David Wojick
CFACT has long called for an environmental assessment of the combined impact of the clusters of huge offshore wind facilities being pushed by the Feds. Each facility is being separately assessed even when they share a boundary.
In many cases, it is clear that the adverse impacts will overlap and compound the harm to marine life. An obvious example is the incredibly loud and potentially harmful noise of pile driving. This noise carries over fifty miles, so if two sites are pile driving within a few miles of each other, the noise has to be much worse when the impacts combine.
The Federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management is supposed to do environmental assessment of offshore wind (even though their mandate is to get it built). They finally produced a combined assessment for six facilities off of New York and New Jersey. It is grandly called a Programmatic Environmental Impact Assessment (PEIS) of the New York Bight.
CFACT’s official comments on this assessment are pretty clear: it is junk. Here are some telling excerpts:
“Most of the 800 or so pages are nothing more than an academic discussion of the general environment, the sorts of impacts that might or might not occur, and what might or might not be done about them. There is basically nothing about this specific combination of projects.”
“In short, the academic acoustic case considered in the PEIS tells us absolutely nothing about the potentially huge noise impact of the six projects supposedly being assessed. There is literally no environmental impact assessment here. This vacuum seems to hold for pretty much the entire PEIS, with no real assessment of the six projects. There is certainly nothing of substance on noise.”
“As environmental impact statements go, this one is ridiculous.”
A number of important adverse impacts are not even considered, especially the lifetime operational impacts that go on for decades.
First, there is the combined operational noise of these six big facilities, some of which are actually contiguous. In addition to the endless turbine noise, there is the noise from the fleet of boats servicing these turbines.
Then there is the massive plume of reduced energy air created by the energy-sucking turbines. There is a large scientific literature on the potentially damaging effects of this plume on ocean life, especially reduced productivity in the food chain.
There is also the threat of a deleterious plume of suspended sediments created by air and water turbulence at each turbine tower. This smothering plume also reduces productivity.
I discuss these so-called wake effects in this article.
So the PEIS only looks at construction and basically tells us nothing about the adverse impacts of that. Ridiculous is right.
Note that NOAA shares the blame for this travesty of assessment. They are the experts on the adverse impact of noise on the marine life that they are supposed to protect. For example, the combined adverse effects of all these wind facilities the Feds are rushing into being could exterminate the North Atlantic Right Whale and other endangered critters.
Make no mistake, there is here a clear violation of the National Environmental Protection Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Marine Mammal Protection Act, and no doubt other laws. Something must be done.
Read CFACT’s official submission here
Animal life must be nurtured, protected etc with stiff regulation unless of course a renewable energy scheme is involved.
As the foreman said to Arthur Dent: “”Look this thing’s got to be built….””
renewable[SCAM] energy schemeWe have had three whales these last couple months wash up dead in Virginia Beach. Until the offshore wind turbines were installed this was a very rare occurrence.
I saw one of the carcasses. Watch how long it will take before climate change is listed as the cause of death by our local liberal rag Virginian Pilot.
Wind turbines and solar panels DO NOT WORK MOST of the time !
Computers at hospitals, airports, military, and home, CANNOT function on occasionally generated electricity !
People who pretend to care but don’t are among the most dangerous. The theme seems to be “we must kill the environment to save it”.
It’s all about money. Disgusting.
It certainly isn’t about powering a modern productive society
John Podesta last May gave away the hypocrisy in the whole scheme. We got so good at shutting things we forgot how to build stuff, he said in effect.
In other words, NEPA, migratory bird act, bald and golden eagle protection act, marine mammal protection act, clean water, clear air, and on and on were twisted to raise costs of things we disliked, but now are getting in the way when used by people who oppose our projects. No longer meant to accomplish their stated purpose.
Probably are meant to accomplish their stated purpose but are conveniently ignored when it’s suitable. Now they’re complaining that people don’t want them ignored and want them to be enforced equally.
We could make a very long list of the things that the climate enthusiasts want to ignore when it suits them from bird and animal protection issues right through to the nonexistent link between CO2 and warming – selective blinkers are the fashion item of the season for these plonkers.
Get the government out of the energy business, all they do is screw it up and there is no accountability. They are incapable of doing a good and proper job.
Something must be done. Two choices, not mutually exclusive: sue and vote
But…
If intermittency is a problem supplying consumer demand, isn’t it also going to be a problem for recharging the batteries? When the wind blows/Sun shines, this will be serving grid demand, so what will be recharging the batteries?
Even if there is wind and solar dedicated to recharging, how can it be known they will be able to recharge exhausted batteries as and when required?
The facile ‘the wind is always blowing somewhere’ argument is like saying there can never be a drought as it’s always raining somewhere.
Add to your question, exhausted batteries, fully depleted, especially lithium ion polymer, can not be recharged. Furthermore, at cold temperatures the battery capacities are significantly reduced meaning the electricity delivered is at best 50% of a warm day. Then, if the batteries freeze, they have to be replaced. Charging a previously frozen LiPo battery has a seriously augmented probability of fire.