Saving Seafood

Poll: Public support for offshore wind power drops sharply in NJ

August 31, 2023 –A new Monmouth University Poll finds that public support for New Jersey offshore wind projects has dropped sharply, with 54 percent of respondents in favor – down from 76 percent the poll reported in 2019.

The decline comes after a long drumbeat of public debate over how the future seaside vista of turbine arrays visible off Jersey Shore resorts could affect the region’s summer tourist economy.

Those arguments heated up with a wave of whale strandings on New Jersey and New York beaches starting in December 2022. Offshore wind opponents tied the deaths to vessels conducting surveys on wind power sites.

Federal agencies insist there is no evidence to link the projects to stranded whales, while marine mammal rescue groups found evidence that dead humpback whales were injured by ship strikes.

Now a majority of New Jersey residents still favor developing offshore wind power, but those numbers are far below what Monmouth University pollsters have found as recently as 2019.

“Four in 10 residents think wind farms could hurt the state’s summer tourism economy and just under half see a connection between wind energy development and the recent spate of whales washing up on New Jersey beaches,” according to a summary from the Monmouth University Poll. “Few see wind energy leading to major job growth in the state.”

The split is 54 percent in favor of offshore wind power and 40 percent opposed. It’s a sharp contrast to early optimism about wind energy for New Jersey, when in 2019 support was at 76 percent with 15 percent opposed.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

GOM wind lease sale disappoints but doesn’t surprise

August 31, 2023 — The problems derailing various East Coast offshore wind developments because of inflation, supply chain issues, and the rising cost of capital, are reflected in the recent Gulf of Mexico wind lease sale. The Biden administration talked up this first sale in the Gulf, but the results were a resounding dud!

The government offered three offshore wind leases for bid Tuesday — one off Lake Charles, La., and two off Galveston, Texas. Only the Louisiana lease was contested with two bids received.

Germany’s RWE Renewables won the 102,480-acre lease by paying $5.6 million.  That works out to $54.65 per acre, well below the bounty the government collected from its last sale in the New York Bight area. That 2022 sale raised nearly 800 times more money ($4.37 billion) in a 64-round bidding contest than the Gulf sale.  The average price per acre paid was 160 times the Louisiana sale.

In reviewing our offshore wind sale records, the Gulf outcome is more comparable to the 2013 sale result for the two leases off Massachusetts than any other sale. In that sale, 164,000 acres were leased for $3.8 million, or $23 per acre. The price paid per megawatt of potential offshore wind power was nearly $30,000/MW, 11 times the price for the Louisiana lease.

BOEM Director Elizabeth Klein applauded the sale. “Today’s lease sale represents an important milestone for the Gulf of Mexico region — and for our nation — to transition to a clean energy future,” she said.

A more sobering view was offered by Mona Dajani, global head of renewables, energy and infrastructure at law firm Shearman and Sterling. “This first-ever Gulf offshore wind auction was viewed as a big deal, a potential game changer.  Those of us hoping to see a real offshore wind boom in the Gulf may have to wait.”

Read the full article at WorkBoat

Why the Gulf of Mexico’s first offshore wind auction wasn’t a smash hit

August 30, 2023 — The Biden administration on Tuesday received a top bid of $5.6 million during the first-ever auction of offshore wind development rights in the Gulf of Mexico.

German energy giant RWE placed the highest bid for a 102,500-acre swath of water off the coast of Lake Charles, Louisiana, which has the potential to host 1.24 gigawatts’ worth of offshore wind capacity. Two other lease areas near Galveston, Texas didn’t receive any bids.

The lease sale is an important step toward building clean energy projects in a region that has long been dominated by offshore oil and gas production. Wind turbines are already spinning off the East Coast and more are being installed; meanwhile, floating offshore wind farms are being planned for California’s coastal waters. This week’s auction officially brings the emerging U.S. offshore wind industry to Gulf waters.

Read the full article at Canary Media

Delaware eyes its first offshore wind target, but trouble looms

August 30, 2023 — For years, Delaware has been on the sidelines as the emerging offshore wind industry flocked to neighboring states, but a new law could transform the industry in the state — if it’s not too late.

Delaware’s Democratic-led Legislature recently ordered a study of the state’s offshore wind potential to be reported back by the end of the year. The move, which was signed by Gov. John Carney (D) this month, adds momentum for the state to set its first target for offshore wind, a goal of many lawmakers and environmental groups.

“We’re alone among our neighbors of not really having wind targets,” said state Sen. Stephanie Hansen (D), who has spearheaded the state’s reassessments of offshore wind to meet its climate targets as chair of the state Senate Environment and Energy Committee. “Delaware, as of now, I think, is really firing on all cylinders to move into the next phase of energy planning and implementation.”

If the study leads to a state offshore wind goal, it would bring Delaware in line with neighboring states and give it an opportunity to compete for industry jobs and businesses emerging along the East Coast. Power grid operator PJM Interconnection LLC is assisting with the study in looking at transmission impacts. But concerns about the cost of offshore wind still linger from a 2018 analysis that effectively tabled wind ambitions in the state for years.

Read the full article at Energy Central

Support growing for offshore wind moratorium, by Sen. Vince Polistina

August 29, 2023 — Earlier this month, the Democratic state Senate president and Democratic speaker of the state Assembly released a joint statement echoing our calls for a pause on offshore wind development until more research could be done. Their statements read, in part: “There are still many unanswered questions about the economic impact these projects will have on ratepayers as well as potential impacts to one of our state’s largest economic drivers, tourism at the shore.” A reasonable and rational statement one would expect from their elected officials.

