Saving Seafood

MARYLAND: Turbine hearing set for Ocean City Convention Center

January 6, 2020 — Roughly three weeks ago, Maryland Public Service Commission granted a request from Ocean City, Md. officials to hold a hearing, set Saturday, Jan. 18, on the impact of a proposal to install taller turbines than originally planned as part of two proposed offshore wind farms including  Skipjack LLC wind farm, a project of the Danish company Ørsted, due east of the Delaware coast.

The commission has scheduled the hearing in rooms 215, 216 and 217 of the Ocean City Convention Center, 4001 Coastal Highway, Ocean City, Md.

In a Dec. 13 order, commission Executive Secretary Andrew Johnston said the issue of viewshed was a significant focus during the approval process for U.S. Wind and Skipjack LLC, the two companies awarded Maryland’s offshore wind renewable energy certificates in 2017. While the commission will accept comment on the size of the turbines, it denied a request to reopen the case or reconsider the granting of offshore wind renewable energy certificates.

Discovery at the hearing will be limited to this topic, said Johnson.

Read the full story at the Cape Gazette

Erich Stephens leaving Vineyard Wind

December 20, 2019 — Erich Stephens, the public face of Vineyard Wind before it won an offshore wind contract in 2018, is leaving the company.

Vineyard Wind announced Thursday that Stephens, chief development officer and a founding principal of the company, would be departing.

Stephens told The Standard-Times it seemed like the right time to make a transition while the company waits for federal permitting of Vineyard Wind 1, to be located off Martha’s Vineyard, and before things ramp up for its second project in Connecticut.

“It’s really just a personal decision about the positions I want to have in my career,” he said.

Vineyard Wind has grown out of the entrepreneurial phase of its history and become a more mature development company, he said. Stephens said it’s not uncommon for the success of a young company to mean that, “exactly because of its success, it turns into something different in terms of your day-to-day work and responsibility.”

The company has tapped Rachel Pachter, vice president of permitting affairs, to replace him as chief development officer.

Stephens said he is excited about Pachter’s promotion because it allows her to advance her career and maintains continuity for Vineyard Wind.

Stephens has held senior leadership positions in the company, formerly called OffshoreMW, since 2009. Following last year’s selection of Vineyard Wind to build Massachusetts’ first offshore wind farm, he was responsible for pre-construction development.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

MAX SULLIVAN: Seabrook: Fishermen deserve voice in offshore wind plans

December 20, 2019 — Selectmen are abandoning a task force looking at offshore wind turbines in the Gulf of Maine, demanding their local fishermen have more direct inclusion.

The board voted unanimously Dec. 6 to send a letter to the New Hampshire Office of Strategic Initiatives announcing it would suspend its participation in the recently formed Intergovernmental Renewable Energy Task Force for the Gulf of Maine.

The task force is charged with considering the various impacts of offshore wind turbines, which are hoped to reduce greenhouse gas emissions while producing thousands of jobs across New England. Fishing communities like in Seabrook have expressed strong concerns about the turbines’ impact on the ocean and the fish they harvest for a living.

Seabrook selectmen said they value the fishing heritage in their town where many New Hampshire fishermen dock their boats. They said in their letter to the OSI they wanted fishermen to have a direct seat on the task force, which is comprised of elected officials from New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Maine.

“It is our firm belief that due to potential impacts to the fishing industry this task force should have representation from that industry,” selectmen said in a letter to Matthew Mailloux, energy adviser for the OSI. “Without a voice for fishermen we feel that the potential impacts to their livelihood may not be fully understood, or addressed, by this task force, as currently constituted.”

Read the full opinion piece at Sea Coast Online

New York board OKs large wind farm despite local prohibition

December 18, 2019 — A New York board has approved plans to build 27 wind turbines despite a new local intended to block the project. The state’s Board on Electric Generation Siting and the Environment approved the 124-megawatt Calpine wind farm in eastern Broome County on Monday. A new zoning law adopted by the town of Sanford effectively banned the project but board Chairman John Rhodes said environmental impacts would be minimized, based on plans by developer Calpine. The state Public Service Commission says the decision demonstrates how the state is working to achieve Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s goal of a zero-emissions electricity sector by 2040.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at WENY

Underwater pile driving noise causes alarm responses in squid

December 17, 2019 — Exposure to underwater pile driving noise, which can be associated with the construction of docks, piers, and offshore wind farms, causes squid to exhibit strong alarm behaviors, according to a study by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) researchers published Dec. 16, 2019, in the journal Marine Pollution Bulletin.

“This study is the first to report behavioral effects of pile driving noise on any cephalopod, a group including squid, cuttlefish, and octopuses,” says lead author Ian Jones, a student in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology-Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Joint Program in Oceanography.

Squid use natural alarm and defense behaviors like inking, jetting, and changing color and patterns on their skin for communication and also for survival when they’re trying to avoid capture. Squids’ changeable skin gives them the ability to create extraordinary camouflage, enabling them to blend into the background and avoid becoming a meal.

Jones and his colleagues in the Sensory Ecology and Bioacoustics Lab at WHOI exposed longfin squid (Doryteuthis pealeii) to pile driving sounds originally recorded near the construction site of the Block Island Wind Farm in Rhode Island. The squid exhibited the same types of natural alarm and defense behaviors when they were exposed to the noises, but it’s what they did next that surprised the researcher team.

