Green Energy Bonds & New Bedford Ocean Port

Green Energy Bonds & New Bedford Ocean Port

Green Energy Bonds Could Be The Next New Subprime mortgage industry collapse. Massachusetts started the green energy bond program under former Governor Patrick. Governor Patrick served on the five-member board of Ameriquest’s holding company, ACC Capital Holdings, from 2004 to 2006. ( The housing bubble collapse)

The New Bedford Marine Commerce Terminal, was announced in 2010 by former Governor Patrick to costs 35 million dollars. Today the incomplete project is nearing 135 million dollars.

The owner of the port Massachusetts Clean Energy Center refuses to comment on a completion date or the amount of finances to complete the ongoing financial fiasco.

Former Secretary of Energy and Environmental Affairs Richard Sullivan testified before the House Bonding Committee, chaired by New Bedford Democrat Rep.Antonio Cabral that he was “absolutely convinced that New Bedford will be the primary staging port for Cape Wind”

Cape Wind never had a permit from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management to build and construct commercial wind turbines in New Bedford

Investors bought green bonds from the State of Massachusetts. The sale of these bonds was used to help build the New Bedford ocean wind turbine port. Massachusetts green bonds are the same as any other IOU bond issued by Massachusetts. The only difference is the state pledges to use the proceeds of a green-bond sale for projects that are beneficial to the environment.

Massachusetts politicians have always said the New Bedford port was also designed to handle bulk cargo.

The Massachusetts Clean Energy Center now states the terminal will be used to import and export of containers, bulk cargo, heavy machinery, and other types of marine cargo.

Massachusetts is the first state in the United States municipal bond market to issue “green bonds.” The bonds were issued to investors interested in projects with environmental benefits. Massachusetts legislative bonding committees issued funds from the sale of green energy bonds to build the New Bedford Marine Commerce Terminal.

Massachusetts official gambled with the green energy bonds. Cape Wind never had the investors or the federal permits to build wind turbines in New Bedford. The permit to build and construct the commercial wind turbines was issued years before to Quonset Point, Rhode Island were the port had already been built .

One very important question has never been addressed about the legal 120 foot wide opening at the hurricane gates at the entrance to New Bedford Harbor . How do you install hundreds of 6 plus megawatt ocean wind turbines with one single small barge that can fit through the opening at the gates ? Ocean wind turbine Jack-Up barges world wide are 127 feet or wider.

Massachusetts treasury officials last year were inundated with $1 billion in buy orders for so-called “green bonds.” The state received favorable interst on almost 350 million in the bonds which went towards the incomplete New Bedford ocean port.

Today the New Bedford ocean wind turbine port sits with no completion date, rail link a mile away, AM radio antenna of 4 acres and the federal channel outside the hurricane gates in need of dredging.

In buying a green bond a purchaser is making a loan to Massachusetts the seller of the bond. Paying the principle and interest is done through profits of the New Bedford Marine Commerce Terminal project which is supported by the bond.

The Massachusetts Clean Energy Center in September of 2014 without knowing the completion date or the final costs of the project gave Cape Wind a lease for $187,500.00 per month. The public has never seen the lease and the MassCEC refuses any further comment on the lease.

Now comes the question: Does the New Bedford Marine Commerce Terminal have a reasonable chance of being profitable ?

Does the risk of loss kills the attractiveness of the bond ? Massachusetts has a long history of renewable energy failures starting with Evergreen Solar.

The problem now is that so called green projects like the New Bedford Marine Commerce Terminal are uniformly money-losers just like the land based commercial wind turbine projects.

Anyone buying a green bond better expect to lose his money.

The only one on the hook for the whole thing is you the taxpayer.