Saving Seafood

MARYLAND: Debate Over Offshore Wind Farms Continues at Ocean City BOEM Meeting

September 26, 2024 — Ocean City residents voiced strong opposition Tuesday night at a public meeting hosted by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) regarding potential offshore wind farm developments along the Maryland coast. The meeting discussed areas that could be leased for wind energy projects, which has been raising concerns among residents.

The town of Ocean City encouraged residents to attend the meeting in opposition after BOEM recently approved plans for wind turbines 10.7 miles off the coast. The latest discussion centered on additional potential wind energy areas, though no specific projects are confirmed.

BOEM is seeking public feedback as Maryland aims to generate 8.5 gigawatts of renewable energy by 2031, a key part of the state’s clean energy goals.

BOEM presented a map showing a large stretch of ocean from New Jersey to North Carolina that could be considered for wind energy projects, with some areas as close as three miles off Ocean City’s coast. However, BOEM emphasized that only about 10% of the area would likely be leased for wind development.

Read the full article at WBOC

RHODE ISLAND: R.I. regulators resume review of SouthCoast Wind transmission lines

September 24, 2024 — A proposal to run underwater power lines from a Massachusetts offshore wind farm through Rhode Island waters is back before state regulators, following a 14-month pause.

The Rhode Island Energy Facility Siting Board voted unanimously Monday to resume consideration of SouthCoast Wind Energy LLC’s application to run transmission lines from its wind farm 30 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard up the Sakonnet River, over Portsmouth and out Mount Hope Bay to reach land in Somerset.

Read the full article at Rhode Island Current

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

OREGON: 2 kinds of ocean energy inch forward off the Oregon coast

September 24, 2024 — On a cloudy late August morning, Burke Hales was on a boat a mile off the central Oregon coast, pointing to a sandy beach along the forested shoreline. It was there, the Oregon State University oceanography professor said, that the subsea cables from the first large wave energy test site in the continental U.S. will connect to land — and ultimately the local power grid.

“This is the highest power — probably the most energetic — wave condition of any of the test sites out there,” he said, as the high swells known to pound the Oregon coast rocked the boat.

The coastal waters of Oregon are shaping up to be key for advances in two forms of renewable energy: wave power and wind turbines that float. The way electricity is traditionally made is a major cause of climate change, so clean alternatives are key to addressing it.

Read the full article at The Associated Press

BOEM begins planning second Atlantic offshore wind lease

September 23, 2024 — The federal agency that identifies offshore wind energy areas is in the early stages of siting another possible commercial lease sale for the East Coast.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management held an open house last week at the Crystal Coast Civic Center in Morehead City, the first in the multiyear, multistep planning process for Central Atlantic 2. BOEM manages development of the U.S. outer continental shelf energy, mineral and geological resources.

BOEM Project Coordinator Seth Theuerkauf explained that the agency has just begun the work to identify lease areas in the Central Atlantic region.

“We’re at the call area stage, the first step of our process,” Theuerkauf said, adding that what’s really driving the effort is the remaining offshore wind energy needs for North Carolina and Maryland.

Officials on Aug. 22 published in the federal register the call area, which is 13 million acres off the coasts of New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina, and launched the 60-day public comment period that ends Oct. 21.

BOEM has scheduled open houses over the coming weeks in the other states plus a virtual meeting from 6 to 8 p.m. Oct. 2. Register for the Zoom meeting online. This meeting will feature presentations and offer a chance to comment.

Read the full article at CoastalReview.org

Insight: Offshore wind opponents in Australia, Europe lean on US groups for advice

September 23, 2024 — Bill Thompson’s fight to stop offshore wind farms was once confined to the tiny U.S. state of Rhode Island where he lives. Today, he is part of a global movement.

In April, Thompson, who is director of the activist group Green Oceans, got an email from a fellow anti-offshore wind group more than 10,000 miles (16,000 km) away called Responsible Future (Illawarra Chapter). They were looking for advice on ways to combat projects off Australia’s southeast coast. In August, he got another request, this time from French group PIEBIEM fighting projects in Brittany.

Read the full article at Reuters

Outer Cape offshore wind auction scheduled; wind area has changed

September 23, 2024 — The federal government has set a date of Oct. 29 to auction ocean leases for offshore wind farms off the Outer Cape, and the number of acres to be auctioned is smaller than previously proposed.

The eight lease areas now total just over 850,000 acres, a reduction of about 12 percent since this summer’s public meeting in Eastham.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management said it made the change in response to comments from various sources, including the fishing industry, the U.S. Coast Guard, navigation interests, and the National Marine Fisheries Service.

Read the full article at CAI

Gulf of Maine offshore wind lease sale announced

September 20, 2024 — Today, the Department of the Interior announced it will hold an offshore wind energy lease sale on Oct. 29, 2024, for eight areas on the Outer Continental Shelf off Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Maine. If fully developed, these areas have a potential capacity of approximately 13 gigawatts of clean offshore wind energy, which could power more than 4.5 million homes.

The announcement follows the government’s recent announcement that it has approved more than 15 gigawatts of clean energy from offshore wind projects since the start of the Biden-Harris administration — equivalent to half of the capacity needed to achieve President Biden’s goal of 30 gigawatts of offshore wind energy by 2030.

Since the start of the Biden-Harris administration, the Department has held five offshore wind lease sales, including a record-breaking sale offshore New York and sales offshore the Pacific, Central Atlantic, and Gulf of Mexico, and approved 10 commercial-scale offshore wind projects. Earlier this year, Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland announced a schedule of potential additional lease sales through 2028.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

Lawsuits buffet US offshore wind projects, seeking to end or delay them

September 19, 2024 — Opponents of offshore wind around the U.S. are pelting projects with lawsuits seeking to cancel them or tie them up for years in costly litigation.

The court cases represent another hurdle the nascent industry must overcome, particularly along the East Coast where opposition to offshore wind farms is vocal and well-organized.

They add another pressure point for an industry already struggling with escalating prices, shaky supply chains, and a handful of highly publicized turbine failures that opponents are seizing on as proof that the structures are unreliable and unsafe, something the industry denies.

There are 13 cases pending in federal courts targeting offshore wind projects, according to the American Clean Power Association, an offshore wind trade group. An undetermined number of additional lawsuits are active in state courts, they said.

Read the full article at the Associated Press 

Tribes sue BOEM for lack of research in wind energy project on the Oregon Coast

September 19, 2024 — A lawsuit filed by the Confederated Tribes of the Coos, Lower Umpqua and Siuslaw Indians alleges that the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (“BOEM”) conducted insufficient analysis of offshore wind energy impacts.

The development of offshore wind energy areas are set to take place in two regions off the Oregon Coast, near Coos Bay and Brookings.

BOEM recently authorized the sale of leases for approximately 195,012 acres for wind energy development, and the plaintiff argues the areas are within the Tribe’s ancestral territory, which contain critical fish and marine wildlife habitats.

Read the full article at KATU