Category Archives: Offshore Wind/Industrialization
Harris: No offshore wind turbines
Warning of dire consequences if offshore wind industrialization is allowed off Maryland’s Atlantic coast, three legislators called on experts to bolster their call to halt construction of wind turbines off the mid-Atlantic coast. Harris was joined by New Jersey Congressmen Jeff Van Drew (R) and Chris Smith (R). Six experts testified and answered questions from the legislators. whose districts “are directly impacted” by “offshore wind industrialization,” according to news releases issued by the congressmen’s offices. Harris doubted that “the average person would be willing to pay the extra taxes and extra rates in order to develop a source of energy that … is roughly four times as expensive as what your current source of energy is,” he said. “That impacts everyone whether or not you live on the Shore.” 12 photos, more, >>click to read<< 06:55
Environmentalists face off against environmentalists over offshore wind projects
The Energy Department estimates offshore wind turbines could produce as much as 20% of regional power needs along the densely populated Eastern Seaboard from Florida to Maine by 2050. To reach that goal, the Biden administration had hoped to green-light 30 gigawatts from utility-scale offshore wind farms by 2030—enough to power nine million homes. That now seems wildly ambitious, as billions of dollars in projects have been canceled amid staggering cost overruns, soaring interest rates and supply-chain delays. Added to these economic woes are persistent environmental concerns, as attested to by some recent federal lawsuits. In September, for example, Cape May County, N.J., and a coalition of regional environmental, fisheries and tourism groups sought to stop development of two utility-scale projects off the New Jersey coast. more, >>click to read<< 11:54
NOAA Is Rolling Out a Plan to Radically Expand Offshore Aquaculture. Not Everyone Is Onboard
The cardboard gravestones read “RIP Local fisherman,” “RIP Wild Fish,” and “RIP Humpback Whales.” Assembled in response to new aquaculture sites planned off the coast of California, the gravestones were brought to the offices of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in Long Beach, California, in April by activists keen to register their discontent. The sites pave the way for possibly dozens of new open-pen fish farms as far as three miles offshore, the future home of species that range from carp to salmon. Chief among the protesters’ concerns were entanglement of marine mammals, the expansion of dead zones caused by fish excrement, and infringement on wild fishing grounds. >click to read< 09:07
Energy industry uses whale activists to aid anti-wind farm strategy, experts say
One night in late March, J Timmons Roberts, a professor of environmental studies at Brown University, stepped in to a high school gymnasium in a small seaside town in Rhode Island. He was there to speak at a town hall aimed at allaying concerns about a local offshore windfarm. In the front row, he noticed a woman dressed as a whale, holding a sign that read “Save Me!” The woman in the front row was Mary Chalke, co-founder of the Save Right Whales Coalition (SRWC), a group of organizations across the east coast that oppose offshore wind projects, arguing they pose an existential risk to the endangered North American right whale. That night at the town hall, Roberts also spotted Elizabeth Knight, who founded Green Oceans earlier this year, another anti-wind organization in Rhode Island. Roberts said he felt compassion for Knight. “She thinks a train wreck is coming,” said Roberts. >click to read< 10:17
GAO to investigate New Jersey ‘offshore wind industrialisation’
The Government Accountability Office (GAO), an independent congressional watchdog, has agreed to launch an investigation into the impact of the development of windfarms offshore New JerseyThe investigation will examine the potential effects of the development of offshore wind on the environment, fishing industry, military operations, navigational safety and other issues, said Representative Chris Smith (R-NJ). Representative Smith said the GAO would conduct an “aggressive, independent investigation” into what he claimed are the “ocean-altering impacts of the 3,400 offshore wind turbines slated for the Jersey shore” and “address concerns” that, he claimed, “the Biden Administration and Governor Murphy continue to dismiss. >click to read< 07:44
Global Wind Day, Environmental Nightmare
June 15 was Global Wind Day. Its European industry sponsors hope to promote the “power and possibilities” of wind turbines. But beware the Ides of June. Wind turbines have been sold to us as a means of reducing emissions, global warming and climate change. Although there are a lot of wind turbines installed around the world with many more seemingly to come, they have not reduced emissions, warming or climate change. And they offer no chance to do so, even if those things were desirable. Coming eight days short of the 35th anniversary of James Hansen’s Senate testimony that sent the world into global warming panic, it’s clear to anyone who cares to look that emissions have nothing to do with recent warming. >click to read< 08:55
Wind project scope ‘staggering’
It wasn’t “until the whales and the dolphins started washing up that people’s attention was able to focus” on the offshore wind farms, according to Cindy Zipf, and when people looked beyond the whales, they realized what is happening is “staggering.” “I don’t think ever in the history of mankind have we proposed to industrialize an ecosystem this fast and at this magnitude,” she said. Zipf is executive director of Clean Ocean Action, a coalition of groups dedicated to protecting the ocean. Zipf acknowledges the pace at which the plans are moving forward is making efforts to slow or stop them difficult. “It’s challenging considering how fast-tracked everything is and how limited the permitting process is. It’s kind of under the jurisdiction of two people to make it happen, President Biden and Gov. Murphy,” she said. “Hopefully as more is understood there will be some more caution but as it is right now the (state and federal) agencies are very enthusiastic.” >click to read< 16:29
Natural Resources Defense Council Announces STATE OF EMERGENCY for Atlantic Whales By Jim Lovgren
The National Resources Defense Council [NRDC] in a press release has declared a state of emergency for Atlantic Whales. Here are some excerpts from a piece written by Francine Kershaw, NRDC’s leading east coast Marine mammal expert. “Something is happening off our Atlantic coast. Unprecedented numbers of great Whales are washing up dead on our shores.” Over the last few decades, the NRDC has successfully challenged the US Military in regard to sonar effects on marine organisms, while also challenging seismic activity related to oil exploration. Both of these issues have national security implications that require a more robust examination of the possible causes of the legal actions taken, and why they were taken. What’s NRDC’s excuse for ignoring the growing amount of dead Whale carcasses that keep washing up on east coast beaches, while the same research vessels that would have been doing the seismic and sonar research for the oil companies are doing it for the wind factories? >click to read< 17:58
Whale Slaughter Sees 500,000 Americans Demand End to Offshore Wind Power Onslaught
Half-a-million Americans are furious at the offshore wind industry for killing the last members of endangered whale species in droves with absolute impunity, thanks to the government-backed licenses that allow them to (quite lawfully) kill an unlimited number of whales, porpoises and dolphins – aka the ‘Incidental Harassment Authorization’. Hundreds of thousands of civic-minded folk are justifiably incensed at the entirely unnecessary carnage – the inevitable byproduct of an utterly meaningless power source – heavily subsidised and entirely weather-dependent and, therefore, incapable of delivering power as and when we need it. >click to read< 11:45
US Coast Guard Warns on Vessels Importing Wind Turbine Parts
The US Coast Guard Inspections and Compliance Directorate has released Marine Safety Information Bulletin 04-23 to advise mariners that an increasing number of break-bulk and retrofitted bulk carriers are arriving in the U.S. carrying wind turbine parts stowed in a manner that substantially limits visibility from the navigation bridge. In many cases, the vessels have been temporarily exempted from compliance with SOLAS 1974 Chapter V, Regulation 22, by their flag administration even though the vessel’s intended voyage requires substantial transit in restricted and congested waterways. The SOLAS requirements specify: >click to read< 14:37
Lawsuit claims US federal government violated regulations in approving Massachusetts offshore wind project
A Texas non-profit research institute that aims to promote free enterprise in Texas and the nation is acting on behalf of fishing companies in Massachusetts, a state 2,000 miles away, in a lawsuit that seeks to stop development of the Vineyard Wind offshore wind project. The Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF) has named the US Department of the Interior, the US Department of Commerce, the US Department of Defense and other agencies and individuals as defendants in the suit. The lawsuit, filed in December 2021, claims the defendants violated the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Water Act, the Marine Mammal Protection Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, and their respective rules and regulations. >click to read< 10:54
Offshore Wind Farm Company Vinyard Wind Begins Construction
Vineyard Wind hosted a tour on Monday at the Marine Commerce Terminal in New Bedford to show members of the media and the local business leaders of One SouthCoast Chamber the early construction of the Vineyard Wind 1 Project, the first offshore commercial-scale offshore wind project in the United States. The Vineyard Wind 1 project aims to construct an 800-megawatt, 62-turbine wind farm south of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket. The project is expected to be completed and delivering power by the end of the year. >click to read< 11:50
4 lawsuits threaten Vineyard Wind
The lawsuits against America’s first major offshore wind project are coming to a head. Four cases are challenging the federal environmental permit issued to Vineyard Wind, a 62-turbine facility being planned for construction in the waters off Martha’s Vineyard. A federal judge in Massachusetts heard arguments brought by landowners in two cases in recent weeks. The other two suits, brought by fishing groups, have been consolidated and will appear before the same judge for oral arguments in Boston on Monday. The cases against Vineyard Wind allege that the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management conducted an inadequate environmental review when it approved the project by failing to account for its impact on everything from fishermen to the critically endangered North American right whale. >click to read< 07:32
Nils Stolpe: How many statisticians does it take to….
