Saving Seafood

As project nears final approval, Vineyard Wind hopes to have offshore wind farm up and running by 2023

March 9, 2021 — An offshore wind project that would provide clean energy to nearly all of southeastern Massachusetts is one step closer to becoming a reality.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) released its final environmental review of the Vineyard Wind project Monday, which included a favorable assessment of the proposal.

Vineyard Wind’s proposed 84-turbine offshore wind farm would generate 800 megawatts of clean energy and power 400,000 homes. The company said it would be the first large-scale offshore wind farm energy project in the country.

“More than three years of federal review and public comment is nearing its conclusion and 2021 is poised to be a momentous year for our project and the broader offshore wind industry,” Vineyard Wind CEO Lars Pedersen said in a statement. “We look forward to reaching the final step in the federal permitting process and being able to launch an industry that has such tremendous potential for economic development in communities up and down the Eastern seaboard.”

Read the full story at WPRI

BARRY RICHARD: Biden’s Rush to Put Windmills Off Massachusetts’ Coast

March 9, 2021 — It didn’t take long for area fishermen to realize that Joe Biden is not their friend.

Biden, or whoever is calling the shots these days in Washington, rushed through a review of the Vineyard Wind offshore wind farm, moving the project, expected to be online by the end of 2023, closer to becoming a reality.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, an arm of the U.S. Department of the Interior, says it has completed the project’s final environmental impact statement. The project now moves to the final permitting phase.

President Donald Trump slowed the review process over concerns about the negative impacts an offshore wind farm could have on the commercial and recreational fishing industries. Fishermen say the wind farm, some 15 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard, would pose navigational hazards and negatively impact marine life resulting in higher prices for seafood and lost jobs.

Read the full opinion piece at WBSM

BOEM finalizes environmental statement on Vineyard Wind

March 9, 2021 — Moving quickly on the Biden administration’s renewable energy agenda, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management completed its environmental review of the 800-megawatt Vineyard Wind plan, clearing the path for the first truly commercial-scale U.S. offshore wind project.

“The United States is poised to become a global clean energy leader,” said Laura Daniel Davis, a deputy assistant secretary in the Department of Interior, in announcing the step Monday. “To realize the full environmental and economic benefits of offshore wind, we must work together to ensure all potential development is advanced with robust stakeholder outreach and scientific integrity.”

Located about 15 nautical miles off Martha’s Vineyard, Mass., Vineyard Wind is viewed as a bellwether for the nascent U.S. offshore wind industry. Its rapid progress in recent weeks is a 180-degree turnaround from December, when Trump administration appointees at Interior moved to kill the permitting process.

Wind industry analysts have predicted BOEM approval would trigger new investment commitments to building out a U.S.-flag wind energy workboat fleet and East Coast port improvements to accommodate up to 15 other projects now in various planning stages.

For the fishing industry, the outcome of the Vineyard Wind approval is a critical test of how the Biden administration will handle its concerns going forward.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

As Vineyard Wind moves toward approval, a wave builds behind it

March 9, 2021 — A huge wind farm off the Massachusetts coast is edging closer to federal approval, setting up what the Biden administration hopes will be a model for a sharp increase in offshore wind energy development along the East Coast.

The Vineyard Wind project, south of Martha’s Vineyard, would create 800 megawatts of electricity, enough to power 400,000 homes in New England. If approved, the $2 billion project would be the first utility-scale wind power development in federal waters. A smaller offshore wind farm — the nation’s first — operates near Block Island in waters controlled by the State of Rhode Island.

Andrew Minkiewicz, an attorney for the Fisheries Survival Fund, which advocates for the sea scallop fishing industry, said the group has concerns about the abrupt shift in attitude from the Trump administration to Biden.

The project appeared dead — or at least on indefinite pause — as recently as last year, “and the new administration comes in and says no, we’re going to go ahead,” Minkiewicz said. “If this were not a clean-energy project, I think there would be an absolute uproar.”

Fishing groups from Maine to Florida have expressed fear that large offshore wind projects could render huge swaths of the ocean off-limits to their catch. While Vineyard Wind is not located in an area critical to the scallop fishery, other potential sites along the Atlantic coast could pose a major threat to scallopers, Minkiewicz said.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at The Providence Journal

Feds Complete Final Environmental Review Of Vineyard Wind, Set To Be First Major Offshore Wind Project In U.S.

March 9, 2021 — Federal officials have completed the environmental review of the Vineyard Wind I offshore wind project that is expected to deliver clean renewable energy to Massachusetts by the end of 2023.

The U.S. Department of the Interior said Monday morning that its Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) completed the analysis it resumed about a month ago and will officially publish notice of the project’s final environmental impact statement in the Federal Register later this week.

The 800-megawatt wind farm planned for 15 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard was the first offshore wind project selected by Massachusetts utility companies with input from the Baker administration to fulfill part of a 2016 clean energy law.

Read the full story at WBUR

MASSACHUSETTS: BOEM completes final environmental review of Vineyard Wind project

March 9, 2021 — After recent delays, federal officials have completed their final environmental review of the Vineyard Wind project, which is expected to deliver clean, renewable energy to hundreds of thousands of Massachusetts homes by 2023.

