Saving Seafood

US Wind requests marine mammal take authorization for offshore wind construction

January 7, 2023 — US Wind has submitted a request for Incidental Take Regulations to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in regards to construction of the Maryland Offshore Wind Project.

The regulations would govern the authorization of take of a small number of 19 species of marine mammals. A “small number” is considered less than one-third of estimated populations in the area, though specific small numbers are not defined. According to NOAA, take is harassing, hunting, capturing or killing any marine mammal, or attempting to do so. Though intentional take is prohibited, incidental take of small numbers can be allowed through an application process.

Actions of take can include negligent or intentional operation of an aircraft or boat, detaining marine mammals and other acts which result in disturbing them. Take can occur through acts with the potential to injure these animals in the wild, classified as level A harassment, or potential to disturb behavioral patterns like breathing, migration, breeding and sheltering, which are classified as level B harassment.

Read the full article at WRDE

Power up: Vineyard Wind sends electricity to the grid

January 7, 2024 — New England’s first large offshore wind farm has delivered electricity to the grid.

In a test Tuesday, shortly before midnight, Vineyard Wind sent about five megawatts of power ashore in Barnstable from a single turbine, according to project officials.

More testing needs to be done before the turbine can be fully operational, according to the project’s two parent companies, Avangrid and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners. They said they expect the first five turbines, which were completed in early December, to be running in the early part of this year.

When fully built, Vineyard Wind 1, located about 15 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard, will have 62 turbines of 13 megawatts each and generate enough power for more than 400,000 homes.

Maggie Downey, administrator of renewable energy provider Cape Light Compact, said the powering-up of Vineyard Wind represents a turning point in meeting the state’s climate goals.

“I think it’s a huge moment for everybody that lives in Massachusetts,” she said. “We need the electrons on our grid. We are all seeing the impacts of climate change, and this is a giant step forward to helping us and the Commonwealth achieve their state goals.”

Vineyard Wind hoped to deliver power by the end of 2023, but missed that mark.

Read the full article at GBH

Equinor, BP cancel contract to sell offshore wind power to New York

January 4, 2024 — European energy firms Equinor (EQNR.OL) and BP (BP.L) terminated their agreement to sell power to New York state from their proposed Empire Wind 2 offshore wind farm, citing rising inflation, higher borrowing costs, and supply chain issues.

“This agreement reflects changed economic circumstances on an industry-wide scale and repositions an already mature project to continue development in anticipation of new offtake opportunities,” Equinor said in a statement on Wednesday, in an apparent reference to a new offshore wind solicitation launched by New York in November.

The solicitation allows companies to exit old contracts and re-offer projects at higher prices. The winners of an expedited solicitation for offshore wind will be announced in February.

An Equinor spokesperson declined to comment on the bid strategy for the 1,260-megawatt (MW) Empire Wind 2 project, but said it was “carefully assessing” the solicitation and was “encouraged by the state’s commitment to offshore wind.”

Read the full article at Reuters

Offshore power flows 14 years after Cape Wind won federal approval

January 4, 2024 — About 7½ years after state policymakers began seriously pursuing the cleaner generation source and following a bumpy road full of delays, the grid that powers Massachusetts received the first electrons generated by offshore wind late Tuesday night.

One turbine of the Vineyard Wind 1 project delivered about 5 megawatts of power at 11:52 p.m. Tuesday, project co-owners Avangrid and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP) announced Wednesday morning. Eventually, the wind farm about 15 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard is expected to have 62 turbines capable of generating just more than 800 MW of power. The project’s energy comes ashore at a grid interconnection point in Barnstable.

The transmission of “first power,” as limited as it was and coming later than had been expected, was roundly celebrated Wednesday by elected officials, clean energy advocates and others. Gov. Maura Healey called Wednesday’s announcement “a historic moment for the American offshore wind industry.”

“Soon, Vineyard Wind will be producing power equivalent of over 400,000 Massachusetts households,” she said. “As we look ahead, Massachusetts is on a path toward energy independence thanks to our nation-leading work to stand up the offshore wind industry.”

Massachusetts now is the second state in the country, following New York, to get electricity from a major offshore wind development.

Read the full article at State House News Service

Large-scale offshore wind project delivers power to New England grid for first time

January 3, 2024 — A project described as the first large-scale offshore wind project has delivered power to the New England grid for the first time.