“The alarm behaviors occurred within the first several noise impulses, but they diminished quickly within the first minute of playback,” Jones says. “That suggests a learned lack of response to the noise, as the squid perceive the noise stimulus may not pose an immediate threat, unlike the imminent threat of a nearby predator. This phenomenon is called habituation.”

Read the full story at Science Daily

US has only one offshore wind energy farm, but a $70 billion market is on the way

December 16, 2019 — Just three years ago five giant wind turbines in the waters off Block Island, Rhode Island, started spinning 30 MW of electricity to that tiny community of about a thousand residents. While it remains the only offshore wind farm in the U.S., that’s about to dramatically change.

According to the Department of Energy, offshore wind has the potential to generate more than 2,000 GW of capacity per year, nearly double the nation’s current electricity use. Even if only 1% of that potential is captured, nearly 6.5 million homes could be powered by offshore wind energy within the next decade.

Today states along the Eastern Seaboard, from Maine to Virginia, are poised to join a renewable-energy revolution that will not only provide clean, green electricity but also create tens of thousands of jobs, revitalize distressed port cities and spur economic growth in dozens of coastal communities.

“We are in an incredible growth period,” said Laura Morton, a senior director at the American Wind Energy Association in Washington, D.C. She cited a recent white paper from the Special Initiative for Offshore Wind that projects a $70 billion business pipeline in the U.S. by 2030.

Read the full story at CNBC

NEW HAMPSHIRE: Offshore Wind Task Force Meeting Draws Crowd; Sununu Pushes For Quick Development

December 13, 2019 — Northern New England began an ambitious planning process for offshore wind development in the Gulf of Maine Thursday.

More than 200 stakeholders packed into the first meeting of the new regional wind task force at UNH.

They say the new industry will take years to develop – but it could be a powerful way for Maine, Massachusetts and New Hampshire to fight climate.

The big turnout surprised organizers with the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. One facilitator said he’d never been to a standing-room-only task force meeting before.

Governor Chris Sununu was energized as he kicked off the day-long event. He says he intends to see offshore wind development succeed in the Gulf of Maine as quickly as possible.

Read the full story at New Hampshire Public Radio

States express support for offshore wind in Gulf of Maine

December 13, 2019 — Leaders in states bordering the Gulf of Maine expressed strong support Thursday for offshore wind, setting the region up to become the next battleground over the resource as some members of the area’s influential fishing industry voice objections.

Officials from Massachusetts and Maine, along with New Hampshire’s Republican Gov. Chris Sununu, said Thursday at the first meeting of the Agenda for the Intergovernmental Renewable Energy Task Force for the Gulf of Maine that they were optimistic =offshore wind could help them reduce greenhouse gas emissions while producing thousands of jobs across New England.

Led by the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, the task force must weigh concerns from commercial fishermen, environmentalists, coastal communities and other stakeholders before deciding where leases on the Outer Continental Shelf in the Gulf of Maine might be allocated and where they wouldn’t be allowed. There are also technical challenges, since the deep waters of the gulf may require floating platforms.

So far, there are no federal leases in the gulf, and the first offshore wind farm is still six to 10 years from operation. Still, officials estimate offshore wind could eventually be a critical energy source in New England.

Read the full story at the Associated Press

Virginia Governor Making Budgetary Allocations for Offshore Wind

December 12, 2019 — As a part of Gov. Ralph Northam’s new budget for Virginia, the commonwealth will see the establishment of the Office of Offshore Wind – a first for Virginia.

The budget will also earmark up to $40 million to upgrade the Portsmouth Marine Terminal, which will help secure new investments in the offshore wind supply chain. These investments are aimed at ensuring Virginia achieves its goal of 2.5 GW of energy generated from offshore wind by 2026.

“In Virginia, we are proving that a clean environment and a strong economy go hand-in-hand – and having both is what makes our commonwealth such a great place to live, work and play,” Northam says.

“The proposed investments in clean energy financing and the first office of offshore wind will create new business opportunities, expand customer access to renewable energy, and spark high-demand jobs of the 21st century,” adds Secretary of Commerce and Trade Brian Ball. “Likewise, the investments at Portsmouth Marine Terminal will enable the commonwealth to attract new economic investment from the offshore wind industry, which is pivotal as we work to diversify the economy in Hampton Roads.”

Read the full story at North American Wind Power

New Task Force Will Consider Leases For Offshore Wind Energy Developers In The Gulf Of Maine

December 12, 2019 — A new task force will convene for the first time Thursday to consider how and where to lease potentially vast swathes of the Gulf of Maine to offshore wind-energy developers. The outcome could have big consequences for Maine’s fishing industry, and for the state’s role in the next wave of renewable energy development.

An earlier round of auctions awarded leases in federal waters off southern New England, where several large-scale wind projects should soon start churning out thousands of megawatts of electricity — a big down payment on state commitments to ramp up the use of renewable energy.

Now, at New Hampshire Gov. John Sununu’s request, the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management is starting a new process to designate the best areas for offshore wind projects farther north — in the Gulf of Maine. Analysts say investments could be worth billions of dollars, with thousands of jobs in the offing.

“This is a really significant opportunity for our energy future and economy,” says Dan Burgess.

Burgess directs Maine Gov. Janet Mills’ energy office, and he is leading the state’s delegation to the intergovernmental task force that will advise the Bureau Of Ocean Energy Management. The panel also includes representatives from New Hampshire, Massachusetts, tribal governments and the feds.

Read the full story at Maine Public