To the editor:

I was at first enlightened but then confused by the letter of my friend and former colleague Dr. Sadaniantz. He provides some fascinating historical facts, combines them with some generally acknowledgeable comments about the competence of the RIDOT, then proceeds to make spurious and unfounded connections between these facts and convictions and the development of offshore wind in Rhode Island waters.

To begin with, OffShore Wind (OSW) is not a public works project. The project is a wholly private venture. The company Orsted has skin in the game and can’t make money with shoddy workmanship and poor oversight.
Orsted, by the way, is based in Denmark where the first wind farms were built more than 30 years ago and a country where currently more than half of its annual energy comes from offshore wind. All this attests to the ecological safety, and economic sustainability of the technology. It plays a large part in shielding their economy from the fluctuations of prices and politics (Russia, Iran for instance) of fossil fuel producing countries — a lesson fossil fuel poor Rhode Island could learn from.

Placing offshore wind in Rhode Island waters will present some unique challenges. A group of Rhode Island academics on their own time has created the website cited below which gives factual referenced answers to the benefits and questions around local offshore wind. If you want to understand offshore wind or have specific questions about it, this is an unparalleled resource. If they don't have an answer, they will tell you.
https://realoffshorewind.com/

Being the excellent clinician that he was, Dr. Sadaniantz understands that in life as in medicine there are always costs that go along with the benefits. Our progress toward energy independence from the vicissitudes of the global energy markets will not be without its frustrations and delays but making spurious connections with discredited state agencies is not helpful to the process.

Geoffrey Berg, MD
Circuit Drive
Warren