Monthly Archives: May 2017

In the 2017 State of the State, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo proposed an unprecedented commitment: to develop up to 2.4 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2030, enough to power 1.25 million homes.

Benefits of offshore wind:

NYSERDA is the lead agency coordinating offshore wind opportunities in the State, which will support the ambitious Clean Energy Standard to meet 50 percent of New York's electricity needs with renewable sources by 2030. In support of the Governors proposal, NYSERDA continues to work closely with coastal communities and the fishing and maritime industries to identify offshore wind sites to be included in New York States Offshore Wind Master Plan.

Read the Offshore Wind in New York State Fact Sheet [PDF]

Like all energy resources, offshore wind must be developed thoughtfully and responsibly. NYSERDA is starting with a Blueprint, which outlines a process, steps, and timeline to develop the States Offshore Wind Master Plan. The Blueprint also describes how valuable stakeholder feedback will be pursued to inform the Master Plan. Activities listed in the Blueprint launch in the fall of 2016 and are expected to conclude with a completed Master Plan by the end of 2017.

Read the Blueprint for the New York State Offshore Wind Master Plan [PDF]

The New York State Offshore Wind Master Plan will be the comprehensive strategy for developing offshore wind resources in New York State. It will provide recommendations on the best solutions for maximizing the potential for offshore wind in the State. Elements of the Master Plan will include:

Sign up to receive all the latest news about offshore wind in New York State, including upcoming stakeholder meetings, relevant solicitations, and results of NYSERDA studies and surveys.

Read this article:

Offshore Wind - NYSERDA

A Dutch offshore wind farm: CREDIT: AP/Peter Dejong,File

The price of offshore wind power has been dropping so quickly that it threatens to upend the electricity industry around the world.

Last month, Denmarks Dong Energy, the worlds largest provider of offshore wind farms, won a German power auction without needing any subsidies. Dong is a rebranding from Danish Oil and Natural Gas, as the company sells off its fossil fuel businesses to become a clean energy leader.

Average global prices of off-shore wind dropped a game-changing 28 percent last year. Ray Thompson, chief of business development at Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy said last month that its staggering to think that in not much more than five years, we could have turned a technology seen as prohibitively expensive into the lowest cost, utility-scale technology available.

By 2016, offshore wind prices had nearly dropped to the level the UK government offers for new nuclear plantsand would likely soon beat them, Thompson told the EnergyCollective. Thats doubly true given the historical cost escalations of nuclear power.

And based on current forecasts, explained Thompson, the point at which offshore wind can compete with the lowest cost of new electricity plants [new combined cycle gas plants] is surely in sight.

Offshore wind has two very desirable features: First, its near where many people live and pay high prices for power, but where other renewable resources are often limited. About half the U.S. population lives in coastal areas, for instance.

Second, offshore winds tend to blow harder and more uniformly than on land, explains the U.S. Interior Departments Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM). That matters because the energy produced by wind is directly proportional to wind speed cubed. A site where wind speed averages 16 miles per hour delivers 50 percent more power than one where it averages 14 mph.

Also, with steadier winds, offshore farms have a high capacity factor, which is the percentage of a power plants maximum generation that is actually achieved over a full year. An onshore wind farm that can put out 100 megawatt hours of electricity during times of peak wind, for example, typically only produces 25 percent averaged over a year. Thats a 25 percent capacity factor. The average capacity factor for solar is even less.

But the capacity factors keep getting better for wind, as this as Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) chart shows:

Wind farms in the windiest locations now generate full power the equivalent of half the time. But the windiest locations on land are often far from population centers, whereas the steadier coastal winds are close by.

New offshore wind turbines are already at a 50 percent capacity factorand as they get taller and more efficient that will rise to 60 percent and higher.

As capacity factors and prices improve, offshore wind will become even more attractive. Once built, the marginal cost of operating a wind (or solar) plant is pretty much zerofree electricitywhile coal and gas plants require more fuel for every new watt produced, as BNEF explained last year. Choosing free zero-pollution power over costly dirty power isnt a tough choice for utilities or most countries.