Energy company Avangrid, along with renewables investment firm Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, announced on Wednesday that power from the Vineyard Wind project had delivered approximately 5 megawatts around noon on Tuesday. Additional testing is expected to happen in the coming weeks, according to the developers, with five turbines expected to operate at full capacity early in 2024.

Tim Evans, a partner at Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, called the move a “milestone for offshore wind and the entire renewable industry in North America.”

“For the first time we have power flowing to the American consumers from a commercial-scale wind project, which marks the dawn of a new era for American renewables and the green transition,” Evans said in a written statement. “By delivering first power, we have broken new ground and shown a viable path forward with power that is renewable, locally produced, and affordable.”

Read the full article at the Washington Examiner

Associated Press Gets It Wrong: Wind Farm Contractors Acknowledge Turbines Harm Dolphins, Whales

January 2, 2024 — When wind turbine companies seek permission to harm sea life, reporters for The Associated Press blame The Heritage Foundation (where I work) and The Heartland Institute, instead of reporting the facts.

It was a Chico Marx moment: “Who ya gonna believe, me or your own eyes?

The misleading AP article—carried by WBTS-TV in Boston; The Daily Star newspaper of Oneonta, New York; and WTFX-TV in Philadelphia, among others—stated that “scientists say there is no credible evidence linking offshore wind farms to whale deaths” and that “offshore wind opponents are using unsupported claims about harm to whales to try to stop projects, with some of the loudest opposition centered in New Jersey.”

The article accuses opponents of causing “angst in coastal communities, where developers need to build shoreside infrastructure to operate a wind farm.”

If so, why are offshore wind farm companies asking Uncle Sam for permission to harm ocean mammals, and why are dead whales washing up on East Coast beaches?

According to AP reporters Christina Larson, Jennifer McDermott, Patrick Whittle, and Wayne Parry, “One vocal opponent of offshore wind is The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank based in Washington, D.C. Diana Furchtgott-Roth, director of the foundation’s center for energy, climate and environment, wrote in November that Danish company Ørsted’s scrapped New Jersey wind project was “unsightly” and “a threat to wildlife.” (The Daily Signal is the news outlet of The Heritage Foundation.)

If the four reporters had done their homework, they would have mentioned that in required environmental-impact filings with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, companies explain that sounds generated by their activities will harm ocean mammals.

For example, Atlantic Shores and Ørsted’s Ocean Winds both requested permission to harm ocean mammals in their applications for New Jersey offshore-wind projects. And, since boats ramped up offshore surveys in May 2022, 31 dead whales have washed up on New Jersey and surrounding beaches.

Ørsted, which in November pulled out of a proposed New Jersey offshore wind farm, requested permission to harm 30 whales, 3,231 dolphins, 82 porpoises, and eight seals through sound waves generated by its surveys—although the company claims that the damage would be negligible.

The precise numbers and detailed species can be found on the website of the NOAA, in Ørsted’s Application for Incidental Harassment Authorization (Table 9).

Atlantic Shores, owned by Dutch Shell oil and French EDF, is still seeking permission to locate an offshore wind farm in New Jersey. In its Request for Incidental Harassment (Table 6-3) it stated that acoustic waves associated with the siting of the wind turbines would likely affect 10 whales, 662 dolphins, 206 porpoises, and 546 seals (also termed a negligible amount). It received permission to harm these marine animals.

Although the companies describe effects as “negligible,” the NOAA website states that it’s difficult to measure the effects of manmade sounds on mammals.

“Acoustic trauma, which could result from close exposure to loud human-produced sounds, is very challenging to assess, particularly with any amount of decomposition,” or damage to the whale’s body, states NOAA on its website.

Sean Hayes, chief of protected species for the NOAA, wrote in a letter to Brian Hooker, lead biologist at the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management: “The development of offshore wind poses risks to these species [right whales], which is magnified in southern New England waters due to species abundance and distribution … . However, unlike vessel traffic and noise, which can be mitigated to some extent, oceanographic impacts from installed and operating turbines cannot be mitigated for the 30-year life span of the project, unless they are decommissioned.”

In addition, the AP article made no mention that some of the companies that would install these wind farms are owned by Denmark, the Netherlands, and France—despite the fact that renewable energy tax credits in the so-called Inflation Reduction Act are aimed at stimulating domestic firms to produce renewable energy. And there was no mention that New Jersey offshore wind farms would have practically no effect on mitigating global temperatures, either now or by 2100.

Local municipalities are increasingly rejecting wind farms, according to a Renewable Rejection Database tracker maintained by environmental scholar Robert Bryce. He reports that 417 wind farms and 190 solar arrays have been rejected by local communities in 2023. More than 600 projects have been rejected in 2023, up from 489 in 2022 and 208 in 2018.

