Saving Seafood

Lawmakers seek pause in offshore wind energy amid whale deaths

September 30, 2024 — House lawmakers are seeking a pause in offshore wind energy projects amid a string of whale deaths along the coasts of Maryland, New York, New Jersey and Maine. [FoxNews]

Last week, a deceased whale beached off Maryland’s coast, the second whale carcass discovered in the area in three weeks. In 2023, 37 humpback whales carcasses were discovered along the East Coast.

While a definite cause of death could not be determined, wind-energy proponents continue to argue the deaths have nothing to do with offshore wind farms.

Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.) hosted a public hearing in August in which experts testified about the danger installing wind turbines poses marine wildlife. Harris called for an end to offshore wind energy in Maryland.

Read the full article at CalCoastNews.com

NEW JERSEY: New Jersey hits pause on an offshore wind farm that can’t find turbine blades

September 26, 2024 — New Jersey hit the pause button Wednesday on an offshore wind energy project that is having a hard time finding someone to manufacture blades for its turbines.

The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities granted Leading Light Wind a pause on its project through Dec. 20 while its developers seek a source for the crucial components.

The project, from Chicago-based Invenergy and New York-based energyRE, would be built 40 miles (65 kilometers) off Long Beach Island and would consist of up to 100 turbines, enough to power 1 million homes.

Leading Light was one of two projects that the state utilities board chose in January. But just three weeks after that approval, one of three major turbine manufacturers, GE Vernova, said it would not announce the kind of turbine Invenergy planned to use in the Leading Light Project, according to the filing with the utilities board.

Read the full article at the Associated Press 

NEW JERSEY: New Jersey’s Wind Farm Future Hits More Road Blocks with Supply Chain and Safety Issues

September 16, 2024 — The Leading Light Wind offshore wind project, planned for development off the coast of Long Beach Island, NJ, has hit a snag.

The project, managed by Invenergy and energyRe, has faced difficulties securing a turbine blade supplier, a critical component for building the wind farm. Initially, the project aimed to use GE Vernova’s 18 MW Haliade-X turbines, but GE unexpectedly withdrew from providing them. This left the developers scrambling to find alternatives​.

Efforts to source turbines from Siemens Gamesa also encountered problems, as the company significantly raised its prices, while Vestas, another major manufacturer, was deemed unsuitable for the project due to technical and financial constraints.

Read the full article at Shore News Network

NEW JERSEY: Another New Jersey offshore wind project runs into turbulence as Leading Light seeks pause

September 5, 2024 — Another offshore wind project in New Jersey is encountering turbulence.

Leading Light Wind is asking the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities to give it a pause through late December on its plan to build an offshore wind farm off the coast of Long Beach Island.

In a filing with the utilities board made in July but not posted on the board’s web site until Tuesday, the company said it has had difficulty securing a manufacturer for turbine blades for the project and is currently without a supplier.

It asked the board to pause the project through Dec. 20 while a new source of blades is sought.

Wes Jacobs, the project director and vice president of Offshore Wind Development at Invenergy — one of the project’s partners — said it is seeking to hit the pause button “in light of industry-wide shifts in market conditions.”

Read the full article at the Associated Press

NEW JERSEY: Supply Chain Problems Threaten Another New Jersey Offshore Wind Farm Plan

September 5, 2024 — Supply chain problems have repeatedly been cited by wind farm developers as one of the problems they face and now another one of the first projects planned for New Jersey is asking for a pause in its planning process citing a lack of a manufacturer for its turbines and blades. The setbacks for the project known as Leading Light Wind is another issue for New Jersey which has faced repeated challenges in getting its offshore wind development pipeline going.

The project when it won state approval in January 2024 billed itself “as the largest competitively awarded offshore wind project in the U.S.” Being developed in a partnership between Invenergy and energyRe with investors including Blackstone Infrastructure the plan calls for a massive 2.4 GW wind farm to be located approximately 40 miles off the southern New Jersey coast. They won nearly 84,000 acres with a bid of $645 million in the highly competitive 2022 New York Bight auction. New Jersey selected it in January 2024 as one of two projects in its third-round solicitation which was billed as a restart after the disappointment when Ørsted canceled two large projects.

