic, and Cape May counties to decompress and relax by the seashore.
Much has been written about the detrimental effects of industrialization on our oceans, but most speak of the contamination of the biological environment. I’m old enough to remember emerging from the ocean at days end having to use turpentine to remove tar-like remnants on my legs that had been belched from the cleansing of the bilge pumps on ocean-going vessels.
A genuine success in improving our environment has been the visible improvement in the clarity and cleanliness of ocean water. Witness the appearance of whales and dolphins, which were never present until a few years ago.
That’s a real credit to the work of the various state and federal agencies who protect our oceans.
Surprisingly, these same agencies say little of a derogatory nature concerning the visual effects of wind turbines sited just 10 miles off our coast. Artist renderings from wind developers describe their vision of what will be visible from the beach, but even their most benign depictions show structures that will rise 900 to 1,000 feet above the ocean surface. To put that in context, that’s an industrial structure the size of a 100-story skyscraper!
Developers currently plan for hundreds of turbines, but if all nine leases off the New Jersey shoreline are developed, that number could rise to over 1,400, creating a horizon reminiscent of the skyline of New York City.
Developers do qualify their description saying, “They’ll only be visible on a clear day,” presumably comforting to those inclined to lounge on the beach in fog or rain.
I also wonder how long we will be dependent upon wind energy for a substantial percentage of fossil-free electricity? Breakthroughs are happening every day in the energy space.
If, for example, we crack the code on fusion, work down the costs of hydrogen, expand renewable gas, or continue with incremental efficiency gains on solar generation, will we even need wind energy?
Offshore turbines might then become like the abandoned factories and chemical plants that await remediation on both sides of our Turnpike.
The history of well-intentioned government, selecting optimal business strategies to spend public money, is not good. Allowing our clean energy strategy to evolve incrementally and more deliberately might allow the market to produce a solution without defiling another equally vital component of our environment.
In the end, even Don Quixote, after a long sleep, announced that he had regained his sanity.
ED. NOTE: The author is the principal and managing director for Shoreline Energy Advisors LLC, a consulting firm in Brielle that “develops strategies and deploys targeted and qualified expertise to provide efficient and economical energy solutions,” according to the firm’s website. Fastiggi has almost three decades of experience working in the power and energy sectors, according to his bio on Shoreline Energy’s site, and spent 13 years at Public Service Enterprise Group (PSEG) in various roles for their regulated and unregulated operations. He holds a bachelor’s degree in finance and a master’s degree in quantitative analysis from Seton Hall University and is a certified energy manager and distributed generation certified professional.
