Saving Seafood

MAINE: Maine lawmakers endorse proposal that would jumpstart offshore wind projects

July 25, 2023 — Maine is poised to launch an offshore wind program that would meet clean energy goals and produce enough power for about 900,000 homes from floating wind turbines in the Gulf of Maine.

The legislation, which was endorsed by lawmakers Tuesday, calls for requests for proposals to be issued for 3,000 megawatts of electricity from offshore wind turbines by 2040. That’s enough electricity to power about half of Maine’s electricity load.

“This bill means jobs. It means lower, more stable energy prices, while at the same time addressing climate change. We need to pass this bill now,” said Democratic Sen. Mark Lawrence, the bill’s sponsor.

Read the full article at the Associated Press

What’s going on with offshore wind projects in New England?

July 24, 2023 — The offshore wind market in North America has attracted global developers and equity partners as state and federal policies finally align to encourage investment in domestic clean energy.

But at the same time, developers face challenges as inflation, supply chain bottlenecks, the high cost of materials, competition for vessels and ports, and workforce shortages threaten to slow progress.

With news from the industry shifting on a regular basis, it can be hard to keep track of the projects, the players, and the issues. Don’t worry. Here’s a cheat sheet.

Read the full article at The Business Journals

DELAWARE: Offshore wind developers renew interest in Delaware as DNREC weighs its options

July 24, 2023 — The offshore wind industry has plenty of interest in building a wind farm off Delaware but only if the state commits to buying a certain quantity of power from a turbine farm, according to an offshore wind specialist at the University of Delaware.

Kris Ohleth, executive director of the school’s Special Initiative for Offshore Wind, said she has had discussions with Orsted – which is planning two wind farms off New Jersey – and US Wind — which has plans for a project off Maryland and southern Delaware – indicating that they are both watching Delaware closely to see if it will for the first time procure offshore wind power from the rapidly growing industry.

Both companies have unused wind-power capacity in their ocean-lease areas, and could build more turbines if they could be assured of more customers in Delaware, Ohleth said. The developers could also add to their leases by acquiring new offshore wind areas that are expected to be auctioned by the federal government next year, she said.

“They are very interested,” she said. “The additional capacity for the Orsted and US Wind sites, plus the central Atlantic leasing that is scheduled to happen in 2024, there’s interest in having another off-taker, for sure. Developers are always interested in another customer.”

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

First U.S. auction of Gulf of Mexico tracts for wind power set for Aug. 29

July 23, 2023 — The first auction of offshore leases for wind power development in the Gulf of Mexico will take place Aug. 29 for tracts off the Louisiana and Texas coasts, the Biden administration announced Thursday.

The Department of the Interior said the lease sale will involve more than 300,000 acres (120,000 hectares). That includes a 102,480-acre (41,470-hectare) area off the southwest Louisiana coast, and areas covering 102,480 acres (41,470 hectares) and 96,786 acres (39,160 hectares) off Galveston, Texas.

Plans for the sale come as wind energy projects are already taking shape in the Northeast. Earlier this month, the government gave the go-ahead for New Jersey’s first offshore wind farm to begin construction. That followed approval of projects now under construction in the northeast, one off Massachusetts and the other off New York and Rhode Island.

Read the full article at the Associated Press

Rhode Island utility rejects Revolution Wind 2 project

July 23, 2023 — Rhode Island Energy said it will not enter a power purchase agreement for the proposed Revolution Wind 2 project because the projected costs to electric customers are too high.

The decision is a setback for offshore wind developers Ørsted and Eversource – coming just after the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management announced it had completed an environmental review for the partners’ first-phase Revolution Wind project.

The Revolution Wind 2 decision, announced Tuesday by Dave Bonenberger, president of Rhode Island Energy, stated that “affordability and reliability would be key factors in how the company evaluated” offshore wind bids.

“Higher interest rates, increased costs of capital and supply chain expenses, as well as the uncertainty of federal tax credits, all likely contributed to higher proposed contract costs,” according to the company. “Those costs were ultimately deemed too expensive for customers to bear and did not align with existing offshore wind PPAs (power purchase agreements).”

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

America’s Bet on Wind Power Is Running Into a Big Problem

July 23, 2023 — Crane ships and construction barges have joined the pleasure boats floating off the coast of vacation hot spots Montauk and Martha’s Vineyard this summer. The hard hats working on them aren’t there to catch some rays. They’re driving steel cylinders deep into the seabed to build America’s first large-scale offshore wind farms, a milestone decades in the making. Both projects are set to start sending electricity to the shore by the end of the year.

