Saving Seafood

European developers build out dominance in US offshore wind race

October 8, 2020 — Utilities and oil majors from Europe are slicing up the Eastern Seaboard when it comes to the burgeoning U.S. offshore wind industry, with fewer domestic-owned developers so far putting money into a sector that is expected to balloon over the coming decade.

BP PLC became the latest company to enter the fray in September, when it bought into two offshore wind developments owned by Norway’s Equinor ASA, the Beacon Wind and Empire Wind projects, which between them have development potential of 4,400 MW, including an 816-MW state contract already awarded for Empire Wind. The joint venture between the two oil and gas firms follows a host of deals and leasing rounds that have seen the major players of Europe’s own offshore boom take the lead in the sector’s next big market.

Denmark’s Ørsted A/S, Spain’s Iberdrola SA and the BP-Equinor joint venture now own just over 11,600 MW of planned projects along the coast, while Dominion Energy Inc. and Eversource Energy — the next two top owners — are sitting on a combined 4,500 MW of projects, according to an S&P Global Market Intelligence analysis.

Read the full story at S&P Global

New Hampshire offshore wind panel looks to catch up, collaborate with its neighbors

October 6, 2020 — Offshore wind advocates in New Hampshire are hopeful that a new commission can help the state catch up with its neighbors in planning for the industry.

With federal permitting on hold and a regional task force tabled due to the pandemic, New Hampshire has a window to gain ground on states farther along with their offshore wind workforce and infrastructure efforts.

“We have a lot of catch-up to do,” the panel’s chair, state Sen. David Watters, said at its first virtual meeting Sept. 21, “and getting this commission passed and then getting going will really help us be in a better shape to do what needs to be done when the Gulf of Maine task force starts again.”

The 24-member commission was formed as part of an omnibus bill (HB1245) signed by Gov. Chris Sununu in July. It brings together lawmakers, clean energy advocates, state officials, marine industry stakeholders and researchers to discuss concerns and opportunities for offshore wind in New Hampshire.

Read the full story at Energy News Network

Federal grant for Maine offshore wind

October 6, 2020 — Maine is getting a $2.16 million grant from the U.S. Economic Development Administration to map out plans for an offshore wind energy industry, and join other Northeast states already promoting their own vast hopes for turbine arrays.

“Unleashing American innovation is critical to our global competitiveness,” U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross said in announcing the grant Oct. 1. “This project will allow Maine to capitalize on its technical leadership in the wind power sector to diversify and grow the state’s economy and make it more resilient.”

The EDA grant to the Maine Governor’s Energy Office will be matched with $267,624 in state funds and $112,457 in local funds, according to federal officials.

The money will be used to “create a roadmap for establishing a floating offshore wind power industry by examining manufacturing processes, supply chains, port facilities, transportation systems, shipbuilding opportunities, ecosystem relationships, workforce development plans, power interconnections, exports, and economic impacts,” according to Commerce Department official Dana Gartzke.

Maine has followed twists and turns in developing offshore wind. Deeper waters of the Gulf of Maine would require the use of floating turbines, unlike the fixed foundations planned for big projects on the outer continental shelf off southern New England.

Read the full story at WorkBoat

Seismic airgun blasting efforts halted in Atlantic Ocean for now

October 5, 2020 — The oil industry will not pursue seismic airgun blasting to investigate offshore petroleum locations in the Atlantic Ocean because permits cannot be reviewed in time.

The Coastal Conservation League, an environmental organization based in Charleston, South Carolina, announced the news after a status conference on the lawsuit that seeks to halt the underwater blasting.

The blasting, which involves loud pules of compressed air into the water column and deep into the seabed, to find oil and gas formations deep under the ocean floor, can disturb or injure whales, sea turtles, and other marine life, according to the New Jersey-based Clean Ocean Action.

But in the August 22, 2014 edition of “Science Notes,” a newsletter published by the federal government’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, an agency representative wrote that in more than 30 years of air gun use, “there has been no documented scientific evidence of the noise … adversely affecting marine animal populations or coastal communities.”

Read the full story at WHYY

NEW YORK: Trustees on Board With Offshore Wind Plan

October 2, 2020 — The East Hampton Town Trustees unanimously approved signing on to the joint proposal submitted two weeks ago by Orsted U.S. Offshore Wind and Eversource Energy to the New York State Public Service Commission in support of the proposed South Fork Wind farm, to be situated approximate-ly 35 miles off Montauk Point.

Before the vote during their virtual meeting on Monday, the trustees, in consultation with outside counsel retained for navigating their role in the wind farm proposal, emphasized that the approval they were codifying supports “only those provisions that address the public need for the project and the construction, operation, maintenance, repair, and decommissioning of those portions of the project that are proposed to be located within” trustee jurisdiction, specifically the ocean beach at the end of Beach Lane in Wainscott, where the developers intend to land the wind farm’s export cable.

By signing on to the joint proposal, which details elements of the project from construction to its decommissioning 25 years later, the trustees are not addressing issues such as the wind farm’s impact on utility rates, for example, said Daniel Spitzer of Hodgson Russ L.L.C., counsel to the trustees. “You’re not offering an opinion that New York State needs this particular wind farm,” he said. That determination, rather, is the role of the Public Service Commission, which in order for the project to proceed must issue a Certificate of Environmental Compatibility and Public Need under Article VII of the Public Service Law.

Read the full story at The East Hampton Star

Trump plan to allow seismic blasts in Atlantic search for oil appears dead

October 2, 2020 — The Trump administration’s plan to drill off the Atlantic Coast for the first time in more than half a century is on the brink of collapse because of a court development Thursday that blocked the first steps to offshore oil and gas exploration, as well as the president’s recent actions that undermine his own proposal.

