Tag Archives: America’s offshore wind industry

Fishermen Fight to End to Offshore Wind Industry’s Wholesale Whale Slaughter

NEW YORK, US – FEBRUARY 17: A dead whale is found on Rockaway Beach in the Queens Borough in New York City, United States on February 17, 2023. The tenth one to wash ashore in the New York-New Jersey area since early December in what activists are calling an alarming uptick. (Photo by Fatih Aktas/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

From STOP THESE THINGS

The wind industry’s mindless slaughter of whales, dolphins, porpoises and seals is completely legit, thanks to government-backed licenses known as the ‘Incidental Harassment Authorization’.

The principal cause of the carnage is the seismic geo-surveys conducted before the turbines get speared into the seabed. With their sonar systems duly scrambled by the underwater cacophony, the whales meander dazed, confused and unable to avoid ships on the move. The collisions with shipping are, more often than not, fatal and the whale’s floating carcass simply washes up onshore, as another wind industry statistic. The Federal government marks the fatality down as ‘incidental harassment’, and its agencies work overtime to exonerate the wind industry with the usual grab bag of lies and obfuscation.

None of which amuses America’s flinty oceangoing fishermen. These characters know the North Atlantic like the backs of their hands; they also know a government-backed lie when they hear one. As Francis Martel details below.

The principal cause of the carnage is the seismic geo-surveys conducted before the turbines get speared into the seabed. With their sonar systems duly scrambled by the underwater cacophony, the whales meander dazed, confused and unable to avoid ships on the move. The collisions with shipping are, more often than not, fatal and the whale’s floating carcass simply washes up onshore, as another wind industry statistic. The Federal government marks the fatality down as ‘incidental harassment’, and its agencies work overtime to exonerate the wind industry with the usual grab bag of lies and obfuscation.

None of which amuses America’s flinty oceangoing fishermen. These characters know the North Atlantic like the backs of their hands; they also know a government-backed lie when they hear one. As Francis Martel details below.

NJ Fishing Pros Warn Offshore Wind Killing Ocean Life: ‘Never Seen Anything Like This in Half a Century’
Breitbart
Francis Martel
3 August 2023

POINT PLEASANT NEW JERSEY – FEBRUARY 19: Environmentalists gather during a ‘Save the Whales’ rally calling for a halt to offshore wind energy development along the Jersey Shore on February 19, 2023 in Point Pleasant New Jersey. The rally, hosted by the environmental organization Clean Ocean Action, followed the deaths of numerous whales, Since Dec. 1, 2022 according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA 12 whales have died in NY and NJ (Photo by Kena Betancur/VIEWpress)

New Jersey’s veteran fishing community fears surveying to install offshore wind turbines near the state’s shore is already causing tremendous environmental damage, one local boat captain told Breitbart News, asserting that, in his experience, “dead whales on our beach absolutely and logically have everything to do with the oceanic geo-surveys.”

New Jersey is in the process of approving two major offshore wind projects: the Ocean Wind I and II initiatives owned by the Danish “green” energy company Ørsted. Radical leftist Governor Phil Murphy ordered a massive restructuring of the state’s power grid in September to become reliant on “100 percent clean energy by 2035” that has enjoyed enthusiastic support from the White House, which approved Ocean Wind I in July.

To install the wind turbines necessary for the projects, engineers must survey and map the ground floor to find the ground best able to sustain the massive structures. The survey work being done in anticipation of the installation of these turbines has coincided with a massive increase in the number of dead whales and other marine mammals off the coasts of New York and New Jersey.

As of June, scientists have documented at least 14 humpback and minke whales washing ashore dead in the two states compared to nine in all of 2022. Between December and May, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) documented 25 dead whales washing ashore along the entirety of the East Coast, nine in New Jersey. The whales washing ashore are dramatic affairs, as they have on several occasions appeared on boardwalk beaches frequented by families, alarming locals.

Most whales who have undergone autopsies after washing ashore showed signs of blunt trauma, suggesting they died by hitting ships.

