Saving Seafood

RHODE ISLAND: Block Island and Newport preservationists fight to protect Rhode Island from massive wind farms

November 28, 2023 — A month ago, after Cape May County, New Jersey, filed a federal lawsuit to stop two immense Ørsted wind farms, the company responded by announcing they were canceling their plans, leaving unfinished construction, citing their inability to predict financial pressures on the project, not widespread community opposition. Two senior staff have left the company, and management is being shifted as one project after another face an insecure future.

Yesterday, Rhode Island took a double-barreled action with federal appeals being filed for both Block Island and Newport to stop two massive offshore wind farms by Ørsted, saying they would “despoil the viewsheds for at least the next 30 years”.

Without intervention, Block Island’s “quaint” set of five wind turbines, the first offshore windfarm in America, could grow to as many as 599 turbines, and of massively increased height – 800 feet tall – taller than an 80-story skyscraper.

In Newport, the group of massive turbines could be built as close as 12 miles from Newport’s coast, visible from the shore.

The Rhode Island actions are being managed by Cultural Heritage Partners, a law firm specializing in historic preservation and cultural heritage law.

Block Island Historic Presesrvation Group’s actions

The Southeast Lighthouse Foundation (SELF), which owns and manages Block Island’s most iconic historic structure and New England’s highest lighthouse, appealed the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM)’s permitting decisions for two of the massive offshore wind farms planned by Danish-owned energy behemoth Ørsted on November 22, 2023.

Block Island is awakening to the reality that the number of visible turbines off its coast will soon grow from five to as many as 599 and despoil the Island’s treasured views for the next thirty years. The historic Southeast Lighthouse is a National Historic Landmark–honored by the Nation’s highest designation of historic importance reserved for the likes of the Lincoln Memorial and the Golden Gate Bridge. A world-renowned symbol of Block Island’s rich cultural heritage, the Southeast Light is among numerous historic resources that the government has failed to protect from what BOEM itself concedes are significant negative impacts of the industrialization of the seascape.

Read the full article at

‘Maybe we were too optimistic’: Ørsted executive talks about offshore wind struggles

November 28, 2023 — It has been a hard year for Ørsted. High interest rates and supply chain bottlenecks have rocked the world’s largest offshore wind developer.

Earlier this month, Ørsted wrote down the value of its U.S. portfolio by $4 billion after canceling two projects off New Jersey. The company’s stock price has lost more than half its value since the start of the year, and it recently announced a reshuffling of its management team, with the departure of the company’s chief financial officer and chief operations officer.

David Hardy is one executive who has weathered the storm. He has led the Danish-based company’s operations in the U.S. since 2020. Hardy sat down for an interview Monday with E&E News at a critical time for the company.

Ørsted is preparing to submit a new bid for Sunrise Wind in New York after regulators there rejected the company’s request to charge consumers more for the 924-megawatt project’s electricity. In New Jersey, the company is bracing for a fight over $300 million in performance guarantees related to its Ocean Wind I project. And its partner, Eversource Energy, is looking to sell its stake in three offshore wind projects.

If that wasn’t enough, Ørsted has also been in talks with the White House over implementation of the Inflation Reduction Act. Hardy has called on the administration to revise its rules governing a domestic content bonus in a bid to make it easier for offshore wind developers to qualify for tax credits.

Last week, Ørsted announced the installation of the first turbine for South Fork Wind, a 132-MW project serving New York. Hardy said it could begin generating power by the end of this week. Ørsted has also begun work for Revolution Wind, a 704-MW project serving Connecticut and Rhode Island.

The conversation has been lightly edited for clarity.

It’s obviously been a difficult year. What lessons do you take from South Fork and Revolution moving forward — not just for Ørsted but for offshore wind in the U.S.?

Well, first off, these to me are bright spots in the industry right now. It’s easy to kind of be focused on the negatives. But here’s two projects that are in construction and moving along and, between the two of them, are over 800 megawatts of offshore wind, which will be powering over 400,000 homes in New England and New York with clean power. They’re also projects that are the foundation for the supply chain, the foundation for the operation and maintenance hub, the foundation for current and future union jobs, and all kinds of other things that the industry promised. And so I think our perseverance and commitment to getting these projects built says a lot. They’re still not amazing financial return projects, but we’ve been able to work through all the challenges in the industry … to take a positive final investment decision and progress these projects.

Read the full article at E&E News

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