Screw in a lightbulb? Trivialize the deaths of at least two dozen whales? Convince the world that the massive installation of wind power off our East Coast won’t irreparably damage our estuarine, inshore and offshore ecosystems? The folks at NOAA/NMFS (and with the convenient parroting of myriad so-called environmentalists, and BOEM, the other part of the federal cheerleading squad selling Ocean Wind as a major solution to our “energy crisis”) have declared that it hasn’t been proven that there aren’t any relationships between the extensive survey work being committed by Big Wind and the associated contractors and the two dozen deaths that have been visited upon several species of whales off New York and New Jersey. What is their proof? Inadequately enough, their “proof” boils down to the fact that they have seen no proof. To my way of thinking, that’s tantamount to convicting someone of murder because there is no proof that he or she isn’t a murderer. But it appears as if, as far as dead whales and President Biden’s and New Jersey’s Governor Murphy’s windmill fantasies are concerned, that’s good enough. At least for NOAA/NMFS, BOEM and a bunch of environmental organizations. Why? >click to read< 09:54
Biden’s Budget More Than Doubles Funding For Offshore Projects, Potentially ‘Putting American Fisherman Out Of Business’
Biden’s budget allocates $60 million to expand the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) offshore wind permitting activities, an initiative fishermen say will damage their businesses and environmental groups warn could be killing whales. Experts warn that wind projects disrupt the whale’s habitats and generate disorienting noise, factors that could be contributing to a recent increase in whale deaths. So far, their requests for the Biden administration to investigate have been fruitless. Fishermen are also sounding the alarm on offshore wind efforts. “Offshore wind will put American fishermen out of business,” said commercial fisherman Jerry Leeman. >click to read< 08:02
The Whale slaughter continues, but is this just the beginning? By Jim Lovgren
Another Humpback Whale washed ashore on a New Jersey beach on March 1st , the 12th known Whale to die since the start of December, along the New York, New Jersey shoreline, coincident with multiple research vessels using active Sonar, seismic Pingers, and Ultra High Resolution Seismic sparkers. As more research vessels ply our waters, more dead Whales wash up on the beach. This is just the start of the gigantic ecosystem changing industrialization of the US continental shelf from the Gulf of Maine to Florida. We now have 23 dead Whales on the east coast within a three month period, and despite what government officials claim, it is not a normal amount. >click to read< 07:55
NOAA and BOEM; Ignorance is Bliss. By Jim Lovgren
For about twenty years the Natural Resources Defense Council [NRDC] engaged the US Navy in a legal battle over the effects of the Navy’s use of Mid Frequency Sonar in training exercises and its impact on marine mammals and other creatures, with one case even reaching the US Supreme court. While there are many different aspects of NRDC’s legal actions, the results of the litigation have produced an enormous amount of scientific data and research regarding the effects of underwater sound on marine creatures, with an emphasis on Sonar and marine mammals. They forced the Navy to admit that their use of sonar had resulted in the unintentional mass strandings of many different marine Mammals in a dozen different instances around the world, primarily involving Beaked whales, that are classified as being low to mid frequency cetaceans. >click to read< 08:48
Doomed to Fail: In the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic, a quiet reckoning over offshore wind
Crippling European electricity prices, soaring Northeastern heating bills, looming diesel-fuel shortages, and OPEC+ drama have captured headlines for months. More quietly, offshore-wind energy developers are discovering their projects’ economic infeasibility, undermining states’ offshore-wind goal of generating 40,000 MW by 2040. The Biden Administration must recognize this is a pipe dream, or it will cost Americans billions trying to salvage an industry doomed to fail. October brought the first sign of troubles,,, Massachusetts’ Commonwealth Wind, Mayflower Wind project, New Jersey Ocean Wind. All three project developers originally negotiated prices far above wholesale market prices. All three qualified for a production tax credit and additional offshore-wind state tax credits. All three will qualify for a new 30 percent offshore wind investment tax credit which was not available when they made their initial bids. Yet this federal and state largesse has still failed to keep the projects afloat. >click to read this< 18:17
Wind Projects Off New England Put Endangered Right Whales at Risk, Warns NOAA Scientist