Veteran fishermen in New Jersey, who have spent decades studying the sea, say the whale deaths and those of other marine mammals are unprecedented and insist a relationship must exist between the surveying and the deaths. As marine mammals use sonar, the theory suggests that the surveying is disrupting the animals’ ability to know where ships are and thus avoid hitting them. NOAA insists that it has no scientific evidence linking the surveying – which, like whales, dolphins, and porpoises, uses sonar for echolocation – to the whale deaths.

“At this point, there is no evidence that noise resulting from wind development-related site characterization surveys could potentially cause mortality of whales, and no specific links between recent large whale mortalities and currently ongoing surveys,” NOAA’s website reads.

Robert Bogan, the captain of the Gambler recreational fishing vessel in Point Pleasant Beach, New Jersey, said in a letter to his Congressman, Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), shared with Breitbart News this week that the whale deaths present an entirely new phenomenon to him – something unless in the over half a century Capt. Bogan has spent regularly taking his customers out to fish.

The Gambler is what is commonly known in the Jersey Shore region as a party boat – it offers tickets for individual trips to sea for fishermen and provides the service of finding the fish, aiding new fishermen with basic training, providing bait, and fileting the catches. It has been in operation since 1949 as a local family business. It offers trips closer to shore – for species such as summer flounder (fluke) in the summer – and trips further out for tuna and other large catches in the colder months, meaning its crew are familiar with the conditions of the sea year-round.

“My business runs 10 months out of the year and we employ up to 10 people. Many other businesses in our shore community depend on our business –as we do those businesses,” Bogan explained. “I find it very disturbing that the powers backing the offshore windmill development would claim that there is no correlation between wind research development and the dead whales that continue to wash up on our beaches.”

“In my 50+ years of working on the ocean, I have never seen anything remotely like this,” he emphasized. “Dead whales on our beach absolutely and logically have everything to do with the oceanic geo-surveys.”

“NOAA was so concerned about slowing our boats down to less than 10 knots (basically a crawl), so as not to strike a whale and yet they signed-off on these invasive surveys, and admitted there would be an ‘acceptable’ whale mortality involved,” Bogan wrote. “Now, they don’t want to admit there was any mortality coinciding with wind research.”

Contrary to assurances on NOAA’s website, a Bloomberg News report in November unearthed a report from NOAA protected species expert Sean Hayes who warned the wind projects “will likely cause added stress that could result in additional population consequences to a species that is already experiencing rapid decline,” referring to whales.

“If these whales are dying from boat strikes, then how do we explain the deaths of many porpoises that have playfully swam the bow-wakes of ships for centuries?” he asked. “In all my years working the ocean: winter, spring, summer and fall — we have never hit, have seen or know of any boater who has hit a whale.”

Bogan described himself as initially “open-minded” about offshore wind, but feels “lied to” about the environmental damage.

We only know of the whales that were hurt by seismic and sonar research because they float when dead. What of all the other affected sea life that did not come to the surface?” he asked.

Asked about the letter, Rep. Smith told Breitbart News that Bogan’s experiences and concerns were representative of a growing chorus of voices of maritime professionals at the Shore.

“Captain Robert Bogan and numerous recreational and commercial fisherman — who know our sea better than anyone else — have reached out to me with serious, first-hand observations regarding the aggressive offshore wind industrialization of our Jersey Shore,” Rep. Smith said.  “Tragically, their alarming insights about these unprecedented offshore wind projects and the resulting permanent transformation of our marine seascape continue to be ignored by Governor Phil Murphy and the Biden Administration.”

“The hardworking members of our community who depend on the sea for their livelihoods, and who contribute enormously to our economy, deserve to have their concerns thoroughly addressed—not trivialized, mocked or dismissed,” the Congressman added.

Bogan’s observations in recreational fishing are consistent with those of New Jersey’s commercial anglers.

“The commercial fishing is extremely upset with the visual observations of dead whales floating at sea,” Brick Wenzel, Point Pleasant Beach, New Jersey’s, fishing liaison and a longtime commercial fisherman, told Breitbart News in March. “One vessel said they had seen 3 different whales in one trip. Another had parts of a whale come up in their net. Most of the captains are generational fishers and are in their 60s — No one has heard of or [has] seen anything like the carnage being witnessed.”

Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-NJ), whose district borders Rep. Smith’s to the south, similarly told Breitbart News in March that fishermen in his district have been alarmed by the situation for some time out of both fear for the environmental damage and concerns that the wind turbines will harm their fishing grounds.

“The fishermen have always been concerned, but it wasn’t just enough when it was just the fishermen,” Rep. Van Drew (R-NJ) asserted. “And now what’s happened is, over time, because of the whales, because of people realizing what these things are going to look like — we’re going to industrialize the Jersey Shore.”

Reps. Van Drew and Smith led a hearing in Wildwood, New Jersey, (Van Drew’s district) in March in which experts testified that, in addition to concerns about the potential mass killing of marine life, the offshore wind turbine projects appeared to interfere with military missions.

“NASA has said that these areas interfere with all their missions out of Wallops Island; the Navy has said there is not an area in that whole lease block that does not interfere with DOD [Department of Defense] missions, but BOEM [the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management] is continuing ahead,” Meghan Lapp, the fisheries liaison for the Rhode Island commercial fishing company Seafreeze, said at the event. “When I’ve asked them on webinars, like – the Navy said that this is a problem how can you still be leasing it? ‘Well, we’re just going to be continuing the discussions.’”

Other concerns regarding the offshore wind facilities are the unclear science regarding disposal of used wind turbines, potential threats to migrating birds, and few answers regarding whether or not the turbines could survive major hurricane damage, which New Jersey occasionally experiences.

In response to the lack of clarity regarding the Ocean Wind projects, Rep. Smith spearheaded an effort to begin an investigation into the plan by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), which confirmed a probe in June. The GAO will reportedly investigate potential effects on “the environment, the fishing industry, military operations, navigational safety, and more.”
Breitbart

America’s Offshore Wind Industry Covering Up True Cost of Taxpayer Funded Subsidies

From STOP THESE THINGS

The rent-seekers that profit from the great wind and solar scam are always begging for more: more subsidies, tougher mandates and even greater renewable energy targets.

Back in 1983, the American Wind Industry Association claimed that solar and wind would be “competitive and self-supporting on a national level by the end of the decade if assisted by tax credits and augmented by federally sponsored R&D”. That was 40 years ago. And there was no lack of assistance in the form of tax credits and federally sponsored R&D, along with a whole bunch of other punitive mandates and targets designed to cripple conventional generators and favour chaotically intermittent wind and solar.

40 years on and nothing has changed. Now, as then, claims from renewable energy rent seekers that wind and solar are truly competitive with nuclear, coal or gas evaporate the instant policymakers start talking about removing subsidies to wind and solar.

The subsidies they begged for in the beginning were meant to help so-called ‘infant’ industries get on their feet. But, even now, the mere mention of reducing subsidies turns them into bawling brats, furious at the prospect of ever having to make an honest dollar.

Now that power prices – which include the hidden and embedded costs of all those subsidies, mandates and renewable energy targets – are rocketing beyond belief, power consumers are eager to uncover the extent of those subsidies, in order the challenge the basis for the wind and solar industries’ incessant demands for ever more subsidies from taxpayers and power consumers.

In New York, the City and a group of big power users have issued proceedings seeking to flush out the truth behind yet another unbridled subsidy grab from offshore wind power outfits, moaning about the increasing costs of operations that threaten their ability to continually line their pockets with other people’s money.

Caroline Spivack has this report on, yet another wind industry game of hide and seek.

City demands financial data as offshore wind developers ask for bigger subsidies
Crain’s New York
Caroline Spivack
2 August 2023

New York City and a consortium of big energy users accused offshore wind developers of “a concerted effort to avoid scrutiny” in their requests for bigger subsidies from ratepayers, filings with the state show.

The challenge is directed at developers behind four offshore wind projects that New York is purportedly relying on to reach its clean energy goals. In June, the developers told state regulators that their projects would be at risk without an inflation adjustment to their contracts.

But such changes stand to increase costs for consumers, and New York City and several large businesses want the developers to provide more information to support their claims.

