Saving Seafood

NEW YORK: Huge Turbines Will Soon Bring First Offshore Wind Power to New Yorkers

November 28, 2023 — The pier on the Connecticut coast is filled with so many massive oddities that it could be mistaken for the set of a sci-fi movie. Sword-shaped blades as long as a football field lie stacked along one edge, while towering yellow and green cranes hoist giant steel cylinders to stand like rockets on a launchpad.

It is a launching point, not for spacecraft, but for the first wind turbines being built to turn ocean wind into electricity for New Yorkers. Crews of union workers in New London, Conn., are preparing parts of 12 of the gargantuan fans before shipping them out for final assembly 15 miles offshore.

“They’re sort of space-stationesque,” said Christine Cohen, a Democratic state senator who toured the assembly site last week. “Seeing the components up close, it’s just breathtaking how immense they are.”

Read the full article at the New York Times

Can electronic tags fill knowledge gaps between offshore wind and fisheries?

November 28, 2023 — The Nature Conservancy (TNC) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) will be assisting a first-of-its-kind study investigating fish behavior in response to offshore wind turbine installation and related construction activities in the Atlantic Ocean.

Using fine-scale positioning technology, the study will be conducted at the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind (CVOW) research site, approximately 27 miles off the coast of Virginia Beach, Virginia. Developed and operated by Dominion Energy, CVOW is the second offshore wind farm operating in the United States with two existing turbines and 176 in the works.

Read the full article at Global Seafood Alliance

NOAA experts: Listen early for whales before wind project work

November 28, 2023 — Astudy by scientists with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration recommends at least 24 hours of acoustic monitoring for detecting endangered North Atlantic right whales before construction work at offshore wind energy construction sites, to reduce danger to the marine mammals from the loud undersea noise of pile driving.

Visual monitoring around work sites – with trained observers on vessels watching for whales – is one protocol with wind power companies and government regulators. Another is passive acoustic monitoring (PAM) which uses sensors to pick up and record whales’ vocalizations underwater.

Federal monitoring requirements now call for 1 hour of acoustic monitoring for whale activity before pile driving for turbine foundations. It is an “intense, impulsive noise that radiates into the surrounding environment as turbines are hammered into the sea floor,” the paper notes.

The study by a team at NOAA’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center, published Nov. 3 in the ICES Journal of Marine Science, calls for pushing out acoustic monitoring at least 24 hours ahead of construction schedules. Wind power turbines are now being erected on the Vineyard Wind and South Fork project sites off southern New England.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

CT study will examine relationship of new offshore wind farm on marine ecosystems

November 27, 2023 — New local fisheries research will look into the impacts of Connecticut’s first offshore wind farm on marine ecosystems in southern New England waters.

Scientists with UConn Avery Point will spend the next two years examining how Revolution Wind, located about 30 miles from Connecticut’s coast, would affect marine habitats and food chains.

On Nov. 20, project developers – Eversource and Ørsted – got final approval for construction of the wind farm, which is expected to power up more than 300,000 homes in Connecticut and Rhode Island in 2025.

The UConn team is in early stages of the study, and will begin site research in spring 2024. The team’s focus is the potential effects on marine habitats, food webs and shifts in commercially important species.

Read the full article at WSHU

Cape May County continuing federal offshore wind suit despite Ørsted backout

November 27, 2023 — Cape May County will continue challenging permitting for offshore wind development in New Jersey despite one company abandoning its plans to build wind turbines along the coast.

Michael Donohue, who represents the county in offshore wind matters, said the decision to not rescind its lawsuit was made because Ørsted has said in statements another company could take on the leases for the projects.

“It is clear that Ørsted has abandoned the development of Ocean Wind 1 and Ocean Wind 2, but it is also clear that they believe that they can sell their lease and their state and federal permits,” said Donohue. “For Ørsted to break every promise it made to multiple New Jersey communities, to break all the promises it made to trade unions in South Jersey, to break all of its contractual obligations with New Jersey agencies and then believe that it is entitled to profit from its lease and permits is the height of arrogance. The County of Cape May intends to challenge this proposition in federal and state court moving forward in connection with the litigation already underway.”

Read the full article at The Press of Atlantic City

NEW JERSEY: No Letup in Ocean City’s Fight Against Wind Farm Project

November 25, 2023 — Ocean City is taking its legal battle against an offshore wind energy farm to the next level, even though the company that was supposed to develop the project no longer plans to build it.

During a meeting Wednesday, City Council agreed to hire a law firm to represent Ocean City in its appeal against the state Board of Public Utilities over the agency’s approval of a transmission line that would have connected the offshore wind turbines to the land-based electric grid.

City Business Administrator George Savastano said the appeal is part of Ocean City’s ongoing legal strategy to oppose the wind farm, despite the developer’s announcement on Oct. 31 that it is withdrawing from the project.

“If it’s still active in the courts, it’s the city’s position that we should see this through,” Savastano said in an interview after the Council meeting.

He also noted that the city will continue its legal fight because there is the possibility that another company could come in and try to revive the wind farm project.

