By David Wojick
The Biden Administration has recently produced a wave of plans and regulatory actions aimed at building a monstrous amount of destructive offshore wind. No environmental impact assessment is included.
Time scales range from tomorrow to 2050. Here is a quick look at some of it, starting with the Grand Plan.
“Pathways to Commercial Liftoff: Offshore Wind” is the grandiose title of the Energy Department’s version of Biden’s vision. Their basic idea is that having successfully traversed the unexpected cost crisis, offshore wind is ready to take off.
They point out that even though costs quickly jumped an average of 65%, the boom market is unchanged. The coastal States are raring to go with huge offshore wind targets and laws. In short, it is a seller’s market. Cost is no object.
They note that State mandates and targets already exceed the Biden goal of 100,000 MW by 2050. But why stop there? They say that Net Zero requires an incredible 250,000 MW of offshore wind. At 15 MW a turbine, this is just under 17,000 monster towers.
The word “environmental” occurs frequently in this 62-page grand vision but it is always about environmental justice. The cumulatively destructive environmental impacts of lining our coast with towers and cables are ignored apparently not worth mentioning. Neither is cost.
Next comes transmission, where we have “AN ACTION PLAN FOR OFFSHORE WIND TRANSMISSION DEVELOPMENT IN THE U.S. ATLANTIC REGION“. While the Pathways plan covers the US, this one is just about the Atlantic because that is where the big action is now.
This 110-pager is from the Energy Department and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, which is actually building the offshore wind monster.
The basic idea is simple. Instead of bringing the juice ashore individually from each giant wind facility, we will build a massive high-voltage grid in the ocean. This way, we can move the energy up and down the coast from wherever it is generated to where it is needed.
In the Plan, there are actually three backbone grids: northern, central, and southern, but this detail need not concern us. There is, of course, a huge network of feeder lines connecting the backbones to the legion of individual giant generation facilities.
Given the incredibly huge generation numbers in the Liftoff Plan, this is a very big grid indeed. It is a DC grid, so I guess the juice gets turned into AC onshore, where it then ties to the suitably beefed-up land grid. Beefing that up is another huge unknown cost.
There are many issues with this grand design, including legal and policy ones, and many of these are mentioned. How this ocean-going grid ties into State utility law is an interesting example.
Environmental impacts are only addressed as a research topic, not as a potential problem, except for floating wind, where some big problems are mentioned in passing. The feel-good idea of minimizing impact occurs frequently, but what those impacts might be is not said.
As is typical for BOEM, they talk about monitoring a good bit. Their approach to environmental impact is let’s build it and see what happens as though extinction of the North Atlantic Right Whale was reversible. The concept of cumulative impacts is not addressed.
Cost allocation is a major economic topic, but there is nothing whatever on what this underwater monstrosity might cost.
Returning to today, several things have happened. First, BOEM has announced a lot of new lease sales over the next five years (the Biden II years?). These run from Maine to Oregon, fixed and floating, with five scheduled for this year alone.
Some are in new places, while others are in already crowded areas like the New York Bight. As always, there is no cumulative environmental impact analysis. It’s like BOEM never heard of that, even though the law clearly calls for it when piling on the projects.
More ominously, there are new regulations governing the permitting of offshore wind projects. The developers love these new rules, which tells us they are not designed for environmental protection. This is from the BOEM press release:
“”The final modernization rule will streamline the permitting process and reduce regulatory barriers for developers. It will also lead to greater collaboration between federal, state, and local stakeholders, ensuring that offshore wind projects are developed in a sustainable and responsible manner,” said Anne Reynolds, the American Clean Power Association Vice President for Offshore Wind.”
The primary “regulatory barrier” is environmental impact analysis. The new rules require agencies to rush these, which means glossing over them with no time for serious analysis.
Today’s actions may seem small, but given the long-term Plans, they are anything but. It is all part of a huge rush to do something enormously expensive and environmentally destructive for which there is no need whatsoever.
This offshore bulldozer must be stopped before it is too late.
Schadenfreude. This is a real case of adverse environmental impacts, both on whales and migratory birds, unlike the purported impacts of nuclear plants or pipelines. Holding the Green Blob to strict EIR standards and lawfare would be justice.
All part of Greta’s house of ill-renewables.
At Gore’s award ceremony for the Presidential Medal of Freedom, I sincerely hope to see a time machine materialize on the stage and a whale get out and smack Gore in the mouth with a heavy flipper.
Joe Biden has distilled down the major requirement to be awarded a Medal of Freedom: you must at some time in the past have been a recognized name in
— politics (including civil rights and union activists)
— sports
— entertainment
Of the 19 persons awarded the Medal of Freedom yesterday by Biden, 7 (or more than one-third) were politicians . . . among them Nancy Pelosi, and we all know what she has done to advance US ideals during her turn at feeding at the public trough (say what?). 😳
Al Gore received a MoF for his lifetime accomplishments, the pinnacle of which was his fronting the false narrative contained in the badly misnamed “An Inconvenient Truth”. No mention that I could find of his tenure as US “climate czar”. 😖
Actor Michelle Yeoh got a MoF simply for being the first Asian woman to win an Academy Award for best actress . . . way to go, Michelle, setting such a high bar for all to follow in contributing to the greatness of the USA!
