Daily Archives: December 12, 2019

New Task Force Will Consider Leases For Offshore Wind Energy Developers In The Gulf Of Maine

A new task force will convene for the first time Thursday to consider how and where to lease potentially vast swathes of the Gulf of Maine to offshore wind-energy developers. The outcome could have big consequences for Maine's fishing industry, and for the state's role in the next wave of renewable energy development.

An earlier round of auctions awarded leases in federal waters off southern New England, where several large-scale wind projects should soon start churning out thousands of megawatts of electricity a big down payment on state commitments to ramp up the use of renewable energy.

Now, at New Hampshire Gov. John Sununu's request, the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management is starting a new process to designate the best areas for offshore wind projects farther north in the Gulf of Maine. Analysts say investments could be worth billions of dollars, with thousands of jobs in the offing.

"This is a really significant opportunity for our energy future and economy," says Dan Burgess.

Burgess directs Maine Gov. Janet Mills' energy office, and he is leading the state's delegation to the intergovernmental task force that will advise the Bureau Of Ocean Energy Management. The panel also includes representatives from New Hampshire, Massachusetts, tribal governments and the feds.

One challenge for Maine, Burgess says, will be to pursue offshore wind opportunities without harming fishing or shipping industries and the Gulf's ecosystems.

"Any development really does have to consider existing commercial maritime interests and habitat as well. And we really do want to bring that full lens to this process."

Burgess says some major wind developers are showing interest in Maine. That would mark a change from the sector's recent doldrums in the state.

Jeremy Payne, the executive director of the Maine Renewable Energy Association, says former Gov. Paul LePage stalled ocean wind development off Maine when he intervened in an offshore energy bid that had been won by a Norwegian company called Statoil which prompted the company to withdraw from the state altogether.

"Reputationally, the state really suffered, particularly in the last couple of years of the LePage Administration when there was so much uncertainty created by the Governor's constant public criticism, says Payne. So companies that were interested in Maine either started looking elsewhere or, at a minimum, put their early development projects on the back burner."

But Mills and the Legislature got things back under way again this year, directing utility regulators to finalize a contract for electricity from a pilot project for a floating turbine system led by the University of Maine, called Aqua-Ventus, to be located in state waters off Monhegan Island.

It's an important first effort, Payne says. He notes that the continental shelf extends far offshore of southern New England, allowing for the installation of well-developed fixed-platform wind technologies in those relatively shallow waters. But off Maine, the shelf drops off closer to shore, which would force the use of more experimental floating platforms.

But if the feds open up new lease areas, and Maine lawmakers authorize new long-term contracts, Payne says, the market is likely to follow.

"And perhaps a year or so from now we'll see another procurement, and that really will get the industry's attention and say 'you need to look at Maine.'"

But that worries some in the state's fishing industries. Ben Martens is the executive director of the Maine Coast Fishermen's Association.

"I think this could be much bigger than whales when it comes to the impacts it could have on our fishing industry in the Gulf of Maine," he says.

Martens says offshore wind development could rival pending federal action to protect endangered North Atlantic right whales that, right now, has the lobster industry up in arms.

He says fishermen are concerned about conflict with the multiple anchors and cables needed for floating platforms. And in the Monhegan area, he adds, fishermen feel burned by their experience with Aqua Ventus.

"They've really bungled the rollout of that project, to the extent where fishermen just don't trust them anymore because they keep on changing, they keep updating, the story is different every time they talk to the fishing communities, says Martens. And so there's a lot of fear right now around offshore wind that didn't exist before that project started."

Aqua Ventus officials could not be reached for comment.

State Energy Director Dan Burgess notes that there will be representatives of the Maine's Department of Marine Resources on the offshore wind task force. And fishing industry representatives will participate in Bureau Of Ocean Energy Management processes as well.

The agency's guidelines call for lease areas to be identified within two years, and for leases to be auctioned within four.

See original here:

New Task Force Will Consider Leases For Offshore Wind Energy Developers In The Gulf Of Maine - Maine Public

COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - Denmark is moving forward with plans to build an artificial island tying in power from offshore wind farms of up to 10 gigawatts (GW) of capacity, more than enough to supply all households, as part of efforts to meet ambitious climate change targets.

Denmark is home to wind turbine giant Vestas and the worlds largest developer of offshore wind,, and recently approved a law which targets reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 70% by 2030.

The energy ministry is looking for the right location to build one or more islands surrounded by offshore wind farms with a total capacity of at least 10 GW - equivalent to 10 million European households electricity consumption.

Denmark covered 41% of its electricity demand from wind energy in 2018, the highest level in Europe.

