Saving Seafood

NEW YORK: NY tentatively approves 3 offshore wind farms, including Ravenswood project

October 25, 2023 — Gov. Kathy Hochul’s administration gave a tentative green light Tuesday to three new wind farms off New York City’s shores, including one project that would shift the hulking Ravenswood Generating Station in Long Island City to 100% renewable energy.

The long-awaited announcement marks a major step in New York state’s continuing shift to clean energy, as it works to meet its legally mandated goal of generatng 70% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2030. But it also comes after Hochul vetoed a bill last week that would have fast-tracked a similar wind farm off of Long Island, and took another action in recent weeks that drew condemnation from wind-power advocates.

Once they come online in 2030, the new wind farms are expected to generate about 4 gigawatts of power, according to the state. That number jumps to 6.4 gigawatts when combined with 22 additional land-based projects also approved on Tuesday, which the Hochul administration says is enough to account for about 12% of the state’s energy needs.

“This industry continues to just blossom, and we’re continuing to make sure that we make the investments now,” Hochul told reporters after making the announcement in Long Island City.

Read the full article at the Gothamist

NEW YORK: Gov. Kathy Hochul vetoes bill that would expedite planned wind farm off Long Island

October 24, 2023 — A major renewable energy project off Long Island suffered a big blow on Friday when Gov. Kathy Hochul vetoed a controversial bill that would’ve expedited a planned wind farm off Long Beach.

Residents concerned about electromagnetic fields and construction won a victory against landing an offshore wind transmission line there.

“They’ve never done this on a community like this. We were the first one, and we were essentially gonna be the guinea pig of this process going forward and we weren’t having it,” said Tim Kramer, a member of Protect Our Coast LINY.

Read the full article at CBS

MAINE: ‘Crucial’ fishing grounds excluded from federal offshore wind energy draft plan for Maine

October 23, 2023 — As Maine moves forward with future goals of offshore wind energy development, multiple stakeholders are praising the decision by a federal agency to exclude the majority of Gulf of Maine fishing grounds, known as Lobster Management Area 1, from its development proposal.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) released the draft on Thursday and the plan is now open for public review and comment. The draft of the Wind Energy Area covers more than 3.5 million acres off the shore of Maine, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire, according to an agency release. The areas included range from 23 to 120 miles off the coast.

Read the full article at New Center Maine

Press of Atlantic City: NJ residents may overpay for offshore wind energy

October 23, 2023 — The adventures of the governments and private companies creating a new offshore wind energy industry in America are continuing and far from finishing. The favorable conditions before the pandemic have crumbled in the face of higher costs for financing, for sourcing components and for securing needed approvals. That is wrecking plans for projects.

Yet there is also a sign that the necessary adjustments to current market conditions will include fixing a major mistake made by East Coast states at the start. Unfortunately, so far New Jersey officials are sticking to their outdated plan to be the first to put wind turbines into the Atlantic, which could make residents overpay for this clean energy.

At the start of summer, the New Jersey Legislature and Gov. Phil Murphy sweetened the financing for the first wind farm, off Atlantic City, by allowing Ørsted to keep federal tax credits possibly worth $1 billion that were to be passed through to ratepayers.

Read the full article at the Press of Atlantic City

Atlantic City’s massive offshore wind farm project highlights the industry’s growing pains

October 22, 2023 — Back in 2015, the US Department of Energy estimated wind farms could supply over a third of the nation’s electricity by 2050. Since then, numerous wind turbine projects have been green-lit offshore and across the country. However, when it comes to building, it can get tricky, like in the case of a planned wind farm 15 miles off the southeast coast of Atlantic City, New Jersey.

Danish wind farm company Ørsted recently promised to cut New Jersey a $100 million check if the company’s massive Ocean Wind 1 offshore turbines weren’t up and running by the end of 2025. Less than a week after the wager, however, officials in the state’s southernmost county have filed a US District Court lawsuit to nix the 1.1 gigawatt project involving nearly 100 turbines, alleging regulatory sidesteps and ecological concerns.

Read the full article at Yahoo!