That trend led BNEF to a stunning conclusion: As natural gas and coal plants are increasingly idled in favor of renewables, their capacity factors will take a big hit, and lifetime cost of those plants goes up. Think of them as the expensive back-up power for cheap renewables.

See more here:

Offshore wind won a German power auction without needing any subsidies - ThinkProgress

Bradenton Herald

Crosthwait begins 34th year with professional tournament and start of offshore event Bradenton Herald With less than 12 hours until Friday's start to the offshore competition of the Crosthwait Memorial Fishing Tournament, the Palmetto-based event had four boats enrolled. Winds forecast to be 15-20 knots through most of the weekend in the Gulf of Mexico ... and more »

Read the original:

Crosthwait begins 34th year with professional tournament and start of offshore event - Bradenton Herald

ATHENS Greece's energy minister held talks on Friday with representatives of U.S. oil major ExxonMobil and France's Total about gas exploration opportunities off Greek shores, the energy ministry said.

A government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said a consortium of ExxonMobil, Total and Greece's biggest oil refiner Hellenic Petroleum are expected to submit an offer "in the coming period" for exploration south of Crete.

Friday's meeting focused on "prospects for exploration and exploitation of hydrocarbon deposits," the energy ministry said in a statement.

Greece has made several fruitless attempts over the last 50 years to find big oil and gas reserves, but its debt crisis has prompted it to step up those efforts.

Athens previously tendered blocks off Crete, its southernmost island north of Egypt and Libya and west of Cyprus, in 2013 but did not receive bids.

The country is also hoping to find gas off western Greece and last year named a consortium of Total, Hellenic Petroleum and Italy's Edison as the preferred bidder for an offshore gas drilling block in the Ionian Sea. Licensing is expected this year.

Exploring for gas in the Mediterranean has become more attractive since Italy's Eni discovered Egypt's offshore Zohr field in the Levant Basin in 2015, the biggest gas field in the Mediterranean and estimated to contain 850 billion cubic meters of gas.

(Reporting by Karolina Tagaris, Lefteris Papadimas and Angeliki Koutantou; Editing by Susan Fenton)

NEW YORK/LONDON/SINGAPORE After the first OPEC oil production cut in eight years took effect in January, oil traders from Houston to Singapore started emptying millions of barrels of crude from storage tanks.

LONDON The London Metal Exchange (LME) started publishing its Commitments of Traders Report (COTR) in July 2014.

VIENNA An OPEC panel reviewing scenarios for the oil producer group's meeting next week is looking at the option of deepening and extending a deal to reduce crude output, OPEC sources said on Friday, in an attempt to drain inventories and support prices.

Read more:

ExxonMobil, Total discuss offshore drilling opportunities in Greece ... - Reuters

Be careful what you wish for ...

So many young Australian soccer players, tempted by the prospect of big money or the chance to play in countries where football is the main sport, take their chances and move overseas to further their careers.

All seems well when they set out.

The ink on the contract has just dried, the coach has either told them or their agent that they are a crucial part of their new club's plans going forward, and the owner of the club is on hand to dispense warm greetings and a positive story about where his team is going.

And it's always up. To the top of the league, to promotion, to intercontinental competition.

Even though the young Australian may not be a star, he is assured that he will be a key component of the exciting journey they are all about to undergo.

If he's lucky, the player moves into an apartment, the club provide him with a car, and his salary arrives in his nominated bank account on a weekly, fortnightly or monthly basis.

The team does well, he gets plenty of minutes, begins to attract the attention of scouts and managers from bigger clubs in his new country or from more developed football markets, and his career takes off.

That happens quite often if a player is good enough, and if he goes to the right country, where basic legal frameworks and employment law cover his workplace conditions and rights.

If he is good enough, he can then make the leap to the big time as, in years gone by, players like Lucas Neill, Tim Cahill, Mark Schwarzer, Mark Bresciano, John Aloisi and Vince Grella, who started with lower tier clubs in England, Germany and Italy, did.