Public officials in New York and Massachusetts toasted the news last month when the first turbine foundations were installed. “The windmills that will power hundreds of thousands of homes are beginning to emerge from the water,” said Massachusetts House Speaker Ronald Mariano. Offshore wind is a crucial technology to decarbonize large coastal population centers, including cities like Boston and New York that probably wouldn’t be able to go green without it. So, its arrival is a major milestone in the nation’s energy transition.

Read the full article at BARRON’S

Biden touts offshore wind at Philly Shipyard, opens door for turbines in Gulf of Mexico

July 23, 2023 — Metal sparks flew as crews sliced into massive plates during a steel-cutting ceremony at South Philadelphia’s shipyard on Thursday morning.

It marks the start of construction of a new vessel – Acadia – that will ferry rock from quarries to the ocean floor as part of construction on hundreds of new offshore wind turbines.

President Joe Biden visited Philly Shipyard to tout the growth of the offshore wind industry in the region and to announce the first lease sale in the waters off of the Gulf of Mexico.

“Our investing in America agenda is bringing our clean energy supply chains home,” Biden told the crowd of union workers and supporters. “Across the Delaware River in Paulsboro, New Jersey, workers are rolling the steel foundation for another large-scale wind project.”

The monopiles, which are the large poles that support the turbines, are being built at the Port of Paulsboro. New Jersey is also building a 200-acre wind port near the Hope Creek nuclear power plant in Salem County. The wind port and Paulsboro hub are expected to create 2,500 jobs.

Read the full article at WHYY

NOAA Issuing Biological Opinion on the Revolution Wind Offshore Energy Project

July 23, 2023 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

Today, NOAA Fisheries is issuing the final Biological Opinion under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM, lead federal agency). The Biological Opinion considers the effects of the construction, operation, and eventual decommissioning of the proposed Revolution Wind offshore energy project off the coast of Rhode Island and Massachusetts.

NOAA Fisheries has evaluated BOEM’s analysis of the effects of this project on endangered and threatened species, as well as the best scientific and commercial data available, and has concluded that while the proposed action is likely to adversely affect ESA-listed whales, sea turtles, and Atlantic sturgeon, it is not likely to jeopardize the continued existence of any ESA-listed species. The action is not likely to adversely affect any designated critical habitat. 

The proposed project includes a number of measures designed to minimize, monitor, and report effects to ESA-listed species, and additional measures are included through the Biological Opinion’s Incidental Take Statement. We do not anticipate any injury or mortality of any ESA-listed whale as a result of the proposed project. We also do not expect any injury to North Atlantic right whales due to exposure to increased sound levels resulting from this project. All effects to North Atlantic right whales will be limited to temporary behavioral disturbance. Additionally, no effects to the features of North Atlantic right whale critical habitat are anticipated.

BOEM is the lead federal agency for approving the construction, operation, and decommissioning of the proposed Revolution Wind offshore energy project. NOAA Fisheries’ Office of Protected Resources is also proposing to issue regulations and an associated Letter of Authorization pursuant to the Marine Mammal Protection Act, which was evaluated through the Biological Opinion. Other authorizations or permits will be required from a number of other federal agencies.

We will continue working closely with BOEM and other federal agencies to ensure effects from the Revolution Wind offshore energy project to NOAA Fisheries’ trust resources are minimized.

The Biological Opinion will be available online upon publication in our libraryin approximately 10 days. 

Fishing industry reps raise concerns about wind energy areas

July 20, 2023 — A recent webinar on the impacts of offshore wind energy had some members of the Gloucester fishing community sounding off on their concerns to officials of the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM).

The webinar, hosted by the Gloucester Fishermen’s Wives Association and the UMass Amherst Gloucester Marine Station, drew about 50 participants to listen to BOEM Project Coordinator Seth Theuerkauf and BOEM Fisheries Biologist Brandon Jensen outline the planning process for siting offshore wind energy in the Gulf of Maine.

Commercial fisherman Al Cottone, executive director of the Gloucester Fisheries Commission, and Angela Sanfilippo, executive director of the Massachusetts Fishermen’s Partnership and president of the Gloucester Fishermen’s Wives Association, outlined the fishing industry’s concerns with offshore wind development.

“First of all the construction process, the areas that are going to be used will probably be lost forever for commercial fishing,” Cottone said. “We are going through that right now locally with the LNG terminals that were put in that are going to be decommissioned.” He worried the bottom where the liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals are located might be lost to fishing when these facilities are decommissioned.

“This is going to be on a much larger scale and it’s going to be a vast area of bottom that’s going to be lost forever to commercial fishing, basically,” he said.

Read the full article at the Gloucester Times