In fairness, there were actually three—count ’em—three 2024 Medal of Freedom recipients that did not fall into the above three categories:
— Gregory Boyle, a Jesuit Catholic priest who founded and runs Homeboy Industries,
— Ellen Ochoa, the first Hispanic woman in space,
— Jane Rigby, an astronomer
Way to go Joe, highlighting for the world those three main activity categories that the USA treasures above all else!
/sarc off
Oh look. The UAH monthly update for April has been quietly added to the side-bar here without the usual link to Dr Roy Spencer’s site.
I wonder why all the hush-hush?
Is it because it was the record warmest monthly anomaly in the UAH data?
New catchphrase for WUWT:
“Hide the incline!”
So to post it is to hide it.
Then why not post it in the usual way, with a link to Roy Spencer’s site as per the usual monthly update?
Looks like an attempt to avoid discussion of an ‘off-message’ update to me.
Anthony will get around to it when he gets around to it.
He is certainly NOT beholden to the childish whinging of a ignorant low-end prat like you.
We’ll see, won’t we?
It literally says “data updated by 3rd of the month” on the actual posting location for the UAH data.
And sure enough, there it is on the 3rd!
You’re a loon.
Your conspiracy theory is that material posted completely on time is evidence of ill intent?
If you sleep face up in your bathtub tonight and wear a tinfoil hat, then I guarantee you will NOT be probed by aliens!
Trouble is, you judge everything by what you and your AGW cultists would do.
The dishonesty involved in your putrid little cult runs sewer deep !
It’s called Psychological Projection and warmunists & overheaters ply it well
And here we have the common leftist ploy, assign ulterior motives to others whilst ignoring their own.
The comment by Nail has nothing to do with the post. In fact, it seems to be
a deliberate distraction and even a non-sequitur, especially the part about “seems absurd to the point of being humorous or confusing.”
I wish it were warm enough to wear shorts. Another 10C might do it. Unfortunately, the high for the day has been reached.
Fungal is just a whinging, small-minded trollette. !
Correct, for which I apologise.
Even so, my comment is more broadly relevant, since it is derived from the UAH data which is updated monthly on this site.
It’s just interesting to me that this month’s record warm update has been skipped by the site.
That is not a sign of a site that is interested in facts or balance.
It’s a sign of a site that has a vested interest.
No, your comment is totally irrelevant. A pathetic attempt at trolling to seek attention.
Nothing but a plaintive little whinge that Anthony hasn’t put the data up immediately, even though its late evening in the USA. !
Do you make any donations to this site to post data that you use?
I expect not.
Wanting others to perform unpaid labor on your behalf sounds an awful lot like the slaveowner telling the slaves to pick that cotton faster!
I understand Overheaters Anonymous will be holding a weekly meeting Saturday…perhaps you should consider going?
“The comment by Nail has nothing to do with the post. In fact, it seems to be
a deliberate distraction and even a non-sequitur, especially the part about “seems absurd to the point of being humorous or confusing.” ”
He seems to do that a lot.
Perhaps they should be collected and published?
Call the book, “A High Jacker’s Guide to the Fallacy’? 😎
Whinge, whine… like the little school child you are.
This El Nino is pretty strong, LOTS of energy released.
Or do you DENY this is still the result of the El Nino !
You keep proving there is absolutely ZERO EVIDENCE of any human causation.
Not as much energy as 1997/98 though.
Yet record warmth.
How do you square that circle in your head?
Atmospheric response shows far more energy, and more sustained..
ENSO 3.4 is only a small region which does not show the energy released.
At least you now admit this is still the El Nino…
Still no evidence of any human causation.
You are empty in the head.
bnice, don’t expect the snail to keep up with what is happening.
I have absolutely ZERO expectation from the fungal…
.. and it constantly delivers.
And this is why you will never be able to produce any evidence of human CO2 warming..
Water Vapor Absorbs 84 Times More Radiation Than CO2 … Clouds Drove 89% Of 1982-2018 Warming (notrickszone.com)
”
And remember, human released CO2 is only about 4% of the total CO2 flux, and there is no isotopic signature of human CO2 in the atmosphere.
Good luck finding any evidence of human causation for the El Nino effects of the last year or so…
Total failure so far. !
“Not as much energy as 1997/98 though.”
Reference please.
1997 and other El Nino had peaks that lasted one or 2 months – the current one has a handful of months at the same temp.
“Climate Change ™” didn’t just suddenly turn on last year, did it?
This has been a particularly strong El Niño topping of at nearly +2°C anomaly
And rather long lasting since April 2023 extending into May 2024 and continuing for a while longer
It’s a shame it’s not warmer!
