As the New York wind shills rallied, one fishing advocate stood alone.
More than 100 advocates for offshore wind, comprised of environmental and labor groups and politicians, rallied outside of Long Island Power Authority headquarters in Uniondale Tuesday morning urging the agency to sign a contract to purchase power from offshore wind. LIPA CEO Thomas Falcone, who sat with several model wind turbines on the table in front of him, told activists who packed LIPA’s board room for the agency’s monthly board of directors meeting after the rally that he expected to have a big announcement about offshore wind in the new year. Long Island Commercial Fishing Association Executive Director Bonnie Brady of Montauk was the one person in attendance at the LIPA meeting Tuesday who expressed skepticism about offshore wind, where the board took about half an hour of public comment. “The reality is, this is not a clean project,” she said, adding that there is a glut of power on Long Island, but the LIPA grid is broken. Read the story here 14:35
This is a response to a comment by Frank Delene relating to the above article on the “Environment” site.
“Intellectual dishonesty”, is rolling out the false dilemma argument that it’s either offshore wind energy or suffer the consequences of dirty fossil fuel energy generation. That argument has about as much connection to reality as the oil industry’s false dilemma pitch that drilling along our coast will create thousands of jobs and is necessary to achieve energy independence so we won’t be held hostage by oil-producing rival countries —and oh yes, when the rigs are decommissioned they will create fishing- beneficial artificial reefs as well as saving us from OPEC. Also, quoting Greenpeace about the “positive impacts” of banning fishing is not exactly a convincing claim to intellectual honesty or scientific objectivity.
The proposed windmill sites are not “… a small limitation of the commercial fishing industries fishing grounds” the proposed sites happen to cover most every significant Loligo Squid spawning grounds south of Long Island between New York Harbor and east to Nantucket. And the “…fear of a decrease” in the squid catch is far from “baseless”. Fish are extremely sensitive to miniscule electromagnetic pulses and fields. Fish find food, communicate, and navigate through the reception of the naturally occurring electromagnetic signals in the ocean. The effect of hundreds of millions watts emanating from each turbine and carried through feed lines to trunk lines in a filigree of electrical charge will create havoc. http://seagrant.gso.uri.edu/oceansamp/pdf/presentation/present_gill_europe.pdf
This is a very highly regulated fishery, successfully managed and prolific. Most of the 22,445 metric tons of biologically sanctioned Longfin Squid (Calamari) harvested by east coast independent family fishing operations come out of these areas which are slated for over 1400 wind turbine installations. That is not a “small limitation” of the fishing grounds that is a complete destruction of these vital spawning areas and a destruction of local industry and a vital source of clean healthy food. https://www.greateratlantic.fisheries.noaa.gov/nr/2016/April/16msb2016specsphl.pdf
Wind as a source of energy is intermittent especially in an ocean environment noted for its extremes and turbulent variable wind patterns. http://www.udel.edu/udaily/2016/august/power-offshore-wind/
So unless an efficient way to store hundreds of millions of watts is forthcoming, conventional oil/gas/coal fired power plants will not be able to be taken off line. After spending over a trillion dollars on wind Germany is terminating their program because the wind installations hiked the cost of electricity some 400% and it seems the everyday people were subsidizing the “green energy” costs for those who didn’t financially feel the increase. http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/german-offshore-wind-industry-goes-from-boom-to-bust-a-914158.html
We all want to get out from under the oppression of the fossil fuel barons and enjoy “National Energy Independence and Security” and a low “carbon footprint”, but not at the cost of National Food Independence and Security by destroying some of the world’s richest fishing grounds in the process. The Northeast fisheries are a well-managed source of abundant and vital fish protein. Please learn something about them and then please leave them alone, THEY ARE NOT EXPENDABLE!
Solar, geo-thermal, land installation wind, and algae-based biodiesel are reliable and available options to fossil fuel generated electrical energy. And, at the risk of e-blasphemy, we might even consider another solution, REDUCED ELECTRICAL ENERGY CONSUMPTION: or maybe your e-gizmos’ and e-vehicles’ fuel isn’t so economical and green after all.