Saving Seafood

NEW JERSEY: Fiscal headwinds challenge offshore projects

November 16, 2022 — The offshore wind industry is facing new scrutiny as some initial proposals to build big wind farms off coastal waters are running into unforeseen fiscal challenges driven by high inflation, rising interest rates and continued constraints in the supply chain.

Those factors have led one company to ask to renegotiate its contract to build a 1,200-megawatt offshore wind farm in Massachusetts, a bid so far rejected by regulators there. They have also spurred Public Service Enterprise Group to reconsider its 25% investment in Ørsted’s 1,100-MW project to be built 15 miles off the Atlantic City coast.

Whether those issues are significant enough to slow New Jersey’s aggressive push to be a leader in the emerging industry remains to be seen, but there are critics who hope it does.

“The dirty secret of offshore wind is the economics don’t make sense,’’ said Mike Makarski, a spokesman for Affordable Energy of New Jersey, an organization that has been a persistent critic of the Murphy administration’s plan to shift to 100% clean energy by mid-century.

Read the full article at the New Jersey Spotlight News

Inflation’s next victim: U.S. offshore wind projects

November 15, 2022 — A rising tide of interest rates, supply chain bottlenecks and inflation is threatening the Biden administration’s ambitious offshore wind targets, creating a significant challenge for one of the president’s top climate priorities.

Recent weeks have seen a series of developers raise concerns over rising costs. In New Jersey, a developer warned earlier this month that a planned 98-turbine project off the coast of New Jersey could threaten its finances.

In New England, two developers with contracts to sell power to Massachusetts have sought to renegotiate the deals, only to get shot down by state regulators.

Many developers bid aggressively in state auctions to win those contracts but are now locked into agreements that didn’t account for rising costs, said Sam Huntington, director of North American power and renewables at S&P Global Commodity Insights.

The financial difficulties call into question the Biden administration’s goal of installing 30 gigawatts of offshore wind power by the end of this decade.

“We don’t see them hitting that,” Huntington said. “It is going to be something to watch. I don’t have a good sense of whether these will get renegotiated or canceled.”

The doubts are shared by other analysts. Bloomberg New Energy Finance sees the United States falling 3 to 4 GW short of its 2030 target due to long development timelines and an immature supply chain. The London-based renewables market intelligence firm Renewables Consulting Group estimates the United States will reach just over 25 GW by 2030.

Read the full article at E&E News

Dungeness crab dying amid low oxygen levels linked to climate change

November 8, 2022 — Terry “Chop” Arnold Jr. remembers the first few times he climbed in his dad’s 36-foot fishing boat at an old log boom, near the northernmost tip of Washington.

“I started going out with him when I was 10,” said Arnold, a Makah tribal fisherman. “And I never looked back.”

For decades, Chinook salmon were plentiful along the beach, he said. But in the ‘90s, the Arnolds had to troll as far as 30 miles offshore to find fish.

Fishing for many species has proved pretty steady over the years for Arnold. But lately, there have been seasons where there’s little or no crab, he said.

Not too far down the coast, piles of dead Dungeness crab washed ashore on Kalaloch Beach this summer. Meanwhile, fishers have shared stories about hoisting up dead or suffocating crabs in their pots, said Jenny Waddell, research ecologist with the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary.

Now, scientists are working to understand how climate change is affecting Dungeness crab, which is both culturally significant and a pillar of Washington’s seafood industry. From 2014 to 2019, coast-caught Dungeness was worth an annual average of $45 million.

Last week, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced a $4.2 million award for a four-year study on Dungeness crab and krill that will bring together researchers and experts from coastal tribes, public universities and federal agencies from Northern California to Washington.

Climate change has been exacerbating existing marine environmental stressors through changes in temperatures, ocean chemistry and seasonal cycles.

Read the full article at The Seattle Times

Did climate change really kill billions of snow crabs in Alaska?

November 7, 2022 — The disappearance of billions snow crabs from the Bering Sea has captivated the world’s attention since Alaska shut down the fishery for the first time in October 2022. But where exactly did these snow crabs go? And what caused them to vanish so quickly?

Scientists are still grappling with these questions, but climate change is the most cited hypothesis for the species’ retreat. Erin Fedewa, a research fisheries biologist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), said the decline of the species, Chionoecetes opilio, coincided with a marine heat wave that swept through the Bering Sea between 2018 and 2019, which possibly caused the species to experience starvation, increased disease or predation.

Some fishers and crab experts put forward a different idea: They’ve suggested that fishing, particularly the unintentional capture of crabs in fishing gear known as trawls, also contributed to the loss of the snow crab, or at the very least, impeded the species’ recovery from low population levels.

The snow crab fishery’s closure has amplified a chorus of concerns around Alaska’s trawling industry — mainly from within the fishery sector itself — and the knowledge gaps around its potential impact on fisheries.

Read the full article at Mongabay

Major Massachusetts offshore wind project no longer viable

November 7, 2022 — A major offshore wind project in the Massachusetts pipeline “is no longer viable and would not be able to move forward” under the terms of contracts filed in May. Both developers behind the state’s next two offshore wind projects are asking state regulators to pause review of the contracts for one month amid price increases, supply shortages and interest rate hikes.

Utility executives working with assistance from the Baker administration last year chose Avangrid’s roughly 1,200-megawatt Commonwealth Wind project and a 400 MW project from Mayflower Wind in the third round of offshore wind procurement to continue the state’s pursuit of establishing cleaner offshore wind power. Contracts, or power purchase agreements (PPAs), for the projects were filed with the Department of Public Utilities in May.

