Saving Seafood

MASSACHUSETTS: Immigrant Voices Exhibit Coming to New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center

October 7, 2024 — The New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center has a new look and a host of events coming up in October and November, including interesting films, live music and a new exhibit entitled “Casting a Wider Net.”

We talked this week with Joe Ritter, the FHC’s Director of Programs, about the upcoming schedule and the new look of its Bethel Street headquarters.

“A lot of hard work went into the design and creation of our new exterior look,” Ritter said. “Our recently-hired Marketing Specialist Matt Moyer Bell, a local artist, designed the project with help from Reidar’s Trawl Gear and Marine Supply. He also worked with local photographers to curate their photos of New Bedford’s Working Waterfront. ‘Catch the Tradition’ is a permanent art installation for us.”

Read the full article at WBSM

MASSACHUSETTS: Oyster farmers find northernmost blue angelfish ever reported off the coast of Cape Cod, org says

October 2, 2024 — Cape Cod husband and wife oyster farmers were flipping bags on their oyster grant in Little Pleasant Bay in Orleans last week when a colorful little fish caught their eye.

When Tim Silva was working on flipping the 5,000 floating bags of oysters on Wednesday to help clear them of debris and establish the oyster shapes, he noticed a blue.

“Not a normal blue,” Silva said. “It was moving, and it was fish that was not supposed to be there.”

The fish, which would later be identified as a blue angelfish, gravitated towards Danielle Orcutt, his wife’s hands, presumably to keep warm. Since colder waters were approaching, Silva and Orcutt knew they needed to find a place where the fish could survive. So, they called Wild Care, a wildlife rescue nonprofit on the Cape.

Read the full article at Boston.com

MASSACHUSETTS: Bay State’s offshore wind prices about to reset

September 26, 2024 — Massachusetts residents already pay some of the highest electricity prices in the country and the state is going to need a lot more power as it tries to make a big shift away from fossil fuels. So how much will it cost to generate cleaner electricity with offshore wind?

The pricing details for the state’s latest slate of offshore wind projects won’t be available until contracts are put on file this winter and it is clearly a sensitive topic for the industry and its boosters in state government. The projects chosen this month are widely expected to cost ratepayers more than previous projects, and the Healey administration would only say that they will be cost effective when compared to the cost of building other power generation projects in the future.

Boston area electricity prices were 64 percent above the national average last month, federal data show, and Massachusetts abandoned its attempt at forcing a declining cap on offshore wind power prices in 2022 when it eliminated the legal requirement that each new project selected charge a lower price than the previous one.

Read the full article at the New Bedford Light

MASSACHUSETTS: NOAA report sends mixed message on wind power and risk to whales

September 26, 2024 — Federal agencies have reauthorized a controversial permit for Vineyard Wind’s final phase of construction, allowing the wind farm developer to continue pile driving with some impact on endangered whale species.

The permit allows Vineyard Wind to finish pile-driving the foundations for its wind turbines in proximity to whales. It does not declare that the industry will not harm whales. It calls it “extremely unlikely” that it will hurt any North Atlantic right whales. But it says a small number of whales of other species may experience temporary to permanent hearing impairment as a result of the noise from pile-driving.

Read the full article at the New Bedford Light

MASSACHUSETTS: State picks New Bedford waterfront site for ocean energy center

September 24, 2024 — The state’s alternative-energy development agency has chosen a waterfront spot for a center devoted to ocean-related power research, building and field-testing equipment, and cultivating new enterprises.

The Massachusetts Clean Energy Center wants to lease less than half an acre from the New Bedford Port Authority on MacArthur Boulevard encompassing the 19th-century Bourne Counting House and a parking area next to it.

The stone structure would provide office and meeting space. A portion of the parking lot is slated for a new structure for building prototypes for ocean-related energy technology — chiefly, but not exclusively, wind power.

“This project is an exciting new opportunity for New Bedford to develop technology businesses, generate new demand for existing businesses, and elevate its stature as a leader in maritime industries,” Mayor Jon Mitchell wrote in a letter to the City Council, sending along a proposed 15-year lease for consideration this week.

Mitchell wrote that the center — to be established next to Merrill’s restaurant, across MacArthur Boulevard from the Fairfield Inn & Suites — “will establish a platform on which marine technology of all types can be developed and commercialized into new businesses.” He said it will also serve as a meeting point for industry conferences.

Read the full article at the The New Bedford Light

New challenges to offshore wind

September 24, 2024 — Economic and supply-chain warning signs are flashing again in the international wind energy sector.

Turbine manufacturer GE Vernova said Sept 20 it will downsize its offshore efforts, after a reported $300 million third-quarter loss in its wind business overshadowed the marketing push of its top-line Haliade-X machine.

A Haliade-X turbine lost a blade to fracture on the Vineyard Wind project off Massachusetts in July, following two other blade failures on projects in Europe.