In doing so, the Democratic legislative leaders joined non-partisan, concerned citizens groups like Clean Ocean Action, Defend Brigantine Beach, Save LBI and others, who have called for a pause in the project. For the record, I released my own statement urging Gov. Phil Murphy to suspend the project all the way back in February — calling for a moratorium until scientists could be ascertain what was causing the unusual number of whale and dolphin deaths plaguing our region.

Shortly after I released my statement, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) conceded that New Jersey’s offshore wind farm development “is likely to adversely affect” whales and other marine mammals, while stopping short of solely blaming it for the deaths — copping to something many of us had long-since concluded based on the tragic scenes we had witnessed throughout the late winter and early spring.

Read the full article at the Press of Atlantic City

Hope for Offshore Wind Boom in Gulf of Mexico Fades With Low Bids

August 29, 2023 — The first-ever US government auction of leases to build wind farms in the Gulf of Mexico ended with only one tract sold, a blow for advocates cheering on renewable-power development in the region.

RWE Offshore US Gulf LLC won a 102,480-acre (41,472-hectare) tract near Lake Charles, Louisiana, for $5.6 million, after just two rounds of bidding. The area has room for enough turbines to generate approximately 1.24 gigawatts of power, which could supply nearly 435,400 homes.

The results reflect the technological challenges of erecting turbines in the Gulf, despite the opportunity to take advantage of the region’s rich infrastructure and supply chain.

Read the full article at GCaptian

Experts fear American fishing industry, boating at risk as Biden prioritizes climate, green energy

August 29, 2023 — The Biden administration has prioritized green energy at the expense of endangered whales and the U.S. fishing industry with regulation that limits both commercial fishing and recreational boating, according to experts.

The Vessel Strike Reduction Rule is a new rule proposed by the Biden administration’s Commerce Department in partnership with The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) that would limit the speed of all motorboats over 35 feet from Florida to Massachusetts to 10 knots, or 11.5 miles per hour, for up to seven months of the year. The rule is marketed as a way to protect the endangered right whale, but fishing experts and anglers say the move would have far-reaching implications for their industry.

Meghan Lapp, the fisheries liaison for Seafreeze Ltd., the largest producer and trader of sea-frozen seafood on the U.S. East Coast, told Fox News Digital there are complexities behind fishing that require anglers to know where they can go and what they are allowed to do in that area.

“It’s funny because we joke like you need a law degree to go fishing, but that’s actually the level of regulation that us commercial fishermen are held to,” Lapp said.

Bonnie Brady, executive director of the Long Island Commercial Fishing Association, told Fox News Digital that the Biden administration has made fishing more difficult in “pretty much every way they can” under the guise of climate protections, such as the expansion of offshore wind energy infrastructure with marine protected areas at the expense of domestic commercial fishing.

Read the full article at Fox News

RHODE ISLAND: Fishermen’s Protests Muted as R.I. Coastal Board Approves Sunrise Wind Project

August 28, 2023 — After four and a half hours of expert presentations and audience pushback, the Coastal Resources Management Council unanimously approved the Sunrise Wind project that developers hope to build in 2025 on the Outer Continental Shelf.

The 84 turbines of Sunrise Wind would be built about 16 miles from Block Island in federal waters and would pipe electricity to Long Island, N.Y. But because of the wind facility’s location, Rhode Island has some limited approval powers under federal law.

A surprising thing about the Aug. 22 hearing were the scanty and muted objections voiced by Rhode Island fishermen, especially compared to the hours of boisterous arguments they aimed against Revolution Wind, another proposed offshore wind project, before the same board earlier this summer. (That project passed the CRMC and, this week, won a major federal approval.)

Fishermen at the recent Sunrise Wind hearing raised some of the same objections lobbed against Revolution Wind, including: loss of fishing income; dangers to fishermen working in and around the wind facility; problems with radar; the need for more onboard manpower for safety; and claims that CRMC is getting out ahead of yet-unpublished federal studies. They also claimed CRMC was flouting its own oversight regulations.

Read the full article at ecoRI News

OREGON: Oregon tribes protest offshore wind plans

August 26, 2023 — Federal officials’ announcement of two draft wind energy areas off the Oregon coast poses danger to fisheries, jobs and the state’s coastal environment, the Confederated Tribes of the Coos, Lower Umpqua and Siuslaw Indians say.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s proposal “was premature and threatens fisheries, local fishing jobs, and some of Oregon pristine ocean viewsheds, some of which are sacred to the Tribe,” the confederation said in a statement issued Tuesday.

Objections coming out of Oregon are echoing those lodged against offshore wind projects off the East Coast, where local groups continue to mount fierce political and legal campaigns over anticipate impact on fishing and ocean views from coastal communities.

In months leading up to the draft wind areas release, BOEM was urged by the North Pacific Fishery Management Council, fishing advocacy groups, tribes and Oregon elected officials to pause and start its planning process over again.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

RHODE ISLAND: RI coastal regulators affirm NY wind farm project

August 26, 2023 — Another mammoth offshore wind farm planned off Rhode Island’s coastline received the stamp of approval from coastal regulators on Tuesday.

The Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management Council’s (CRMC) 6-0 vote affirms that the Sunrise Wind project meets state coastal policies, while imposing a half-dozen conditions aimed at minimizing disruption to native species, the ocean environment, and the fishermen whose livelihoods depend upon it.

The 924-megawatt project is being co-developed by offshore wind power duo Orsted A/S and Eversource Energy, the same companies behind Revolution and South Fork Wind farms, among others. Though Sunrise Wind will power New York, the area where the turbines would be built sits 17 miles southeast of Block Island.

Which is how the CRMC gets a say, since its Ocean Special Area Management Plan offers regulations for any development within 30 miles offshore of the state coastline. While federal regulators still have the final authority over all offshore wind projects, the CRMC can also recommend mitigation measures to help minimize losses to the fishing industry from the construction and operation of the projects.

Read the full article at Rhode Island Current