But last week, Commonwealth Wind filed a motion for a one-month delay in DPU’s review, telling the state that their project can no longer move forward as planned. A one-month freeze, the developer said, “would give the parties an opportunity to evaluate the current situation facing the project and potentially agree upon changes to the PPAs, along with other measures, that could allow the project to return to viability.”

“As has been publicly reported in recent weeks, global commodity price increases, in part due to ongoing war in Ukraine, sharp and sudden increases in interest rates, prolonged supply chain constraints, and persistent inflation have significantly increased the expected cost of constructing the project. As a result, the project is no longer viable and would not be able to move forward absent amendments to the PPAs,” attorneys for Commonwealth Wind wrote in their motion.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Light

Massachusetts wind power project ‘no longer viable’ without contract adjustments, says developer

November 1, 2022 — The developer for a major offshore wind power project in Massachusetts has asked state regulators to pause review of the contract for one month, saying that global price hikes, inflation and supply chain shortages are disrupting the plan.

The Commonwealth Wind project, which would supply 1,200 megawatts of offshore wind power starting in 2028, “is no longer viable and would not be able to move forward” without amendments to the power purchase agreement (PPA), according to a motion recently filed by the developer.

Attorneys for Commonwealth Wind in the motion cited global commodity price increases, in part because of the war in Ukraine, the sudden spike in interest rates, prolonged supply chain constraints and persistent inflation as reasons for the increased expected cost of construction.

Read the full article at CNBC

Feds unveil plan to grow wind power while sparing rare whale

October 31, 2022 — The federal government has outlined a strategy to try to protect an endangered species of whale while also developing offshore wind power off the East Coast.

President Joe Biden’s administration has made a priority of encouraging offshore wind along the Atlantic coast as the U.S. pursues greater energy independence. Those waters are also home to the declining North Atlantic right whale, which numbers about 340 in the world.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management released a draft plan this month to conserve the whales while allowing for the building of wind projects. The agencies said the ongoing efforts to save the whales and create more renewable energy can coexist.

Read the full article at the Associated Press

Fishermen face shutdowns as warming hurts species

October 28, 2022 — Fishing regulators and the seafood industry are grappling with the possibility that some once-profitable species that have declined with climate change might not come back.

Several marketable species harvested by U.S. fishermen are the subject of quota cuts, seasonal closures and other restrictions as populations have fallen and waters have warmed. In some instances, such as the groundfishing industry for species like flounder in the Northeast, the changing environment has made it harder for fish to recover from years of overfishing that already taxed the population.

Officials in Alaska have canceled the fall Bristol Bay red king crab harvest and winter snow crab harvest, dealing a blow to the Bering Sea crab industry that is sometimes worth more than $200 million a year, as populations have declined in the face of warming waters. The Atlantic cod fishery, once the lifeblood industry of New England, is now essentially shuttered. But even with depleted populations imperiled by climate change, it’s rare for regulators to completely shut down a fishery, as they’re considering doing for New England shrimp.

The Northern shrimp, once a seafood delicacy, has been subject to a fishing moratorium since 2014. Scientists believe warming waters are wiping out their populations and they won’t be coming back. So the regulatory Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission is now considering making that moratorium permanent, essentially ending the centuries-old harvest of the shrimp.

It’s a stark siren for several species caught by U.S. fishermen that regulators say are on the brink. Others include softshell clams, winter flounder, Alaskan snow crabs and Chinook salmon.

Read the full article at ABC News

NEW JERSEY: No deal on offshore power grid

October 27, 2022 — A state agency held off, at least for now, approving projects aimed at bringing power from offshore wind farms to land, but it did allow for $1 billion to upgrade the existing power grid.

The Board of Public Utilities balked at the more expensive projects needed to begin building what is essentially a backbone transmission system off the coast to deliver power ashore. Instead, it opted to wait until federal financial incentives are available to defray the costs to utility customers.

A law signed by President Joe Biden this summer provides lucrative tax credits to operators of offshore wind farms, but those credits are not available to most transmission projects. Several developers had sought approval from the state to build offshore transmission lines from the wind farms to the grid.

Many clean-energy advocates contend a backbone offshore wind transmission system is the most cost-effective and least environmentally disruptive way of connecting offshore power to the customers who need it. By midcentury, offshore wind farms are supposed to provide 27% of the state’s electricity. No offshore wind farm is operating in New Jersey.

Read the full article at New Jersey Spotlight News

U.S. agencies propose to protect whales while building wind power

October 26, 2022 — Federal agencies have put out a new plan to protect the endangered North Atlantic right whales, as the government promotes aggressive development of offshore wind energy projects.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and National Marine Fisheries Service released their joint strategy  Oct. 21 “to protect and promote the recovery of North Atlantic right whales while responsibly developing offshore wind energy.”

The announcement initiated a 45-day public review and comment period on the draft strategy. Comments on the guidance can be submitted online via regulations.gov from October 21 to December 4, under Docket Number BOEM-2022-0066.

The plan comes out amid turmoil in the commercial fishing industry over NMFS plans for gear and area restrictions in the Northeast lobster fishery to reduce the danger of entanglement with whales. The Maine Lobstermen’s Association is challenging the plans in federal appeals court, as NMFS looks toward potential restrictions on other East Coast fisheries that use fixed gear like fish pots and gill nets.

Meanwhile opponents of offshore wind projects have set their sights on the right whales’ predicament as a strategy to use for challenging wind developers and federal agencies in court. Activists and lawyers organized by the Heartland Institute, a frequent critic of renewable energy programs, say right whales could be key to a challenge of Dominion Energy’s Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman