Tag Archives: Oil

Study of seismic testing used in offshore oil, gas and wind energy industries finds lobsters ‘concussed’

Seismic testing critical to Western Australia’s offshore oil, gas and energy industries is dazing, and potentially killing the state’s valuable western rock lobsters, a new study has found.  The practice is essential to offshore oil and gas exploration and the construction of wind turbines, and involves firing powerful air guns, creating soundwaves that penetrate the ocean floor. But research by the WA government’s Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development has found lobsters exposed to the testing are significantly impacted.  Offshore crustaceans scientist Simon de Lestang studied the behaviour of lobsters after they were exposed to seismic testing conducted offshore, in shallow water south of Geraldton. >>click to read<<   11:05

Cormac Burke: Desperation is turning to anger in Ireland’s fishing industry

As readers see this article, there’ll be a temptation to think its just another fishing industry sob story, and indeed who could blame them? It is decades since we’ve heard anything positive and yet this sector consists of thousands of people in coastal communities crying out that their traditional way of life is being gradually eliminated and eradicated by government. I could launch into the tragic list of catastrophes that have befallen the fishing sector over the last 20 years due to blatant mismanagement by successive governments, marine ministers, and senior civil servants but these tragedies were more by design than by accident. The Irish public rarely gets to see the true face of the fishing sector and how our politicians managed to get Ireland’s fishermen the worst possible deal from Brexit negotiations,,,  >click to read< 15:48

Disposal of Hazardous Waste: The dark side of ‘green energy’ and its threat to the nation’s environment

Wind farms and massive arrays of solar panels are cropping up across public and private landscapes, (offshore, also),,, President Joe Biden, in fact, has directed the Interior Department to identify suitable places to host 20 gigawatts of new energy from sun, wind or geothermal resources by 2024,, But how green is green? Although countries are feverishly looking to install wind and solar farms to wean themselves off carbon-based, or so-called “dirty” energy, few countries, operators and the industry itself have yet to fully tackle the long-term consequences of how to dispose of these systems, which have their own environmental hazards like toxic metals, oil, fiberglass and other material. >click to read< 12:37

Dropping numbers of herring and mackerel have spurred calls for lower quotas and new bait

A sausage-like concoction that aims to replace a quickly dwindling source of bait for lobster traps appears to be a success with fishermen following a series of preliminary trials, according to the scientist behind it. Bait Masters Inc. has developed a new bait using 75 per cent less herring and mackerel than would usually go in a trap. It’s made up of fish, oil, and other organic matter squeezed in a biodegradable casing. >click to read< 09:49

Looking Back: 2007-Wake up New Jersey before more of your tax dollars are wasted on Governor Corzine’s offshore windfarm

The Governor is proposing to create a huge 80 unit windfarm capable of producing 350 megawatts of electricity in the waters off the south Jersey shore at an estimated present cost of 1.5 billion dollars. Last week New York cancelled plans for a smaller farm, of about 40 windmills, off of Jones beach because of rising cost estimates already over 700 million dollars for a project originally projected to cost about 200 million. New York officials were smart enough to recognize a financial black hole before they started it. Are New Jersey officials? >click to read< 13:47

Oil, Fishing, Tourism: Alaska Economy Faces Triple Hit from Coronavirus

The U.S. state of Alaska is so far distant from the worst medical ravages of the coronavirus pandemic, but its economy is in critical condition. Alaska is especially vulnerable because it depends on oil, tourism and fisheries – basic industries that are reeling from the global coronavirus pandemic – and the state government gets most of its revenue from investment earnings that have now evaporated. “Alaska is experiencing a perfect storm, a most terrible trifecta, the hat trick from hell,” said state Senator Natasha von Imhof, co-chair of the Senate Finance Committee, at a hearing Saturday. “We are being hit on all sides with the stock market crash, oil prices plummeting and the tourism and fishing season all but idle.” >click to read< 09:04

The last colony

News Analysis-The United Fishermen of Alaska (UFA) has issued its annual report on who got the fish of the 49th state, and the winner is? Outside fishing interests. Of the 6.4 billion pounds of seafood harvested in Alaska in 2017, UFA’s 2018 Alaska Commercial Fishing and Seafood Processing report lists 4.6 billion pounds – almost two-thirds – harvested by permit holders from Washington, Oregon or California. Alaska became a state in large part to break the chokehold Seattle-based interests held on state fisheries. The late George Rogers,,, >click to read<17:45