“The Petitioners seek significant but unspecified increases to the amounts they would be paid by captive utility customers for previously-contracted [offshore wind projects], but a significant portion of the information that purportedly supports the requested relief is redacted and withheld from public review,” states a motion submitted to the state on July 27.

Motions were filed by the city and Multiple Intervenors, a group of 55 large electricity consumers including retailers, manufacturers and institutions throughout New York. Among the association’s varied members are IBM, Wegmans and the State University of New York.

The companies complain that “excessive redactions” in the developers’ filings make it difficult to evaluate the need for more relief.

“Petitioners’ overbroad use of redactions reveals a lack of regard for the right of utility customers to be adequately informed as to the costs they are being asked to bear,” the motion states. “The public interest demands that sufficient information be presented in the Petitions to allow the public to understand, evaluate, and provide meaningful input.”

Norway-based Equinor and British Petroleum are building three of the offshore projects that have petitioned for contract changes: Empire Wind 1 and 2 near the Jersey Shore, and Beacon Wind east of Montauk.

“We are reviewing the motion filed to understand what further information could be provided,” the Equinor representative told Crain’s in an emailed statement. “The petition includes information on requested changes to the agreements necessary for the projects to progress.”

The Sunrise Wind development, a 924-megawatt joint venture by Ørsted and Eversource east of Long Island, has also petitioned state regulators for contract changes. A representative for Ørsted told Crain’s that the company is currently reviewing the motion.

In an unusual move, the Public Service Commission is seeking comment on the developers’ request for more aid—the agency is not required to do so. The comment period officially closes on Aug. 28, but input on the motions will be accepted until the commission reaches a decision, according to the Department of Public Service.
Crain’s New York

Pages of entirely redacted information are seen in the released version of an affidavit from the U.S. Justice Department that was submitted to a federal judge to support the execution of a search warrant by the FBI at former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate after the affidavit was released to the public by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida with more than half the information in the document redacted in West Palm Beach, Florida, U.S. August 26, 2022. REUTERS/Jim Bourg

Radar Off-line: How Offshore Wind Turbines Have Wrecked America’s Defence Capability

From STOP THESE THINGS

Giant industrial wind turbines with the tips of their 50-80m blades clocking 350 kph play havoc with radar systems, giving false images and distorting real ones. The result is unnecessary danger for pilots dependent upon accurate weather reports, and air-traffic guidance, both essential for safe takeoffs and landings.

In a number of States, the US military has obtained legislation to prevent the construction of wind turbines anywhere near their airfields and training grounds.

Chris Smith, a Republican Congressman from New Jersey is not only incensed about the effect that America’s offshore wind industry is having (and if their plans come to fruition, will increasingly have) on radar, he’s equally wild about the effect these things will have on America’s ability to defend itself, more generally. Smith has joined with a group of fellow Republicans to investigate the serious and obviously negative effects these things have on our ability to navigate safely at sea and in the air. Meanwhile, America’s Department of Defence remains apparently enthralled by the myth that America’s energy independence can be won by relying on an entirely weather-dependent power source.

Biden admin under fire for offshore wind impacts on military operations
Fox News
Thomas Catenacci
28 June 2023

The Biden administration is facing pressure from lawmakers and experts who are calling for an immediate moratorium on offshore wind development until its effects, including on military operations, navigation and radar systems, are studied.

Earlier this week, Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., industry stakeholders and experts met with officials from the Government Accountability Office (GAO), a top federal watchdog agency, to discuss their concerns about offshore wind development. According to Smith — who represents a district along the Atlantic coast home to a naval weapons depot and where offshore wind projects have been proposed — more than an hour of the three-hour meeting was devoted to military impacts.

The GAO recently agreed to investigate the wide-ranging effects of offshore wind development after Smith, fellow New Jersey Rep. Jeff Van Drew, House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Bruce Westerman, R-Ark., and several other lawmakers called for a probe. The investigation will look, in part, into wind turbines’ impact on military operations and radar.