The project is crucial to meet Denmarks legally binding climate act, one of the worlds most ambitious, which was passed by a broad majority in parliament on Friday.

But the plans could cost as much as 200-300 billion Danish crowns ($29.5-44.2 billion), the vast majority of which will be financed by private investors, according to the ministry.

Denmark, which has a population of around 6 million, has set aside 65 million crowns to research how the energy coming into the hub can be stored or converted into renewable hydrogen as all the power generated will not just be used by domestic customers.

It hopes that new technology will make it possible to replace fossil fuels with renewable energy in sectors such as transport and industry.

If we really are to realize the enormous potential of offshore wind we must develop technologies of the future to convert the green power into fuel for aircraft, ships and industry, said climate and energy minister Dan Jorgensen on Tuesday.

Hydrogen produces water when it burns rather than the greenhouse gas CO2, offering a clean fuel if it is produced from renewable sources such as wind or solar energy, rather than from oil and gas, the source for much of the hydrogen produced now.

Interest in renewable hydrogen is growing as heavy industry, aviation and shipping look for ways to reduce their carbon footprint.

Energy firm Orsted has said it aims to invest in pilot projects that will use wind power and other renewable energy sources to make hydrogen fuel.

Reporting by Stine Jacobsen, editing by Louise Heavens

See original here:

Denmark plans $30 billion offshore wind island that could power 10 million homes - Reuters

COPENHAGEN: Denmark is moving forward with plans to build an artificial island tying in power from offshore wind farms of up to 10 gigawatts (GW) of capacity, more than enough to supply all households, as part of efforts to meet ambitious climate change targets.

Denmark is home to wind turbine giant Vestas and the world's largest developer of offshore wind,, and recently approved a law which targets reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 70 per cent by 2030.

The energy ministry is looking for the right location to build one or more islands surrounded by offshore wind farms with a total capacity of at least 10 GW - equivalent to 10 million European households' electricity consumption.

Denmark covered 41 per cent of its electricity demand from wind energy in 2018, the highest level in Europe.

The project is crucial to meet Denmark's legally binding climate act, one of the world's most ambitious, which was passed by a broad majority in parliament on Friday.

But the plans could cost as much as 200-300 billion Danish crowns ($29.5-44.2 billion), the vast majority of which will be financed by private investors, according to the ministry.

Denmark, which has a population of around 6 million, has set aside 65 million crowns to research how the energy coming into the hub can be stored or converted into renewable hydrogen as all the power generated will not just be used by domestic customers.

It hopes that new technology will make it possible to replace fossil fuels with renewable energy in sectors such as transport and industry.

"If we really are to realise the enormous potential of offshore wind we must develop technologies of the future to convert the green power into fuel for aircraft, ships and industry," said climate and energy minister Dan Jorgensen on Tuesday.

Hydrogen produces water when it burns rather than the greenhouse gas CO2, offering a clean fuel if it is produced from renewable sources such as wind or solar energy, rather than from oil and gas, the source for much of the hydrogen produced now.

Interest in renewable hydrogen is growing as heavy industry, aviation and shipping look for ways to reduce their carbon footprint.

Energy firm Orsted has said it aims to invest in pilot projects that will use wind power and other renewable energy sources to make hydrogen fuel.

Continue reading here:

Denmark plans $30 bn offshore wind island that could power 10 million homes - Economic Times

A humpback whale feeds on a school of fish off Long Island, New York. Migrating whales have increased dramatically in this region in recent decades but they're also facing human challenges. David 'Dee' Delgado/WCS/Ocean Giants/Image taken under NMFS MMPA/ESA Permit no. 18786-04 hide caption

A humpback whale feeds on a school of fish off Long Island, New York. Migrating whales have increased dramatically in this region in recent decades but they're also facing human challenges.

"Tail! Tail!" shouts Dr. Howard Rosenbaum, a marine biologist, before grabbing his crossbow, as we close in on a humpback whale.

Rosenbaum gets into position on the bow of the boat, stands firmly with legs apart, takes aim, and fires at the 40-foot cetacean. The arrow that he releases doesn't have a point it has a hollow 2-inch tip to collect skin and blubber, and a cork-like stopper to prevent it from penetrating too deeply.

"Oh, yeah!" come shouts from the small research crew. The hit looks clean. Sure enough, when they scoop the floating arrow out of the water, its tip is filled with a small white sliver of whale flesh, containing DNA that will help identify the humpback and its pod and potentially say something about its migratory patterns.

This is the sort of research that Rosenbaum, the director of the Wildlife Conservation Society's "Ocean Giants" program, has been doing for decades around the globe. Recently, though, whale monitoring has taken on a new urgency in Rosenbaum's own native habitat the Atlantic waters off New York City and Long Island.