Opponents of the drilling declared victory on Thursday after the government acknowledged that permits to allow seismic blasting in the ocean — the first step toward locating oil deposits for drilling — will expire next month and not be renewed.

Nine state attorneys general and several conservation groups filed a federal lawsuit early last year to block seismic blasting, arguing it could harm endangered whales and other marine animals. The court battle dragged out so slowly that, in the meantime, time ran out on the permits.

Donna Wieting, director of the National Marine Fisheries Service, a division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said in a court declaration, released Tuesday, that her agency “has no authority to extend the terms of those [permits] upon their expiration. Further, NMFS has no basis for reissuing or renewing these [permits].” The five companies that were granted permits would have to restart the months-long process leading to approval or denial, Wieting said.

Also on Thursday, U.S. District Judge Richard Gergel of South Carolina held a telephone conference with all parties of the lawsuit to determine how to move forward. The judge is expected to declare the case moot because the seismic mapping cannot occur without the permits, said Michael Jasny, who was on the call and is director of the Marine Mammal Protection Project at the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Read the full story at The Washington Post

Trump’s Offshore Oil Ban to Halt Coastal Wind Farms Too

September 30, 2020 — President Donald Trump’s decision to rule out energy development along the coasts of Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas will bar not just offshore oil and gas drilling — but coastal wind farms too.

The broad reach of Trump’s recent orders, which was confirmed by the Interior Department agency that oversees offshore energy development, comes as renewable developers are spending hundreds of millions of dollars snapping up the rights to build wind farms along the U.S. East Coast.

At issue are recent Trump memos ruling out new oil and gas leasing along Florida, Georgia and South and North Carolina from July 1, 2022 until June 30, 2032, issued after some Republicans pressed for a drilling ban and as the president courts voters concerned about the environment. On Friday, Trump said he would expand the offshore energy moratorium to include Virginia, though he has not yet issued a directive encompassing the territory.

Read the full story at Bloomberg

Nearly 50 Fishing Industry Leaders Call For More Funding For NMFS And Other Changes To OFFSHORE Act

September 29, 2020 — The following was released by the Responsible Offshore Development Alliance:

48 fishing industry leaders representing fishing organizations from across the country submitted a letter yesterday to the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources recommending improvements to the OFFSHORE Act. These proposed changes would ensure that research and mitigation funds are properly directed and efficiently used, and that federal labor standards are applied consistently to offshore development activities.

The OFFSHORE Act, officially the Opening Federal Financial Sharing to Heighten Opportunities for Renewable Energy Act of 2020, would make several changes to how offshore wind construction is conducted and how research funds are allocated. It would allocate a large portion of offshore wind lease sales to state governments, and allocate some to the National Oceans and Coastal Security Fund for research grants. It would also extend provisions of the Jones Act to require offshore wind developers to use American labor for production activities.

In their letter, the industry leaders called on the Senate to direct OFFSHORE Act funding to the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) to “conduct research, planning and environmental review, and fisheries monitoring.” Fully funding NMFS is “the highest research funding priority for any bill addressing [offshore wind],” they wrote, because NMFS has the expertise to contribute to the development process, but faces potentially severe disruptions to its work and currently lacks the resources to keep pace with new developments. These disruptions include a loss of access for its survey efforts, which rely on low levels of scientific uncertainty to accurately inform stock assessments and sustainable fisheries catch levels. NMFS also has the unique ability to conduct cooperative research, which is key to ensuring inclusivity among fishery and regional stakeholders.

Read the full release here

NORTH CAROLINA: Questions Linger on Offshore Drilling, Seismic

September 25, 2020 — Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., announced this week that President Trump had agreed to prevent drilling for oil and natural gas off the North Carolina coast, but the president has yet to speak publicly on the matter, and his administration says it is still moving forward with permitting for seismic exploration in the Atlantic.

Tillis, whom polls show trailing his Democratic Party challenger Cal Cunningham, announced Monday that Trump had agreed to add North Carolina to a multistate moratorium on Atlantic offshore drilling announced earlier this month.

The president announced Sept. 8 during an event in Jupiter, Florida, an order to extend the moratorium on offshore drilling on Florida’s Gulf Coast and expand it to Florida’s Atlantic Coast, as well as the coasts of Georgia and South Carolina. North Carolina was not included at the time.

Tillis said Monday that he had spoken with Trump who agreed North Carolina would be included in the presidential memorandum withdrawing new leasing for offshore oil and gas developments for the next 12 years.

Also on Monday, the Department of Justice filed a document with the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina, Charleston Division, stating that Trump’s memorandum “has no legal effect” on the status of the applications to conduct seismic surveys in the Atlantic Outer Continental Shelf that are pending before the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.

Read the full story at Coastal Review Online

Wind Farm Companies Agree To Compensate Fishermen And Monitor EMF Emissions

September 24, 2020 — Following months of negotiations with interested parties, skeptics and outright opponents of the South Fork Wind Farm, the project’s developers have submitted a new outline of their construction proposal that adds a number of new conditions that bow somewhat to the demands of fishermen, environmentalists and lawmakers.

The developers have agreed to a compensation plan for commercial fishermen who may suffer damaged or lost gear or lose fishing days because of some component of the wind farm’s construction and operation. They have also agreed to conduct monitoring of electromagnetic pulses from the power cable over the first five years of the wind farm’s operations and a mandated re-nourishment of the beach at Beach Lane if erosion from storms exposes the cable or significantly lessens the depth at which it is buried.

The new outline, called a “joint proposal,” also puts a finer point on the myriad details of how the construction will be conducted on land in Wainscott, with strict parameters for the timing of work, noise impacts, access to roads and beaches during construction and the extent to which the areas of work are restored at the conclusion of construction.

Read the full story at the Sag Harbor Express