A tricky, sticky mineral that’s challenging offshore wind developers

October 22, 2o23 — Offshore wind developers are encountering an unexpected challenge on the East Coast seafloor: a crushable, green mineral called glauconite, sometimes precisely where they plan to install wind turbines. The mineral — which dates back to the age of the dinosaurs — is weaker and less predictable than sand, scientists say, presenting a new engineering puzzle for researchers and wind developers to solve.

Glauconite’s behavior poses a “significant risk” to offshore wind development, said a paper published this year by the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, the lead regulator of offshore wind. It said glauconite formations are “abundant” along the continental shelf, and that wind developers will “inevitably” encounter the material during construction.

At least two developers have run into the mineral in a total of three offshore wind projects — two south of Massachusetts and one south of Long Island, New York. In a document published last month, BOEM wrote that the geotechnical properties of the mineral make it an “extremely difficult material to build upon,” specifically for fixed-bottom wind turbines.

Glauconite’s presence has already caused BOEM to reject proposed wind turbine layouts that might have minimized a project’s potential effects on marine life and the fishing industry.

Read the full article at the New Bedford Light

Feds identify Gulf of Maine area for offshore wind

October 22, 2023 — The Biden administration announced Thursday that it has identified a 3.5 million-acre wind energy site in the Gulf of Maine that excludes lobster fishing grounds and right whale areas, drawing praise from environmentalists, the lobster industry and organized labor.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s draft wind energy area covers offshore Maine, Massachusetts and New Hampshire, ranging from about 23 to 120 miles off the coast. Wind power will not likely be generated in the area until at least the next decade.

Its capacity of more than 40 gigawatts, enough to power millions of homes, exceeds the current combined offshore wind energy planning goals for Gulf of Maine states that include 10 gigawatts for Massachusetts and 3 gigawatts for Maine. Adjustments to the draft are likely following public comment.

Read the full article at Portland Press Herald

NEW JERSEY: Fight Intensifies Against Offshore Wind Farm in South Jersey

October 22, 2023 — Cape May County’s legal and political battle against a proposed offshore wind energy farm is gaining public support across New Jersey, a state lawmaker told Ocean City business leaders during a forum Thursday that touched on a series of hot button issues.

“We’re fighting against the industrialization of our ocean,” Sen. Michael Testa said in remarks to the Ocean City Regional Chamber of Commerce about the Ocean Wind 1 project planned 15 miles off the South Jersey coast.

Testa and his fellow Republican members of the First Legislative District team, Assemblyman Antwan McClellan and Assemblyman Erik Simonsen, appeared before the Chamber at the Ocean City Yacht Club to discuss the wind farm project, ongoing efforts to curb rowdy teenage behavior at the shore and New Jersey’s controversial health and sex standards in public schools.

Cape May County, Ocean City and other groups have filed multiple lawsuits against federal and state agencies in hopes of blocking the project proposed by the Danish energy giant Orsted. The latest suit was filed this week against the federal regulatory agencies that approved the environmental and construction permits for the wind farm.

The litigation alleges that the federal government violated laws that protect the environment and endangered species, while also failing to properly consider the possible negative impacts on Cape May County’s tourism industry.

Ocean City Mayor Jay Gillian and Sea Isle City Mayor Leonard Desiderio, who also serves as director of the Cape May County Board of Commissioners, are among the most prominent opponents of the wind farm.

Orsted’s project would include 98 wind turbines stretching along the coast between Atlantic City and Stone Harbor. Scheduled to be completed by December 2025, the project would be the first in a series of wind energy farms built off the New Jersey coast.

“Cape May County is ground zero for this issue nationally,” Testa declared of the Orsted project. “All eyes are on us.”

Read the full article at OCNJDaily

Maine’s young lobster population has fallen 40 percent

October 19, 2023 — Recent assessments show that the population of young lobsters in the Gulf of Maine has dropped, on average, by nearly 40 percent over a three-year period.

The population dip comes faster than fisheries managers anticipated and will eventually trigger changes for fishermen to preserve the spawning stock.

Earlier this year, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission approved new measures that would change the minimum and maximum catch sizes for lobster in certain parts of Maine. Those changes would occur only if the commission observes an average 35 percent decline in the young lobster population over a three-year period, compared with a prior three-year period.

Read the full article at Bangor Daily News