A pointless arrow tip, shot by crossbow into a humpback whale, captures skin and blubber for DNA testing. David 'Dee' Delgado/WCS/Ocean Giants/Image taken under NMFS MMPA/ESA Permit no. 18786-04 hide caption

A pointless arrow tip, shot by crossbow into a humpback whale, captures skin and blubber for DNA testing.

As whale populations have grown, the WCS and its collaborator, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, have been monitoring them, with an eye toward mediating conflicts with the ocean's heaviest users: cargo ships, commercial fishing trawlers and the U.S. military.

Now, the whales are poised to get many new, potentially disruptive neighbors: hundreds of skyscraper-high wind turbines, rising from the ocean floor.

The New York Energy Research and Development Authority has awarded two large contracts for offshore wind and anticipates several more in the coming years. The first phase, expected to be complete by 2024, involves dozens of wind turbines in two different offshore plots, leased by energy companies from the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. They would generate 1700 megawatts enough to power more than one million homes.

These would be the largest offshore wind farms in North America and among the largest in the world. Subsequent phases are slated to build hundreds of turbines to generate 9,000 megawatts by 2035.

Rosenbaum's mission is to share information about the whales, in particular their feeding and migratory patterns, with regulators and the energy developer, a Norwegian multinational corporation called Equinor, and together craft strategies to mitigate damage to the whales' habitat.

"Everyone is interested in the benefits of renewable energy and what that does for our climate and for society," Rosenbaum says, as the boat motors to Equinor's lease area, an 80,000-acre triangle 20 miles south of Queens and Nassau County. "We also want to protect the wildlife and these habitats.'

Equinor is primarily a fossil fuel developer, drilling for oil and natural gas around the globe. A spokeswoman for the company's North American operation says the company has a "zero harm mandate" when it comes to extracting natural resources which they hope to exceed in this project.

Environmentalists are naturally skeptical of such energy producers, but the major groups in the region believe the risks posed by climate change, to ocean life and all life, are so vast that they justify whatever risks to local habitat might come from offshore wind farms. They're hopeful the trade-offs will be minimal.

"It's possible to harmonize protections for marine life with ambitious efforts to fight the climate crisis," says Francine Kershaw, from the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Catherine Bowes, from the National Wildlife Federation, praises Equinor for committing to a new construction technology that will lower enormous prefabricated cement foundations for the wind turbines, rather than pile-driving into bedrock to hold the 850-foot-tall steel towers in place.

Whales are extremely sensitive to noise, she says, so avoiding the extremely noisy process of pile-driving is a big step.

"These 'gravity foundations' are a really exciting technology that could change how everyone puts up turbines," says Bowes, who is a member of the Environmental Working Group overseeing New York's two projects. "They could potentially take one really large threat to whales off the table."

But Bowes would also like to see Equinor and the other company that won a New York contract, the Danish corporation Orsted, put into writing strict commitments comparable to one made recently by a Massachusetts developer, Vineyard Wind, especially on how they manage their boats during construction and then later, during the multi-decade-long operational period.

"Ship strikes are the single greatest risk to whales," she says. "We need to get all developers to commit to actively monitoring for whales and to reducing ship speeds to avoid hitting the animals."

In one study, NOAA estimated that 37 whales were killed by boat strikes between 2010 and 2014, from the Gulf of Mexico up the Atlantic coast to Canada, but more recent monitoring by the Atlantic Marine Conservation Society found roughly that many whales killed by boats in a two-year period off New York alone.

"We believe we can actually be part of the solution here in bringing back whales and improving the whole ecosystem," says Julia Bovey, Equinor's director of external affairs in New York. "The data Howard and his team are collecting can make a massive difference in how we affect the marine environment."

Equinor is underwriting much of the research. The company declined to say how much it is spending, but Rosenbaum estimates that two sophisticated buoys they will soon deploy will cost "hundreds of thousands of dollars." These "near-real-time acoustic monitors" record whale calls and relay them to on-shore scientists via satellite.

Howard Rosenbaum, from the Wildlife Conservation Society, keeps an eye out for whales while a special high-tech buoy 'listens' for their calls. David 'Dee' Delgado/WCS/Ocean Giants/Image taken under NMFS MMPA/ESA Permit no. 18786-04 hide caption

Howard Rosenbaum, from the Wildlife Conservation Society, keeps an eye out for whales while a special high-tech buoy 'listens' for their calls.

"We need to be able to stop construction when the whales are in the area and be able to construct responsibly when they're not there, and the information from these buoys will be crucial," Bovey says.

While all whales are considered vulnerable, the North Atlantic Right Whale is among the most endangered animals on earth. There are only about 400 of them, according to the latest research by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration.