Sadly its not always the case.

Some agents are more diligent or simply have more staff and support than others and can smell a rat, or at least decide that the protagonists on the other end of a deal are too dodgy or dubious to work with.

Others, lacking those resources, may steer a young and impressionable player into a move that will quickly end up going sour and leave their career in limboand perhaps well out of pocket.

The downside works like this.

The player gets to a foreign country where he finds that, contrary to expectations, the apartment has not been hired, the car isn't there.

The coach, who seemed so keen in the negotiations, seems not to be bothered that much now, particularly as his attention is more focussed on keeping his job given a recent run of bad results.

The owner, who was so happy to talk the club up, is now reportedly in talks with interested consortia on selling out ostensibly to those with deeper pockets who can "deliver the sort of success the fans deserve".

The coach, who has given the young Australian a few outings off the bench but no starts in his first few weeks, pays the price for more disappointing results and is sacked. The owner is desperate to keep the team in the hunt so that it can be sold for a better price to would-be investors who are going cold now that relegation looks to be a real possibility.

Another older, more experienced coach, is brought in, a man who specialises in firefighting and getting teams out of the relegation zone.

He brings in his cadre of assistants and advisers, hardened men focussed on results and the short term.

He has never heard of the young Australian player, knows little or nothing about him and, desperate to keep the team in the division, signs some local veterans who may not have much career upside but know how to kick, fight and claw their way out of a sticky situation.

Having little use for the young foreigner, who is being paid more than the locals, the owner now decides to cut his losses.

The fact that the player has a two-year contract can mean little in some jurisdictions.

The coach tells him he doesn't want him training with or near the first team, and the youngster has to go and train with the under 18s. His promising career is in limbo, his development stalled, and his match fitness fading.

Then suddenly the rent on his apartment isn't paid, his salary isn't arriving on time, and, alone in a foreign land, lacking language skills and any support, things start to look very bleak.

In the end he cuts his losses, tells his agent to find a new client, tells the club owner that he will leave if they pay his air fare home and forego all or part of the salary he is owed, reasoning that he can return to the A-League and, if he is lucky, reboot his career if coaches there haven't forgotten who he is.

Okay, this is a composite horror story.

But all the elements it contains are true, and have (and probably still are), happening to many young Australian players who think the grass is greener elsewhere.

It surely is, if you can make it to the top, in one of the bigger leagues in a stable, well-run country where employment practices and customs are in place. But it's something of which even experienced players have to be wary.

The PFA, the players union, has been dealing with such cases for donkey's years.

It used to largely be eastern Europe and the Balkanswhere Australian players would be lured to chase the dream at second-tier clubs in some of the bigger leagues in that region Greece, Turkey, Romania, Serbia, Croatia, Russia.

For some, like Mark Viduka and Josip Skoko 20 years ago, Mile Jedinak more recently, it might work out and prove to be a springboard to their dreams of a Premier League future.

For many, however, it presages a spiral of decline, disappointment and disillusion.

Where once it was eastern Europe, it is now the cashed-up leagues of south-east Asia where disappointment often lies.

The same cycle is being repeated there in boom-and-bust competitions where promises are made, and often broken.

Player unions around the world are left to pick up the pieces.

There was a stark reminder that this can happen to anyone here in Australia in recent days when Robbie Kruse and James Holland, two well-established internationals particularly the former walked out on their Chinese club, Liaoning Whowin, because their wages have not been paid.

Kruse had travelled to China as a Socceroo of several years' standing and with half a decade's experience in the German Bundesliga, most of it with one of the top teams, Bayer Leverkusen, under his belt. But it was to no avail.

In part the pair have been victims of China's new foreign player rules which changed as they arrived in the country, so that can't be laidback to them, or their agents.

But it's another example of what can go wrong if you are unlucky. They are now free agents and looking for other clubs. They have established track records, so should be successful. But for those who haven't, be careful what you wish for.

Follow this link:

Grass is sometimes greener, but offshore pitfalls abound for young players - The Sydney Morning Herald