Planned wind projects off the New England coast threaten to harm the region’s dwindling population of endangered right whales, according to a US government marine scientist. The warning from a top National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration official, obtained by Bloomberg under a Freedom of Information Act request, underscores the potential legal and environmental perils of offshore wind development along the coast. President Joe Biden has a goal of deploying 30 gigawatts of offshore wind within the decade. Both initial construction of wind projects and decades of expected operation threaten to imperil right whales in southern New England waters, Sean Hayes, chief of the protected species branch at NOAA’s National Northeast Fisheries Science Center, said in a May 13 letter to Interior Department officials. >click to read< 11:26
Ocean City Presses Fight Against Offshore Wind Farm
The city has intensified its criticism of plans by developer Orsted, a Danish energy company, to run a transmission line under Ocean City’s streets to connect the offshore wind turbines to the land-based power grid at the former B.L. England Generating Station in Marmora. Critics have assailed the project as an offshore “industrial park” that would harm the environment, marine life, the commercial fishing industry and the shore’s critical tourism industry. They also say the towering turbine blades would be a visual blight when viewed from shore. “It affects all of our livelihoods,” said Michael DeVlieger, a former Ocean City councilman who is an outspoken opponent of the wind farm. >click to read< 11:40
Fishermen rally in Coos Bay against offshore wind farm
Fishermen along Oregon’s coast traveled great distances to get to Coos Bay Tuesday. They’re hoping to bring awareness to their beloved industry in the face of coming offshore wind farms. Fishermen and seafood processors are taking to the streets in support of the slogan, “Protect U.S. Fishermen.” The seafood community was joined by their families and supporters to rally at the Coos Bay Boardwalk ahead of a march down Front St. to the Coos Museum. “A lot of these wind farms that are coming in are right in the middle of prime commercial fishing grounds,” says Justin Johnson, a Newport fisherman. >click to read< 09:49
North Carolina: Offshore wind turbines interfere with ships’ radar, ability to navigate
Gov. Roy Cooper and the Biden Administration want to make North Carolina carbon neutral by 2050, and President Biden’s ambitious plans to combat climate change lean heavily on offshore wind generation. The turbines could be a problem for fishermen. North Carolina’s fishing industry has largely been cautious in criticizing the wind turbines, saying it wants to wait for more information. “Demolition derby on the high seas thanks to offshore industrial wind turbines? Amy Cooke asked. “Add maritime navigation and radar challenges to the long list of reasons, including high cost, unreliability, environmental damage and misleading nameplate capacity, as to why offshore industrial wind is absolutely horrible public policy.”>click to read< 11:13
Save the Gulf of Maine –The Maine Reset, Ep6: Small Fish in a Big Sea
Sedgwick, ME Lobsterman Brian Tripp shares his story, what he loves about lobstering & what he is most concerned about for the future. MLA’s Patrice McCarron talks about the legal fight to protect Maine’s fishing heritage. >click to watch the video< – This Vimeo video, Like Skyrocketing Electric Bills? Then You’ll LOVE Offshore Wind! is Ep: 5, which wasn’t allowed on You Tube, >Click to watch<. It’s a rigged game, and we are the pawns. To see all the videos in this series, >click here< 10:52
Biden-Harris Administration Sets Offshore Energy Records with $4.37 Billion in Winning Bids for Wind Sale
The Department of the Interior announced the results of the nation’s highest-grossing competitive offshore energy lease sale in history, including oil and gas lease sales, with the New York Bight offshore wind sale. These results are a major milestone towards achieving the Biden-Harris administration’s goal of reaching 30 gigawatts of offshore wind energy by 2030. Today’s lease sale offered six lease areas totaling over 488,000 acres in the New York Bight for potential wind energy development and drew competitive winning bids from six companies totaling approximately $4.37 billion. >click to read< 08:15
Energy Insecurity: Biden’s Policies Leave Americans Vulnerable to Unreliable Wind & Solar