Proponents of renewable energy are trying to gloss over its harms and exaggerate its benefits in an attempt to push costly offshore wind farms. For the record, French- and Dutch-owned Atlantic Shores and Danish-owned Ørsted asked permission to hurt whales, dolphins, porpoises, and seals.

Americans in New Jersey and elsewhere oppose that environmental damage.

Have an opinion about this article? To sound off, please email letters@DailySignal.com, and we’ll consider publishing your edited remarks in our regular “We Hear You” feature. Remember to include the URL or headline of the article plus your name and town and/or state.

Read the full article at the Daily Signal

Wind turbines kill too many birds and bats. How can we make them safer?

January 2, 2024 — About twice a month, many of Australia’s wind farms receive an important visit from dogs and their handlers. The dogs are professionals and know exactly what they’re there for. Eagerly, they run along transects under the wind turbines, sniffing until they catch a scent, then lying down, sitting or freezing once they’ve located their targets: the carcasses of bats and birds that were killed by turbine collisions.

For nearly two decades, wind and wildlife ecologist Emma Bennett’s company, Elmoby Ecology, has been using canines to count the victims of wind turbines in southern Australia. The numbers are troubling. Each turbine yields four to six bird carcasses per year, part of an overall death toll from wind turbines that likely tops 10,000 annually for the whole of Australia (not including carcasses carried away by scavengers). Such deaths are in the hundreds of thousands in North America. Far worse are the numbers of dead bats: The dogs find between six and 20 of these per turbine annually, with tens of thousands believed to die each year in Australia. In North America, the number is close to a million.

Read the full article at Canary Media

MARYLAND: What happened to offshore wind in Maryland?

December 28, 2022 — Energy company Orsted is pausing “all development spend” on an offshore wind project in Maryland and may cancel the project entirely. The hiatus was announced by the Danish company’s CEO last month — on the same day Orsted also said it was ceasing development on two offshore wind projects in New Jersey.

Officials in both states were taken by surprise, including New Jersey’s governor, who publicly lambasted Orsted.

Orsted’s offshore wind project in Maryland, called Skipjack, has been in development since 2017, according to its website. The farm was supposed to generate 966 megawatts of clean energy, enough to power about 300,000 homes. The company also developed a site at Tradepoint Atlantic — a large industrial complex in Baltimore County that also houses distribution warehouses for companies like Amazon and FedEx — to support the now discontinued New Jersey offshore wind projects.

Read the full article at the Baltimore Banner

Offshore wind in the U.S. hit headwinds in 2023. Here’s what you need to know

December 27, 2023 — There’s a lot riding on the nascent U.S. offshore wind industry: the ability to tap into a huge source of clean energy and reduce carbon emissions, the opportunity to create thousands of jobs, the unique chance to jumpstart a new domestic manufacturing industry.

For these reasons, President Biden has made the success of the industry a pillar of his climate agenda. His administration has set an ambitious target of getting 30,000 megawatts of offshore wind power flowing into the grid by 2030, which is enough electricity to power 10 million homes.

Read the full article at wbur

NEW JERSEY: Complaint against offshore wind developer Atlantic Shores dismissed by NJ utilities board

December 26, 2023 — An anti-offshore wind organization suffered a loss Wednesday when a state agency dismissed its petition to open a hearing that would have affected the income of Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind, a 1.5-gigawatt project that will be built off Long Beach Island.

The organization Save Long Beach Island Inc., or Save LBI, petitioned the state Board of Public Utilities for a hearing, saying the board should decrease the value of Atlantic Shores’ Offshore Wind Renewable Energy Certificates, better known as ORECs.

Renewable energy certificates, including those for offshore wind projects, determine how much electricity customers pay for renewable energy and are issued for each megawatt-hour of electricity generated for the power grid. The prices are calculated through the costs of equipment, construction and operational costs, project revenue, tax incentives, grants and other subsidies and expenses for a project.

In August, Save LBI filed a petition for a hearing from the Board of Public Utilities and argued Atlantic Shores’ OREC prices were too high. The organization said in its filing that the OREC calculation did not include impacts on local tourism and commercial fisheries, miscalculated the social cost of carbon, and “misrepresent(ed) statewide impacts.”

“They’re simply not calculating these benefits and costs correctly,” said Bob Stern, president of Save LBI.

Read the full article at app.