Tag Archives: floating offshore wind farms
Floating wind farms threaten to destroy Scotland’s fishing sector
The Scottish Fishermen’s Federation (SFF) said despite efforts to find a solution to the problem, mobile fishing, and floating offshore wind farms “are simply not able to co-exist”. Speaking at the SFF’s annual dinner in Edinburgh – which was attended by First Minister John Swinney – Elspeth Macdonald said the renewable projects are an existential threat to jobs in the sector. She warned the Scottish Government about “sleep-walking” into supporting an industry that she claimed could “destroy our world-class food production”. She told the audience at the Scotsman Hotel: “Our businesses will be completely excluded from areas that have been fished for generations, and the consequences of that – on businesses, on people, on the environment – are simply not known. more, >>CLICK TO READ<< 09:01
Days on the water, nights at Town Office: Harpswell lobsterman advocates for working waterfront on 7 committees
Matt Gilley stood in front of a shelf in his Cundy’s Harbor home. It holds a collection of marine oddities from the bottom of lobster traps, such as unique lobster claws, a seahorse, and a full-sized clam that grew inside a Coke bottle. “The fun part of it is, you don’t know what’s going to come up,” he said. Gilley himself is a rarity in Harpswell. In a town with 216 miles of coastline and “working waterfront” on many local signs, he is one of a small group of commercial lobstermen involved in town government, spending his mornings on the water and his evenings advocating for those who work on it. “I want to see lobstering continue, and the only way for that to continue is for there to be another generation,” he said. “If I can do anything to conserve what little we have left so other people can do it, I’m going to do it.” Photos, more, >>CLICK TO READ<< 09:10
Feds say “damn the whales” in the Gulf of Maine
Biden’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) proposes to build a huge amount of floating offshore wind in the Gulf of Maine. As required by law, it has published for public comment a draft Environmental Assessment of the area designated for this monster project. But insanely, there is no assessment of the project, just of the area without the project. I am not making this up. This place is properly called the Wind Energy Area (WEA) because that is where the wind energy will come from. BOEM says they plan to issue eight leases initially with a monster development potential of 15,000 MW. Given that 15 MW is the biggest turbine available that amounts to 1,000 or more huge turbines. A second phase might add another thousand of so. more, >>CLICK TO READ<< 12:29
Maine DOT seeks $456 million federal grant to help fund wind port on Sears Island
The Dirigo Atlantic Floating Offshore Wind Port Project. The Maine Department of Transportation said May 17 that it has applied for $456 million in grant funding from the federal government to help construct the East Coast’s first floating offshore wind port on a portion of state-owned Sears Island that is reserved for port development. “Maine has a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to help transform our economy, protect our environment, create good-paying jobs, and support the generation of clean, affordable, reliable energy for Maine and the region,” said Bruce Van Note, Commissioner of the Maine Department of Transportation, in a news release. “At the direction of Governor Mills, we will work collaboratively across the Administration to bring every federal dollar available to Maine to help us seize this opportunity for our people, our environment, and our future.” more, >>CLICK TO READ<< 11:33
Equinor Names California Floating Wind Project
Equinor has announced the name of its floating offshore wind project off the coast of California, Atlas Wind. The lease area, which lies 60 miles from Morro Bay, has the capacity to provide over 2GW of reliable, renewable power, enough to power 1.7 million California homes once complete. California is poised to become a growing force in the US energy transition with a nation-leading target of 25GW of offshore wind energy by 2045. Approximately two-thirds of the United States’ offshore wind energy potential lies in deep coastal waters, like the Pacific Ocean, where water depths reach 1,000 meters (3,280 feet) or more. more, >>click to read<< 11:36
Feds ask for public comment on two Oregon Coast sites slated for floating offshore wind farms
Two sites off the southern Oregon coast could soon be home to the state’s first floating offshore wind farms. But first, the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management will meet with residents and stakeholders in coastal towns, some of whom are concerned about impact to the fishing industry and marine ecosystems. Officials from the ocean energy bureau announced Tuesday that they had identified two ideal “wind energy areas” near Coos Bay and Brookings. The two areas are 20 or more miles from land, collectively encompass about 344 square miles of ocean and could host enough floating wind turbines to generate 2.6 gigawatts of electricity, enough to power about 195,000 homes. >click to read< 10:29
Panel discusses impact of offshore wind on West Coast fisheries
The Biden administration has called for deploying 30 gigawatts of offshore wind energy to combat climate change by 2030. Depending on where the turbines are placed, they could displace highly productive fishing grounds that account for billions of dollars and thousands of jobs in Oregon, Washington and California. Projects must be planned carefully using the best available science to mitigate potential damage, according to a panel of experts who spoke March 1 at the Northwest Offshore Wind Conference in downtown Portland. >click to read< 11:52
HEY POLITICIANS !!! The levelized cost of floating offshore wind farms – It is a financial disaster.
Last year, I wrote a blog post setting out the financial situation of Hywind, the UK’s first commercial floating offshore windfarm, and indeed the first in the world. It was an ugly tale, with a hugely lossmaking operation kept in the black only by a vast transfer of subsidies. However, Hywind has recently published its second set of financial results since it became fully operational,,, Situated off Peterhead, in what appears to be something of a sweet spot for wind, yadda. yadda, Meanwhile its costs are extraordinarily high. We already knew that its capital cost, at £8.9m/MW. was around three times the that of fixed offshore wind. But its opex costs are also much higher, >click to read<, Also a follow up article: “Clues to the levelised cost of tidal stream” – Yesterday, I set out the levelised cost of floating offshore wind turbines. In this article, I will look at what we know about the levelised cost of tidal stream energy, and show that it is probably even higher. >click to read< 15:32
Equinor to trial safe fishing with floating offshore wind farm at Hywind Scotland. No Dragging, though.
Hywind Scotland’s operator Equinor and Scottish government agency Marine Scotland will work together to better understand how fishers can safely operate around and within floating offshore wind farms. In a survey scheduled for 2022, Marine Scotland will test three kinds of fishing gear: creels, fish traps and jigging lines at Hywind Scotland.,, California dreaming – Elsewhere in floating offshore wind, BOEM has decided to determine industry interest in developing offshore wind at two sites in a 1,033km2 area off central California,,, >click to read< 22:05