With the magnitude of the renewable energy-driven disaster playing out in Europe hard to ignore, it seems incredible that American Green New Deal Democrats remain fixated on chaotically intermittent wind and solar. And yet, they show no signs of relenting on their determined path to inevitable energy insecurity; an approach that borders on National treachery. The only winners are, of course, the rent-seekers and crony capitalists who stand to profit from an endless stream of subsidies directed to the owners,,, Paul Driessen focuses on Virginia, It mostly means thousands of onshore and offshore wind turbines and millions of solar panels, covering 10-25 times the area of Washington, DC, Virginia’s 5,200 MW of offshore wind alone will require nearly 20,000 tons of copper. At an average of 0.44% copper in ore deposits worldwide, the copper alone would require mining and processing 4.5 million tons of ore, after removing some 7 million tons of overburden to reach the ore bodies. >click to read< 14:29
Who is the real Saudi Arabia of Wind? By David Goethel
I read the February 16th article by Teddy Rosenbluth, “New Hampshire is blowing its chance at offshore wind”, from the Concord Monitor, with interest and wished to offer some comment, both to the media covering New Hampshire, and the readers. By way of introduction, I am a research biologist and 54-year fisherman, both recreational and commercial, in the Gulf of Maine. First, I want to publicly thank both Governor Sununu and his energy spokesman, Assistant Commissioner of NH Dept. of Environmental Services, Mark Sanborn for taking a wise stand on collecting biological, ecological, economic and social implications of offshore wind development before leasing vast tracts of the Gulf of Maine. This stand is in marked contrast to other coastal governors and the Biden Administration, as well as European states, which have adopted a stance of build first and study later. >click to read< 20:18
Repeating the agenda “talking points”: Advocates say NH is blowing its chance at offshore wind – The Gulf of Maine, an area with strong and reliably blowing winds, is what Sen. David Watters called the “Saudi Arabia of wind.” >click to read<
Fishermen feeling the squeeze as Scotland’s seas become overcrowded
Fishers are being crowded out of their traditional grounds by a combination of renewable energy developments and “excessive” conservation measures, they said. These pressures may lead to vast areas of Scottish waters being closed off or subjected to severe restrictions, they warned. “Coastal communities currently reap the benefits of the seafood brought back by our sustainable, modern, family-owned fishing fleet. “Profits from offshore windfarms will disappear into the budgets of private, wealthy, multinational energy firms.” >click to read< 10:05
Let Them Freeze: Wind & Solar Generators Couldn’t Care Less About Your Welfare
The wind and solar industries couldn’t care less whether you freeze to death when winter bites across the northern hemisphere and wind and solar output collapse. Solar panels plastered in snow and ice produce nothing; wind turbines frozen solid during breathless, frigid weather produce even less (they actually consume power from the grid to run heating systems meant to prevent their internal workings suffering permanent damage). So, if 
you’re sitting freezing in the dark, don’t expect wind and solar power generators to come to your rescue. No, if the lights and power are on this winter, then you ought to raise a glass for the gas, coal and nuclear power generators separating you and your loved ones from a date with hypothermia and, ultimately, the morgue. >click to read< 11:48
Save the Gulf of Maine – The Maine Reset Part 2, Fait Accompli?
First, we look at a basic chronology of the interplay between the State of Maine, the University of Maine, and private entities RWE Renewables and Diamond Offshore Wind (subsidiary of Mitsubishi) as they have joined forces in a venture of enormous importance. They partnered on a prototype of future wind turbines (Aqua Ventus I). Then they began working on an array of a dozen turbines. How many more turbines will follow? The wind developers have been clear that the first array is only the beginning of industrializing the Gulf of Maine. Then, we look in detail at some of the likely 
environmental impacts of industrial floating wind on marine life. It’s not a pretty picture. Yet, many large entities whose missions include protecting the environment have given ocean industrialization their blessing. Will they change their minds when they learn the full scope of impact? Video, Click to watch<, Watch the first episode, Road to Disaster – Voices of Maine Lobstermen >click to watch< 11:01
Furious Fishermen Take On Offshore Wind Industry Wrecking Atlantic Fishing Grounds
The offshore wind ‘industry’ has been given a lesson by Atlantic fishermen: don’t mess with another man’s livelihood. Which is precisely what’s been happening up and down the Atlantic coast for years now. An Italian owned outfit, US Wind has been infuriating local fishermen for years. In one of its recent outrages, its survey ship managed to destroy one local fishermen’s gear, despite his efforts to intervene. Not only did Jimmy Hahn lose his precious pots, ripped up by US Wind’s survey vessel, the fact that a quarter of them were destroyed or damaged meant that he lost the opportunity to fish and earn income. >click to read< 09:14