Read the full article at The Maritime Executive

Historic ocean liner docked across from N.J. poised to become world’s largest artificial reef

September 4, 2024 — After spending nearly three decades moored at a commercial dock in South Philadelphia, the SS United States, a retired ocean liner that’s been the subject of repeatedly failed restoration efforts, appears destined for the ocean floor.

The ship appears to be on its way to becoming an artificial reef after Okaloosa County, Florida, said it is considering a $9 million agreement to acquire the historic vessel. The Florida county wants to make it a diving tourist spot as part of a five-year investment plan in seabed recreation in the state.

Neighboring Escambia County also showed interest in the vessel at a meeting over the summer.

Meanwhile, the ship remains docked at Pier 82 in Philadelphia. It only has a few days to leave after a federal judge ruled it must abandon its berth leased by Penn Warehousing. The company and the SS United States Conservancy, which has owned the ocean liner since rescuing it from the scrapyard in 2011, have been in a rental dispute that was taken to court earlier this year.

Read the full article at The Press of Atlantic City

Fishermen organizing ‘flotilla’ protest against offshore wind

August 23, 2024 — In response to recent concerns over offshore wind and with debris washing up on Nantucket and Island beaches from a fractured turbine blade, the New England Fisherman’s Stewardship Association (NEFSA) has organized a “flotilla” for this Sunday, bringing fishing boats together to peacefully protest in unison against the offshore wind industry.

Boats will be joining together in a “boat parade” from various areas of the east coast, said NEFSA founder and CEO Jerry Leeman, including the Vineyard, Nantucket, parts of Massachusetts, Rhode Island and potentially New Jersey.

Read the full article at MV Times

Offshore wind’s first ‘spill’

August 22, 2024 — Renewable energy advocates used to joke that unlike offshore oil production, the worst that could happen with turbine arrays would be a “wind spill.”

No more. The July 13 turbine blade failure on Vineyard Wind’s machine AW38 dropped parts of 57 tons of fiberglass, balsa wood and resin coatings into the sea, with fragments washing up on beaches – first from Nantucket, then onward to from Cape Cod to Montauk, at the height of summer tourism.

One month after the fracture, the federal Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) issued an “updated suspension order” to allow some work to resume on the planned 62-turbine, 806-megawatt rated array. The order continued to block new blade installation or power production at the 24 GE Vernova turbines installed before the break.

Reports of broken blade pieces drifting across southern New England waters were cited by opponents off the Atlantic Shores project off New Jersey as proof of their fears that building turbine arrays starting 8.7 miles off their beaches will endanger their own tourism industry.

Read the full article at Workboat

NEW JERSEY: NJBPU terminates Ocean Wind offshore wind farms

August 22, 2024 — Last week, Cape May County announced that the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities formally vacated all of its orders that approved the Ocean Wind 1 and Ocean Wind 2 offshore wind projects that were under development by Danish offshore wind corporation Ørsted.

The BPU’s actions follow the filing of lawsuits by Cape May County in the New Jersey Appellate Division as well as in the Federal District Court.

The county challenged the BPU’s orders, all of which have now been vacated and deemed of no force or effect, according to a news release it issued Aug. 14.

The state of New Jersey agreed to let Ørsted keep $175 million in escrow funds in exchange for vacating the BPU orders, according to the release. Cape May County’s actions before the Appellate Division and the Federal District Court remain active.

“Today is a very important day in our ongoing opposition to these environmentally destructive offshore wind projects,” Cape May County Board of Commissioners Director Len Desiderio stated in the release. “The vacation of these orders by the BPU means that it will be much more difficult for Ørsted or any other Big Wind company to utilize these lease areas just a few miles off Cape May County beaches.”

Read the full article at the Ocean City Sentinal

NEW JERSEY: Opponents call ocean wind plan ‘ill thought out’

August 22, 2024 — On Monday, Aug. 19 Stop The High-Risk Power Cables, a citizen group concerned about plans to run what they call “high risk” power cables through Sea Girt, Manasquan and Wall Township, held a community meeting before a large, online Zoom audience.

After gaining traction in the local community since the group’s formation, the group held the meeting before a virtual audience of over 1,000 attendees about a proposed turbine plan off the East Coast. The meeting was attended by U.S. Rep. Chris Smith, Assemblyman Paul Kanitra and six other panel members, including an environmentalist, local mayors and citizen advocates who shared their opinions and called for project transparency.

Read the full article at Star News Group