Saving Seafood

MASSACHUSETTS: Baker leaves Healey, state with new emissions plan

December 22, 2022 — By the year 2050, the Baker administration envisions virtually all of the state’s more than five million light-duty vehicles will run on electric power instead of fossil fuels, 80 percent of Massachusetts homes will be heated and cooled with electric heat pumps, and the statewide electrical infrastructure will be able to handle two and a half times more load than in 2020.

Those are some of the key benchmarks in a new climate and clean energy plan Gov. Charlie Baker’s secretariat published Wednesday, outlining sector-specific emissions reduction targets and policy steps that will help Massachusetts achieve the legally required target of achieving net-zero statewide carbon emissions by the middle of the century.

The 2050 plan, which the Baker administration released on its way out the door of state government, seeks to formalize and expand a range of tactics already in play, leaning heavily on electrifying the transportation and building sectors and expanding clean energy sources such as offshore wind.

Energy and Environmental Affairs Secretary Beth Card said the 192-page document “represents the commonwealth’s comprehensive and aggressive plan to achieve net-zero cost effectively and equitably.”

“To successfully achieve net zero in 2050, it is essential to transition our electricity system to clean energy and make Massachusetts transportation and buildings more energy-efficient and electrify those sectors,” Card told reporters. “This effort will have significant implications for our economy, which is why we must engage closely with other state agencies, municipalities, businesses and residents.”

“Really, this plan is a comprehensive sort of capture of what we think needs to happen next,” Card later added.

Read the full article at WGBH

MASSACHUSETTS: Baker announces offshore wind awards — millions coming to New Bedford, Somerset projects

December 22, 2022 — As Gov. Charlie Baker’s time in office comes to a close, one of his final official acts is on a topic that has been a top priority for his administration: clean energy — specifically the Offshore Wind Ports Challenge to support the development of offshore wind power.

“Today, we’re going to announce $180 million worth of awards,” Baker said Tuesday.

Baker, along with Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito and Energy Secretary Bethany Card announced recipients of the Offshore Wind Ports Challenge Tuesday inside the Technology Testing Center Large Blade Facility in Charlestown. The Offshore Wind Ports Infrastructure Investment Challenge is a competitive funding opportunity opened earlier in the year which seeks to expand and develop port infrastructure at three key harbors along the Massachusetts coast: New Bedford, Somerset and Salem.

“The 2050 decarbonization roadmap makes offshore wind a centerpiece of our approach to achieve net zero,” Card said.

The awarded money is going to a variety of firms that are working on the infrastructure component of making Massachusetts’ clean energy goals a reality.

Read the full article at South Coast Today

Markey, Moulton push for national fund to compensate fishermen for losses due to offshore wind

December 22, 2022 — With both offshore wind development and dissent from fishing groups ramping up along the East Coast, Senator Ed Markey and Congressman Seth Moulton announced a plan Wednesday to establish a national fund to compensate potential economic loss suffered by the fishing industry.

Currently there is no federal framework that requires offshore wind developers to compensate fishermen for potential damages. Those include gear loss, habitat degradation, loss of historic fishing grounds and new fishing restrictions in areas leased for wind farms — all of which compound, fishermen say, to spell serious economic challenges to their industry.

In the absence of such compensation requirements, some developers have established their own funds, with their own oversight panels. Other developers have not yet established a compensation plan. Fishing groups have been critical of this approach, saying the government’s lack of clear requirements gives the offshore wind industry the upper hand in compensation negotiations, leaving it up to the fishermen to prove the impact on their livelihoods and up to developers to decide the extent to which they are responsible.

“Any ability left to the wind developers to choose their own procedures will always result in their taking the least expensive path most favorable to them, not commercial fishing,” the New Bedford Port Authority wrote in a letter to the director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) in August.

Read the full article at the New Bedford Light

Baker outlines plans to beef up ports to develop offshore wind farms

December 21, 2022 — The Baker administration on Tuesday announced $180 million in infrastructure funding for projects designed to support the state’s burgeoning offshore wind industry.

In a press conference held at the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center Wind Technology Testing Center in Charlestown, Governor Charlie Baker and top climate aides also provided updates on the state’s clean energy industry, which has been a priority for Baker during his tenure on Beacon Hill.

“I’m proud of the work we’ve done over the past 8 years, but it remains an urgent priority for the Commonwealth, for the country, and frankly, for the world,” said Baker. “I do believe, however, we are very well positioned to be a major player in this space.”

Read the full article at the Boston Globe

VIRGINIA: Regulators grant critical approval for Dominion wind farm off Virginia Beach coast

December 16, 2022 — Virginia regulators granted a critical approval Thursday for Dominion Energy’s plans to construct and operate a 176-turbine wind farm in the Atlantic Ocean.

The State Corporation Commission effectively signed off on an agreement Dominion reached this fall with the Virginia attorney general and other parties, in which the company agreed to implement several consumer protections in connection with the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project.

“We thank the Commission for its approval and appreciate the collaboration of the parties involved to reach an agreement that advances offshore wind and the clean energy transition in Virginia,” the Richmond-based company said in a statement. “Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind has many benefits for our customers. It is fuel free, emissions free, diversifies our energy mix and is a transformative economic development opportunity for Hampton Roads and Virginia.”

Read the full article at WAVY

Addressing the possible impact of offshore wind

December 8, 2022 — NOAA Fisheries and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) announced in a press release a joint strategy “to address potential impacts of offshore wind energy development on NOAA Fisheries’ scientific surveys.” The 37-page “Federal Survey Mitigation Strategy” underscored “the agencies’ shared commitment to the Biden-Harris administration’s clean energy goals of responsibly advancing offshore wind energy production while protecting biodiversity and promoting ocean co-use.” The White House has a goal of increasing the nation’s offshore wind energy capacity to 30 gigawatts by 2030, and an additional 15 gigawatts of floating offshore wind technology by 2035, according to the release.

