Saving Seafood

MAINE: What Maine hopes to learn from its offshore wind research array

September 13, 2024 — Maine has big goals for adding offshore wind to its energy repertoire with hopes that it will not only be a friendlier option for the planet, but help revitalize communities through its economic and labor opportunities. But before those benefits can be realized, there are still a number of outstanding questions.

Last month, the state and the federal government reached an agreement on a lease for an offshore wind research array that will sit about 30 miles southeast of Portland. It will take up about 15 square miles in federal waters and include up to 12 floating turbines that will help inform how floating offshore wind operates and interacts with ecosystems in the water.

Just last week, the Federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management released its final environmental assessment that showed leasing activities such as surveys and installing meteorological buoys in the Gulf of Maine won’t harm the surrounding environment.

And while that assessment did not look at the impact of the offshore turbines, the goal of the research array is to better understand how they will interact with the Gulf of Maine ecosystems.

“The only way we really can answer those questions is to have this type of a program and this kind of a unique in-water opportunity to actually answer those questions,” said Stephanie Watson, offshore wind program manager for the state.

Research has been a throughline of Maine’s offshore wind efforts, Watson said, especially when thinking about the pioneering research and development from the University of Maine for semi-submersible floating turbines.

The next step in that process is to understand how to responsibly deploy the budding industry and actually transmit the energy back to shore, all while reducing impacts to the fisheries that are vital to the economy and culture of Maine, Watson said.

Read the full article at Maine Morning Star

TEXAS: BOEM To Close TX Offshore Wind Public Comment

September 13, 2024 — Stakeholders and much of the Lone Star State’s fishing industry are holding their breath Thursday as the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management closes the public comment period at midnight on some contentious potential offshore wind projects.

About 10 parties have commented on the federal BOEM registry as of Thursday afternoon.

In its comments, the Southern Shrimping Alliance (SSA) appeared alarmed at the danger it believes this offshore wind project could pose to a major Texas industry. Over 34 meticulously cited pages, it made its case, concluding, “We are regrettably compelled to call on BOEM to reject Hecate’s unsolicited request for [Wind Energy Area] D to be considered for leasing and development due, among other reasons, to an unacceptably high degree of conflict with shrimp fishing operations.”

SSA then enumerated three concerns, which include fragile wind turbines breaking up into the environment after a level 5 hurricane, a “lack of sufficient scientific research to correctly understand a range of potentially irreversible ecological impacts of offshore wind energy development and operations,” and concerns about turbines disturbing marine radar.

SSA explained its concern in a previous email exchange with The Dallas Express.

“SSA collaborates constructively with BOEM and [National Centers for Coastal Science] to deconflict offshore wind energy development in the Gulf with the shrimp industry, but the unsolicited Hecate project would rob the shrimp fleet of access to valuable fishing grounds at a time when the industry is facing an existential crisis due to shrimp imports,” said John Williams, executive director of the Southern Shrimp Alliance.

Read the full article at The Dallas Express

Broken Blades, Angry Fishermen and Rising Costs Slow Offshore Wind

September 12, 2024 — The collapse of a giant wind turbine blade off the Massachusetts coast confirmed Peter Kaizer’s worst fears about the dangers a new clean energy business could pose to fishermen like him.

Jagged pieces of fiberglass and other materials from the shattered blade drifted with the tide, forcing officials to close beaches on Nantucket and leaving Mr. Kaizer worried about the threat the fragments might pose to his vessel and other fishing boats, especially at night when the debris would be harder to avoid.

“All these small boats could be subject to damage,” Mr. Kaizer said. “Everyone wants this green legacy, but at the cost of what?”

The blade, which was more than 300 feet long, failed in July, but the repercussions are still unfolding at the $4 billion project that it came from — Vineyard Wind 1. Developers had hoped to finish the project this summer, making it the first large-scale wind farm completed in U.S. waters, but now that goal will take a lot longer than expected.

The blade failure is the latest problem slowing the fledgling U.S. offshore wind industry, which the Biden administration and East Coast states are counting on to deliver emission-free energy to millions of people from Virginia to Maine. President Biden and governors of those states had hoped to follow the examples of European countries like Britain and Denmark, which have plunked down thousands of wind turbines around the North Sea.

But the American offshore wind business has struggled to get going because of cost overruns, delays in issuing permits, and opposition from local residents and fishing groups. Several large projects were canceled or postponed even before the blade failure in Massachusetts because their costs increased sharply and developers did not anticipate supply chain problems and higher interest rates.

Read the full article at The New York Times

Offshore oil braces as Francine approaches Gulf Coast

September 11, 2024 — Roughly a quarter of the nation’s offshore oil production in the Gulf of Mexico is shut down Tuesday as Tropical Storm Francine approaches the Gulf Coast, according to the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement.

Francine, which is barreling northeast in the western Gulf of Mexico, is predicted to become a hurricane by landfall in Louisiana on Wednesday, with heavy rain and storm surges, according to NOAA. But the storm has already driven oil and gas workers out of its path, according to BSEE.