The Department of Interior announced Monday that the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) completed a review that had been terminated in the final weeks of the Trump administration after Vineyard Wind withdrew a key plan.

However, just weeks into the Biden administration, and after Vineyard Wind “rescinded” its withdrawal of the plan, BOEM announced it was resuming its review “in support of the Biden administration’s goal to address climate change and promote offshore renewable energy production.”

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

Biden accused of playing politics on Vineyard Wind

March 4, 2021 — When the Trump administration dragged its feet on the environmental permitting of Vineyard Wind, wind energy proponents in Massachusetts and across the country cried foul, claiming politics was driving the process.

But now that the Biden administration is in office, the same claim is surfacing as the president quickly moves in the opposite direction.

The Responsible Offshore Development Alliance, which advocates for the US fishing industry, on Wednesday released comments it sent to Amanda Lefton, the new head of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, questioning how her agency could simply revive a regulatory process that had been terminated by the same agency (which was then under Trump’s oversight) in December.

“It would appear that fishing communities are the only ones screaming into a void while public resources are sold to the highest bidder, as BOEM has reversed its decision to terminate a project after receiving a single letter from Vineyard Wind,” the alliance said in a statement.

Vineyard Wind has gone through a lengthy review process, in part because it’s the first major offshore wind farm to go through the process. The company submitted a construction and operations plan, or COP, to the federal government in December 2017. A year later the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management issued a draft environmental impact statement on the project, which was pulled back after the agency decided it couldn’t review the project in isolation from a host of other wind farm projects being proposed up and down the coast.

Read the full story at Commonwealth Magazine

BOEM resumes final environmental review for Vineyard Wind

March 4, 2021 — The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management on Wednesday announced it is resuming preparation of a final environmental impact statement on the Vineyard Wind offshore energy project, reversing a move to end the permitting process in the final weeks of the Trump administration.

Vineyard Wind official submitted a Jan. 22 letter to BOEM asking to restart the process, and in a March 3 Federal Register notice the agency said it is moving ahead.

The planned 800-megawatt project off southern Massachusetts was awaiting a final record of decision on a draft EIS when the developers withdrew their construction and operations plan Dec. 1, 2020, saying they needed to “conduct additional technical and logistical reviews” to modify the plan for using larger, more powerful GE Haliade-X turbines.

BOEM came back with a Dec. 16 Register notice that because of Vineyard Wind’s withdrawal it was terminating the environmental impact study. The agency and its parent Department of Interior said the developers would need to start the permitting process over if they wanted to proceed.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Biden faces steep challenges to reach renewable energy goals

March 3, 2021 — President Joe Biden wants to change the way the U.S. uses energy by expanding renewables, but he will need to navigate a host of challenges — including the coronavirus pandemic and restoring hundreds of thousands of lost jobs — to get it done.

The wind and solar industries have managed to grow despite a less-than-supportive Trump administration, which favored fossil fuels such as coal. They have a new ally in the White House in Biden, who has set a goal of 100% renewable energy in the power sector by 2035. Now comes the hard part — making it happen.

Disruption from the pandemic has cost the renewable energy industry, which relies heavily on labor, about 450,000 jobs. The pandemic has also made it more difficult to build wind and solar infrastructure and has redirected federal resources away from the energy sector. There’s the additional challenge of getting pro-environment legislation through a deeply divided U.S. Senate where Democrats hold the narrowest margin possible and have some key members in fossil fuel states.

To reach Biden’s 100% renewable energy goal will require a massive buildout of grid infrastructure to get energy from the windy plains or offshore wind farms over long distances to cities where electricity is needed. About a sixth of today’s U.S. electricity generation is from renewable sources, the U.S. Energy Information Administration has said.

Read the full story at the Associated Press

On U.S. East Coast, Has Offshore Wind’s Moment Finally Arrived?

February 24, 2021 — About 60 miles east of New York’s Montauk Point, a 128,000-acre expanse of the Atlantic Ocean is expected to produce enough electricity to power around 850,000 homes when it’s populated with wind turbines and connected to the onshore grid in the next few years.

Fifteen miles off Atlantic City, New Jersey, another windy swath of ocean is due to start generating enough power for some 500,000 homes when a forest of 850-foot-high turbines start turning there in 2024.

And off the Virginia coast some 200 miles to the south, a utility-led offshore wind project is scheduled to produce carbon-free power equivalent to taking 1 million cars off the road when it is complete in 2026.

The fledgling U.S. offshore wind industry is finally poised to become a commercial reality off the northeast and mid-Atlantic coasts within the next five years, thanks to robust commitments to buy its power from seven coastal states, new support from the Biden administration, and billions of dollars in investment by an industry that sees a huge market for electric power in Eastern states.

New York, New Jersey, Virginia, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Maryland have together committed, through legislation or executive action, to buying about 30,000 megawatts (MW) of offshore electricity by 2035 — enough to power roughly 20 million homes, according to the American Clean Power Association (ACPA), which advocates for renewable energy. Projects totaling 11,000 MW have been awarded so far.

Read the full story at Yale Environment 360