Read the full article at Workboat

Broken Blades, Angry Fishermen and Rising Costs Slow Offshore Wind

September 12, 2024 — The collapse of a giant wind turbine blade off the Massachusetts coast confirmed Peter Kaizer’s worst fears about the dangers a new clean energy business could pose to fishermen like him.

Jagged pieces of fiberglass and other materials from the shattered blade drifted with the tide, forcing officials to close beaches on Nantucket and leaving Mr. Kaizer worried about the threat the fragments might pose to his vessel and other fishing boats, especially at night when the debris would be harder to avoid.

“All these small boats could be subject to damage,” Mr. Kaizer said. “Everyone wants this green legacy, but at the cost of what?”

The blade, which was more than 300 feet long, failed in July, but the repercussions are still unfolding at the $4 billion project that it came from — Vineyard Wind 1. Developers had hoped to finish the project this summer, making it the first large-scale wind farm completed in U.S. waters, but now that goal will take a lot longer than expected.

The blade failure is the latest problem slowing the fledgling U.S. offshore wind industry, which the Biden administration and East Coast states are counting on to deliver emission-free energy to millions of people from Virginia to Maine. President Biden and governors of those states had hoped to follow the examples of European countries like Britain and Denmark, which have plunked down thousands of wind turbines around the North Sea.

But the American offshore wind business has struggled to get going because of cost overruns, delays in issuing permits, and opposition from local residents and fishing groups. Several large projects were canceled or postponed even before the blade failure in Massachusetts because their costs increased sharply and developers did not anticipate supply chain problems and higher interest rates.

Read the full article at The New York Times

Vineyard Wind’s Lights Still Visible As Promised Radar System Remains Inoperative

September 11, 2024 — Nearly a year after Vineyard Wind installed its first turbine off Nantucket, the lights atop the 800-foot towers – which the company promised would remain dark unless an aircraft was passing by – continue to blink incessantly on the horizon.

While the project remains suspended by the federal government following the July 13 blade failure that remains under investigation, Vineyard Wind has been allowed to resume some construction activities, and the lights atop the 24 turbines that have been installed to date have been an eyesore for many who enjoy Nantucket’s dark skies at night.

As part of Vineyard Wind’s mitigation agreement with the town of Nantucket – a document better known as the Good Neighbor Agreement that was signed back in 2020 – the company is required to install a so-called Aircraft Detection Lighting System or ADLS. This system will utilize radar to ensure the lights at the top of each turbine activate only when there is an aircraft close to the wind farm area.

Vineyard Wind initially pledged to have the system operational by Memorial Day weekend. After that deadline came and went, the company pledged in June that the ADLS would be up and running “within the next several weeks.” Now, nearly three months after that statement, there is still no definitive timeline for when the system will be active.

Read the full article at Nantucket Current

Mass. and Rhode Island pick 3 new wind projects, with less power than originally sought

September 9, 2024 — Massachusetts and Rhode Island announced the winners of their joint offshore wind auction on Friday. The three projects selected will be built south of Nantucket and collectively produce up to 2,878 megawatts of electricity — or about what it takes to power 1.6 million homes.

While this total is less than half of what the states originally sought to procure, it helps bring them closer to their legally binding offshore wind targets.

Connecticut, which was also part of the multi-state effort to solicit proposals, did not select any bids on Friday, but left the door open to doing so in the future. In a statement, a spokesperson for the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection said the state was still evaluating projects and would announce “a final decision” about its solicitation “at a future date.”

When the three states announced their partnership, they had hoped to procure 6,800 megawatts of power — Massachusetts wanted 3,600 megawatts, Connecticut wanted 2,000 megawatts and Rhode Island wanted 1,200.

Though they missed that target, Massachusetts officials touted the bids as great news, noting that it is the largest offshore wind procurement to date in New England.

“We’re going big,” Gov. Maura Healey said at a press conference Friday. “These projects will help create a stronger economy, massive economic development, and importantly, lower electricity costs for our residents and our businesses.”

Read the full article at wbur

MASSACHUSETTS: Mass. picks more offshore wind projects. All three will rely heavily on New Bedford.

September 9, 2024 — In what Gov. Maura Healey’s administration has dubbed the “Largest Offshore Wind Selection in New England History,” Massachusetts officials have made the state’s selections known relative to the latest round of offshore wind project bidding. Massachusetts’ total of 2,678 selected megawatts represents inclusion in three different wind farm projects, all of which are connected to the SouthCoast region: SouthCoast Wind, New England Wind 1, and Vineyard Wind 2.

“Through this procurement, offshore wind will power over 1.4 million Massachusetts homes and reduce the state’s carbon emissions by the equivalent of taking one million gas-powered cars off the road,” the Healey-Driscoll Administration wrote in a press release. “Collectively, these projects will create thousands of jobs and generate billions of economic activity.”

Read the full article at The Standard-Times