As of Tuesday, offshore oil and gas workers have been evacuated from 130 production platforms, or about 35 percent of the manned platforms in the Gulf of Mexico, where most U.S. offshore oil and gas is produced, according to BSEE.

Read the full article at E&E News

Vineyard Wind’s Lights Still Visible As Promised Radar System Remains Inoperative

September 11, 2024 — Nearly a year after Vineyard Wind installed its first turbine off Nantucket, the lights atop the 800-foot towers – which the company promised would remain dark unless an aircraft was passing by – continue to blink incessantly on the horizon.

While the project remains suspended by the federal government following the July 13 blade failure that remains under investigation, Vineyard Wind has been allowed to resume some construction activities, and the lights atop the 24 turbines that have been installed to date have been an eyesore for many who enjoy Nantucket’s dark skies at night.

As part of Vineyard Wind’s mitigation agreement with the town of Nantucket – a document better known as the Good Neighbor Agreement that was signed back in 2020 – the company is required to install a so-called Aircraft Detection Lighting System or ADLS. This system will utilize radar to ensure the lights at the top of each turbine activate only when there is an aircraft close to the wind farm area.

Vineyard Wind initially pledged to have the system operational by Memorial Day weekend. After that deadline came and went, the company pledged in June that the ADLS would be up and running “within the next several weeks.” Now, nearly three months after that statement, there is still no definitive timeline for when the system will be active.

Read the full article at Nantucket Current

RHODE ISLAND: Rhode Island will ramp up on offshore wind as part of a massive project with Massachusetts

September 9, 2024 — Rhode Island is set to ramp up its supply of offshore wind power with the announcement Friday that the state is will procure 200 megawatts of capacity from a much larger project that would send most of its electricity to Massachusetts.

The 1,278-megawatt total project, known as SouthCoast Wind, would be the largest offshore wind farm to be built so far in the Atlantic Ocean waters off Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

Rhode Island would take only a small portion of the project’s power capacity, with the vast majority – 1,078 megawatts – going to Massachusetts.

Read the full article at The Providence Journal

Mass. and Rhode Island pick 3 new wind projects, with less power than originally sought

September 9, 2024 — Massachusetts and Rhode Island announced the winners of their joint offshore wind auction on Friday. The three projects selected will be built south of Nantucket and collectively produce up to 2,878 megawatts of electricity — or about what it takes to power 1.6 million homes.

While this total is less than half of what the states originally sought to procure, it helps bring them closer to their legally binding offshore wind targets.

Connecticut, which was also part of the multi-state effort to solicit proposals, did not select any bids on Friday, but left the door open to doing so in the future. In a statement, a spokesperson for the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection said the state was still evaluating projects and would announce “a final decision” about its solicitation “at a future date.”

When the three states announced their partnership, they had hoped to procure 6,800 megawatts of power — Massachusetts wanted 3,600 megawatts, Connecticut wanted 2,000 megawatts and Rhode Island wanted 1,200.

Though they missed that target, Massachusetts officials touted the bids as great news, noting that it is the largest offshore wind procurement to date in New England.

“We’re going big,” Gov. Maura Healey said at a press conference Friday. “These projects will help create a stronger economy, massive economic development, and importantly, lower electricity costs for our residents and our businesses.”

Read the full article at wbur

MASSACHUSETTS: Mass. picks more offshore wind projects. All three will rely heavily on New Bedford.

September 9, 2024 — In what Gov. Maura Healey’s administration has dubbed the “Largest Offshore Wind Selection in New England History,” Massachusetts officials have made the state’s selections known relative to the latest round of offshore wind project bidding. Massachusetts’ total of 2,678 selected megawatts represents inclusion in three different wind farm projects, all of which are connected to the SouthCoast region: SouthCoast Wind, New England Wind 1, and Vineyard Wind 2.

“Through this procurement, offshore wind will power over 1.4 million Massachusetts homes and reduce the state’s carbon emissions by the equivalent of taking one million gas-powered cars off the road,” the Healey-Driscoll Administration wrote in a press release. “Collectively, these projects will create thousands of jobs and generate billions of economic activity.”

Read the full article at The Standard-Times

Federal report OKs Gulf of Maine for offshore wind leases

September 9, 2024 — The federal government is preparing to sell offshore wind power plots in the Gulf of Maine after determining that leasing the area would not harm the environment.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management said that installing buoys and conducting surveys to assess leases across one million acres of ocean would have no significant environmental impact.

Read the full article at WSHU

US gives key OK for 15GW floating wind area in Gulf of Maine

September 6, 2024 — US regulator Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) has approved its environmental assessment (EA) for a giant floating wind area in the Gulf of Maine holding some 15GW of potential capacity.

The EA authorises developers to carry out site assessment activities such as installation of meteorological buoys and surveys, a key step allowing a lease sale to go forward. Any projects planned for the region following the lease sale will need to undergo a more thorough environmental impact statement (EIS).

Read the full article at Recharge News