“It will impact marine radar through sonic interference. It causes disruptions, shadowing,” Smith told Fox News Digital in an interview. “There’s going to be nothing but disruption. Radar will not be credible. So, you’ll have ships of every size and variety — military ships, ocean and cargo ships, including carrying oil coming into my state for refineries — that potentially could run into other ships or into even some of these windmills themselves.”

“The Coast Guard, too, will not be able to do search and rescue, particularly in bad weather, because of the gross interference that will happen,” he continued. “There’s also an impact on the Navy’s … Integrated Undersea Surveillance System, and it will interfere with that.”

Smith added that wind turbines could ultimately have the effect of blocking detection of U.S. adversaries’ movement via submarine.

He blasted the Department of Defense for its handling of the issue and lack of transparency, noting he has spoken with anonymous defense officials who have told him wind development is being prioritized over national security.

Smith’s meeting with the GAO, meanwhile, comes months after the Navy and Air Force assembled a report in early October with maps showing large swaths of acreage blocked off in federal waters near North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland and Delaware. The report characterizes four offshore wind lease areas proposed by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) as “highly problematic” and two others as “requiring further study.”

In addition, various studies and analyses have been published in recent years, suggesting wind turbines could pose a significant effect on radar. A 2022 study from the National Academy of Sciences concluded wind development would create “interference with marine vessel radar, which is a critical instrument for navigation, collision avoidance, and use in search and rescue missions.”

Finnish and Taiwanese military brass have also expressed concerns about the effects offshore wind farms could have on their defense capabilities.

“They’re willing to sacrifice anything for green energy,” Meghan Lapp, the fisheries liaison for Rhode Island-based fishing company Seafreeze and one of the participants in Smith’s meeting with the GAO, told Fox News Digital. “I have seen national security overridden. I’ve seen maritime safety overridden. I’ve seen domestic food production overridden. I’ve seen concerns of coastal businesses and communities overridden.”

“Every single entity and every single concern — valid concerns, not made up, not hyperbole or anything — are just overridden. And the answer is what? ‘Well, we need to do this because of climate change.’”

In 2011, Congress established the so-called Military Aviation and Installation Assurance Siting Clearinghouse, which created a central authority within the Department of Defense to oversee alternative energy projects’ compatibility with military activities.

According to Lapp and Smith, the entity has ultimately overridden base commanders’ concerns and consistently backed green energy development.

“Now, we have an entire coast that’s going to be weakened by this terrible decision,” Smith said. “I’ve never been more angry and disappointed in the military’s acquiescence and silence.”

As part of its climate agenda, the Biden administration has aggressively moved forward with rapid offshore wind development across millions of acres of federal waters, primarily along the East Coast. Shortly after taking office, President Joe Biden outlined goals to deploy 30 gigawatts of offshore wind energy by 2030, the most ambitious goal of its kind worldwide.

In May 2021, BOEM approved the 800 megawatt Vineyard Wind project 12 miles off the coast of Massachusetts, marking the first-ever large-scale offshore wind approval. Then, in November 2021, the agency approved the 130-megawatt Southfork Wind project off the coast of Long Island, New York, the second commercial-scale offshore project.

A number of other proposed offshore wind projects along the Atlantic coast are under development and in the federal permitting stage. The Biden administration has also leased hundreds of thousands of acres to energy corporations and plans future lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico and off the coast of California.

“The Department of Defense is committed to protecting American national security interests, which includes reducing reliance on foreign energy sources and expanding domestic offshore wind energy development,” Pentagon spokesperson Kelly Flynn told Fox News Digital. “The DoD continues to work with the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, industry and other stakeholders to identify the best locations for offshore development, as we have done in every call area in the Atlantic, Pacific and Gulf of Mexico.”

“This discussion includes impacts to the environment, shipping, fishing, viewshed and more and includes mitigation strategies to overcome the impacts,” Flynn continued. “This is one step in the process and DoD will continue to collaborate with the stakeholders in order to promote compatible offshore wind energy development.”

“The Department has been an active participant in similar leasing plans off the coasts of New York/New Jersey, the Gulf of Mexico, California and Oregon,” she said. “In each case, we’ve been able to find suitable areas for development, and we expect to do the same in the central Atlantic.”
Fox News