There are two sets of dangers to whales that Rosenbaum hopes the data he's collecting will mitigate. The first is ship strikes during the construction period. The other is the long-term danger the massive underwater structures and the transmission cables might pose to the whales. That is largely unknown, as whales do not migrate through the massive offshore wind farms in Europe.

"Does it create better foraging areas for whales? Does it disturb an area they might use?" Rosenbaum wonders aloud. "I think these are all questions that are all going to be borne out in the years to come."

The wind farm project predates a massive greenhouse gas reduction package the state government passed earlier this year, but it has become a centerpiece of what Gov. Andrew Cuomo is calling New York's 'Green New Deal.' The legislation calls for 100% renewable energy by 2040, with a plan for reaching that goal to be mapped out in the next two years.

Original post:

Offshore Wind May Help The Planet But Will It Hurt Whales? - NPR

New Hampshires Governor Chris Sununu has signed an executive order preparing the US State for future offshore wind development and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) Offshore Renewable Energy Task Force.

The Executive Order 2019-06 establishes four advisory boards focused on informing New Hampshires next steps, while calling on state agencies to report on key studies.

New Hampshire recognizes the tremendous potential that offshore wind power has to offer, said Governor Sununu.

With todays executive order, New Hampshire will ensure that this is an open and transparent process involving diverse stakeholders to balance existing offshore uses with a new source of clean energy. This will require enhanced coordination between state agencies, new studies, and continuous engagement with the public. Most of all, its imperative that we go through this process the right way from day one to maximize all the potential benefits of this new industry.

This executive order lays the foundation for a stakeholder process informed by best practices from other states and ensures New Hampshires interests are first and foremost, the announcement said. The first BOEM Intergovernmental Renewable Energy Task Force Meeting for the Gulf of Maine is Thursday, 12 December, at the University of New Hampshire.

The executive order establishes four advisory boards to work with stakeholders, and advise New Hampshire members of the BOEM Task Force throughout the process. The four advisory boards are Fisheries, endangered species, and environmental impacts advisory board; Workforce, economic development, and supply chain advisory board; Existing offshore industries advisory board; and Siting, transmission, and infrastructure advisory board.

All meetings will be open to the public, and each advisory board will report updates to the New Hampshire members of the BOEM Task Force quarterly and in advance of formal BOEM Task Force meetings.

Additionally, the executive order also instructs the Office of Strategic Initiatives (OSI), the Department of Environmental Services (DES), and the Department of Business and Economic Affairs (BEA) to jointly study and report on the historical and forward-looking greenhouse gas reduction potential of offshore wind in the Gulf of Maine at varying levels of system installations; and New Hampshires existing port infrastructure, coastal transmission infrastructure, and opportunities for New Hampshire to attract offshore wind supply chain operations to New Hampshire.

These reports will be completed no later than January 2021.

Excerpt from:

New Hampshire Governor Signs Offshore Wind Executive Order - Offshore WIND

Bird conservationists filed a lawsuit in a federal court challenging the Icebreaker offshore wind farm in Lake Erie, Ohio.

Two groups claimed the Icebreaker demonstration project which is set to deploy six turbines to create Americas first freshwater offshore wind farm threatens multiple species of birds in the area.

The action is against the US Department of Energy and US Army Corps of Engineers for alleged failure to properly consider bird impacts in environmental assessments of the project.

LEEDCo, a non-profit, public-private partnership based there, is co-developing Icebreaker Wind with Norwegian equity investor Fred Olsen Renewables.

Mike Parr of the American Bird Conservancy claimed: American tax dollars are paying for more than a third of the project cost but a Norwegian corporation is in partnership with the nonprofit project implementer, LEEDCo.

Why are US taxpayer dollars supporting this in the first place? Migratory birds are a common good of the American people.

The campaigners claims Icebreaker could be precedent-setting for large-scale offshore wind development in the Great Lakes.

Icebreaker plans to use MHI Vestas 3.45MW turbines, specially adapted offshore versions of Vestas V126-3.45 onshore machines. It is targeting start of construction in 2021 and operation in 2022.

LEEDCo has been contacted by Recharge for comment.

Legal action over potential bird impacts has faced a number of major offshore wind projects around the world in the industrys short history.

Lengthy legal action by the RSPB in Scotland caused several years of delays to projects there, and bird conservationists in Germany have also turned up the legal heat on offshore wind developers.

Orsteds 2.4GW Hornsea 3 off eastern England in September saw a consent decision delayed for six months after bird charities raised last minute fears over its impact.

Read more:

US bird groups in legal challenge to Great Lakes offshore wind - Recharge