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Shell announced its withdrawal from the Atlantic Shores offshore wind farm project in the US, resulting in a write-off of nearly $1 billion. The decision was disclosed in the company's quarterly earnings report on Thursday, marking another setback for the American offshore wind industry. Shell's decision to exit the project comes as the industry faces challenges from President Donald Trump's executive orders aimed at halting its development. This is a significant shift from the support the industry enjoyed under Joe Biden, despite the recent increase in costs. Shell's Chief Financial Officer, Sinead Gorman, explained the decision during a call with...

In the early hours of Feb. 1, one of the spinning blades on a turbine at Portland General Electric’s Biglow Canyon wind farm in Sherman County launched into the night. The 135-foot piece of fiberglass, wood and metal weighs more than seven tons. It flew the full length of a football field. An investigation by The Oregonian/OregonLive has found that the seemingly isolated incident, which has not been publicly reported until now, is part of a pattern of maintenance problems that have undercut production at PGE’s flagship wind farm, shortchanged ratepayers and landowners, and put those who cultivate wheat under...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9VjJ1e1nIY

Power company Caithness Energy has given General Electric a $1.4 billion contract to supply wind turbines and 10 years' worth of maintenance for an Oregon wind farm, GE announced Thursday. The massive 845-megawatt wind farm, Shepherds Flat, will be located near Arlington, Oregon, but span approximately 30 square miles and cover parts of Oregon's Gilliam and Morrow Counties. GE estimates that it will supply 338 of its 2.5-megawatt wind turbine models to be installed between 2011 and 2012. Although they have been used in Europe and Asia, the company says the Shepherds Flat project will include the first U.S. installations...

Visiting America last week to talk to audiences across the country about "global warming", I was struck by television commercials for the two presidential candidates. Senators McCain and Obama were each shown in front of film of the same giant wind farm, to lay claim to virtually identical "green" credentials. Since America has already built five times as many wind turbines as Britain, covering thousands of square miles, I checked out how much electricity all those 10,000 turbines actually produce. The answer is around 4.5 gigawatts - not much more than a single large coal-fired power station.

[ROBERT M. SYKES is Professor emeritus Civil and environmental engineering Ohio State University Mount Vernon] I was disappointed to see that the very large negative effects on both Ohio's economy and environment were not discussed in the July 27 article "Wind power likely to blow in," on the wind-power projects in Champaign County. The first issue is the high cost of wind power, which is about 2.5 to three times the cost of coal-generated power. Large wind-power projects exist only because of large government subsidies. Otherwise, wind power would be restricted to a few applications where the physical isolation of...