According to the release, NOAA Fisheries’ scientists have collected survey data for 150 years that “form the basis of the science-based management of America’s federal fisheries,” including the protection of marine wildlife and increasing understanding and care for coastal and marine habitats and ecosystems.

Read the full article at MV Times

BOEM, NOAA release plan to mitigate wind energy impacts on US fisheries

December 7, 2022 — The U.S. government on Monday, 5 December, unveiled a cross-agency plan to reduce the impact offshore wind energy sites may have on fishery surveys. However, questions remain on how NOAA Fisheries and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) will be able to completely fund the initiative.

According to a 37-page NOAA technical memorandum, the Federal Survey Mitigation Strategy is designed to come up with ways to ensure population counts conducted by boats and airplanes are not hindered by the construction and deployment of wind turbines in federal waters. While it currently relates to projects in New England and the Mid-Atlantic, federal officials said they believe it will have use in other regions as the government looks to develop offshore wind farms in other parts of the country.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

How offshore wind won over (most of) the Hamptons

December 7, 2022 — Bill Fielder usually has the beach to himself in December.

He arrives in the mornings, letting his dogs burst from the car onto the empty sand. He takes a seat on a wooden bench and puffs a cigar as he watches them romp. Sometimes another dog walker will pass by. Maybe a truck, fishing pole strapped to the roof, rumbles onto the beach. But that’s usually it.

Except this year.

A 177-foot liftboat recently anchored a short distance offshore, its three towering legs looming over the dunes, as well as the neatly lined hedgerows and sun-blanched mansions of the Hamptons.

On the narrow road leading to the beach, a drilling crew is working in front of a mansion owned by Ron Lauder, the billionaire CEO of the cosmetics company Estée Lauder Cos. Inc. They are digging a tunnel 80 feet below the sand, which will be used to string a transmission cable linking New York’s first offshore wind farm to the state’s power grid.

The project has roiled this well-heeled hamlet, attracting opposition from the likes of Lauder and the area’s other rich beachgoers. But unlike on Cape Cod, where wealthy residents helped sink America’s first proposed offshore wind farm five years ago, this 12-turbine project is moving ahead with construction. Its Danish developer expects it will begin generating electricity late next year, providing enough power for 70,000 Long Island households.

Fielder, a 69-year-old Massachusetts transplant to the Hamptons, is thrilled by the sight. He jabs the air with his cigar as he talks, describing the arrival of the liftboat several weeks ago and how its deck has been outfitted with a pair of cranes. And he is quick to dismiss the opposition. When work is done in several months, there will be no visible signs of the transmission line, which will be buried beneath the road. Most year-round residents, he reckons, are supportive of the project.

“It has to happen somewhere. It has to happen in someone’s backyard,” says Fielder, who lives in the nearby village of East Hampton. “It’s for my kids more. The climate change up to now is nothing compared to what it’s going to be.”

The beach construction here in the Hamptons represents a turning point for offshore wind in America. The industry struggled for years to gain a toehold in the United States due to soaring installation costs and not-in-my-backyard opposition. Now it is on the precipice of becoming a reality.

Developers hold leases for nine projects in the shallow waters between Martha’s Vineyard and Long Island. Two are already under construction. Cable installation recently began for Vineyard Wind 1, a 62-turbine project serving Massachusetts. The 800-megawatt development is expected to begin generating electricity in 2024.

Read the full article at E&E News

Wind turbines will affect base of ocean food chain, study predicts

December 7, 2022 — Atmospheric wakes trailing behind offshore wind turbines will change oceanographic and marine ecosystem conditions in the North Sea as more and larger turbines are built there to meet Europe’s energy needs, according to a recent study published in the journal Nature.

The paper by researchers Ute Daewel, Naveed Akhtar, Nils Christiansen and Corinna Schrum of the Institute for Coastal Systems in Germany used numerical modeling to show how wind wakes may change local conditions.

Those systems could be moved by plus or minus 10 percent, not just within turbine arrays but over a wider region, the team wrote. That includes “primary production:” the generation of nutrients at the base of the marine food chain.

The Nov. 24 publication of their paper, “Offshore wind farms are projected to impact primary production and bottom water deoxygenation in the North Sea,” is the latest from scientists investigating how larger-scale offshore wind projects may alter ocean conditions and ecosystems.

As in Europe, U.S. researchers too are looking at how wind wake and ocean currents flowing for miles behind turbines will change the seasonal stratification of cooler water close to the bottom, peaking in summer and turning over in fall and spring.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

Offshore Wind – Not Maine Lobstering – Threatening Endangered Right Whales: Bloomberg

December 3, 2022 — Previously unseen government documents from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) have revealed that the off-shore wind industry poses a severe threat to endangered right whales.

The documents, obtained by Bloomberg via Freedom of Information Act request, will provide ammunition to lobstermen and elected officials as they fight burdensome federal regulations on Maine’s most prized fishery.

Sean Hayes, the chief of the protected species branch at NOAA’s National Northeast Fisheries Science Center, explained the threat wind turbine construction and operation presents to the endangered mammals in a May 13 letter to to officials with the federal Interior Department.

“Additional noise, vessel traffic and habitat modifications due to offshore wind development will likely cause added stress that could result in additional population consequences to a species that is already experiencing rapid decline,” Hayes said in his letter, according to Bloomberg.

Read the full article at Maine Wire