“This particular developer has withdrawn. That’s not to say that another project will not happen,” he said.

Earlier this year, the BPU granted an easement and regulatory permits for the wind farm’s underground transmission line, which would have come ashore at the 35th Street beach in Ocean City and crossed through environmentally sensitive wetlands along the route.

The line would have followed 35th Street to Bay Avenue, then north on Bay Avenue to Roosevelt Boulevard, west across Peck Bay at the 34th Street Bridge and then continued on to Route 9 to property near the former B.L. England power plant in Upper Township. Ultimately, it would have connected to an electric substation at the old plant.

In its ongoing legal fight, Ocean City is challenging the BPU’s authority to grant approval for the transmission line. The city also has argued that an alternative route for the line was never properly considered.

Read the full article at OCNJDaily

Biden’s clean energy agenda faces mounting headwinds

November 25, 2023 — Canceled offshore wind projects, imperiled solar factories, fading demand for electric vehicles.

A year after passage of the largest climate change legislation in U.S. history, meant to touch off a boom in American clean energy development, economic realities are fraying President Joe Biden’s agenda.

Soaring financing and materials costs, unreliable supply chains, delayed rulemaking in Washington and sluggish permitting have wrought havoc ranging from offshore wind developer Orsted’s (ORSTED.CO) project cancellations in the U.S. Northeast, to Tesla, Ford and GM’s scaled back EV manufacturing plans.

The darkening outlook for clean energy industries is tough news for Biden, whose pledge to deliver a net-zero economy by 2050 faces headwinds that the landmark Inflation Reduction Act’s billions in tax credits alone can’t resolve.

After walking into last year’s United Nations climate summit in Egypt touting the IRA as evidence of unprecedented progress in the fight against climate change, Biden is expected to skip this year’s event in Dubai amid dire warnings that the world is moving too slowly to avert the worst of global warming.

Read the full article at Reuters

Offshore wind project receives final approval from federal agency

November 23, 2023 — Revolution Wind announced on Monday that it has received the final approval from a federal agency, which will allow the project to start offshore wind construction.

Revolution Wind, a utility-scale wind farm that serves Rhode Island and Connecticut, received approval of the project’s construction and operations plan from the U.S. Department of interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.

The wind farm agency said it plans to deliver 400 megawatts of clean wind to Rhode Island and help the state reach its climate goals.

“This is a significant win for Rhode Island, marking an important milestone in our efforts to advance the state’s clean energy future and grow our already thriving blue economy,” Gov. Dan McKee said. “Revolution Wind will be essential to advancing the state’s 100% renewable energy standard by 2033 and achieving our Act on Climate objectives.”

Read the full article at WJAR

VIRGINIA: After Siemens turbine plant cancellation, can Hampton Roads still be a hub for offshore wind?

November 21, 2023 — Detroit is known for automobile manufacturing. San Francisco is known for technology. Hampton Roads hopes to be known for offshore wind development.

In 2020, the Virginia Clean Economy Act, an ambitious roadmap to decarbonize the state’s electric grid by midcentury, was signed into law with provisions encouraging the development of thousands of megawatts of offshore wind. The landmark legislation paved the way for the approval of Dominion Energy’s 176-turbine Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind farm off Virginia Beach earlier this year. That project in turn raised hopes that the industry would bring economic stimulation to the region. In October 2021, the announcement that the Spanish-German engineering company Siemens Gamesa had chosen Portsmouth for the site of the East Coast’s first turbine manufacturing facility seemed to bear out those hopes.

“Today’s announcement will help position Hampton Roads as the offshore wind development hub for the nation,” said Dominion CEO, President and Chair Bob Blue at the time.

However, on Nov. 10, Siemens Gamesa announced it was canceling those plans, saying that “development milestones to establish the facility could not be met.”

The loss of the turbine manufacturing facility, with its associated jobs and tax revenue, is a blow to Hampton Roads, one that has raised questions about whether the region’s dreams of becoming an offshore wind hub can be realized. But Dominion, local officials and environmental and economic development groups aren’t giving up hope: They say the ongoing work on CVOW, the region’s maritime infrastructure and workforce and burgeoning nationwide calls for a more renewables-focused grid keep them optimistic that Hampton Roads can still be an East Coast

Read the full article at the Virginia Mercury

MASSACHUSETTS: Turbines are in the water – offshore wind has arrived in Massachusetts

November 20, 2023 — After more than two decades of proposing and planning, offshore wind is up and spinning. Fifteen miles off the coast of Matha’s Vineyard, the Vineyard Wind Project is installing 62 massive turbines. They estimate that this $4 billion project will power 400,000 homes and businesses. But some environmentalists believe the project could cause more harm than good.

Offshore wind is making a splash in New England, but it isn’t new to the Bay State. For more than two decades, plans for offshore wind turbines have been under discussion. Nearly 20 years after developers proposed the Cape Wind project in Nantucket Sound – a project that was eventually scrapped – offshore wind is up and spinning.