Measly 2°C over a couple of centuries, in spite of the East burning every bit of black stuff they can find. At this rate we’ll never reach the warmth of civilization’s birth 5000 years ago.
As to that one could also peruse Dr. Spencer’s site and glean his commentary, as follows:
“It should be noted that the CDAS surface temperature anomaly has been falling in recent months (+0.71, +0.60, +0.53, +0.52 deg. C over the last four months), while the satellite deep-layer atmospheric temperature has been rising. This is usually an indication of extra heat being lost by the surface to the deep-troposphere through convection, and is what is expected due to the waning El Nino event. I suspect next month’s tropospheric temperature will fall as a result.”
That would seem to contradict any conspiracy theory by NinalFail since it indicates the expected continuance of a natural process, hardly something Anthiony might wish to “avoid”.
TFN, I gently suggest you view this article—one that is historically typical of those coming from Dr. Spencer—posted on May 4 on WUWT:
wattsupwiththat.com/2024/05/04/uah-global-temperature-update-for-april-2024-1-05-deg-c/
So, is it a matter of “without the usual link” or “hush-hush” as you so carelessly assert, or instead just you wanting everything to be posted instantaneously to fit your world-view?
With normal ethics, an apology from you for “jumping the gun” would be appropriate . . . but, of course, in your case none is to be expected.
Pity the poor invertebrates. Likely their populations will mostly pull through ’cause they aren’t all that smart and they like to reproduce. The concrete bases will be loved by hard-substrate encrusters. Future progressive marine biologists will wring their hands but be well funded to study, at the taxpayers’ expense, what these wind farms did to invertebrate populations. It is a vicious cycle involving profit at every turn.
As someone with decades experience in Federal environmental law and regulation as they relate to electric energy production and delivery I assure that the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management is not in compliance with National Environmental Protection Act and subsequent rules and regulations. Actual studies of potential environmental impacts of linked projects are mandatory.
Aww, cfact caring about the
oceanits fossil fuel donors.But you can all cheer how they work hard to keep the US behind the rest of the world.
The Luser doesn’t give a rat’s a**e about people or the environment.
It would rather see whale PERISH and DIE
It would rather see people deprived of a decent stand of living by deprivation of fuel and electricity.
What a totally SICK and DISGUSTING little far-left fascist AntiFa activist it really is.
Hatred of humanity, life, and especially of itself.
The only thing putting the US, and the UK, and the EU, and Australia backward and into economic destruction…
… is the absolutely sick and disgusting anti-science, anti-life agenda of the far-left totalitarians…
…that the Luser represents.
I think the right pronouns are they/them
For you, the pronoun is “it”…
… you are so non-human that you don’t even rate a trans or confused-gender pronoun.
This is a stupid ad hominem argument. I do not have my opinion because I am funded; I am funded because I have it. I am working hard to save America from green zealots like you. Some people are smart enough to fund that. Most of my funding has come from rural electric coops who rightly fear for their future.
Happily you do a good job exemplifying green stupidity.
When not even Greenpeace shares your views on this, and people / companies that fund you have a profound commercial interests in offshore wind not getting build, you have to work really hard to convince others whales are your top priority.
Lots of whale groups oppose offshore wind. Greenpeace has gone green loving wind. Same for NRDC and Sierra.
Whales are not my top priority but we are their best hope. My top priority is stopping offshore wind.
Also nonprofit rural coops do not have a commercial interest. They have a member interests, mostly farmers. You green nutters are a serious threat to them.
One way you can tell MUN lives at home with its parents is that it never says anything about increasing electric rates or increasing food costs. Just like the anarchists rioting at universities, it has no skin in the game.
Wait a few years till it must pay for these things. Karma will bite these people in the butt.
Since Greenpeace is a Marxist front that one of its founders, Patrick Moore left in disgust one can hardly credit the organization or care what it shares. The Marxist movement depends on “useful idiots” as it terms them. They are definitely pleased with this User guy.
MyUsername, who signs your paycheck? Why?
Greenpeace haven’t given a stuff about anything living in the environment for a long, long time !
Most of what they do now is purely political grandstanding and virtue-seeking in support of the AGW scam.
One of the unspoken but implicit concepts with respect to wind farms is that, once built, the farm produces free, environmentally pure energy. Does it?
Is removing KE from the atmosphere by converting it to electricity and thus to localized heat, environmentally sound? I’m not convinced. Wind farms reduce downstream evaporation, advection, and laminar flow.
I don’t have the chops to figure out the impact of these disruptions, but surely they exist and it might be disruptive enough to impact our downstream neighbors.
Do they have ‘air rights’?
There is a lot of research on these destructive “wake effects”.
see my https://www.cfact.org/2023/12/01/nas-study-raises-concern-over-offshore-wind-harming-endangered-whales/
There is a Florida based company, Ocean Based Perpetual Energy, that is developing technology to ‘tap’ the Gulf Stream. It is horrifying. Taking energy from one of the planets major ocean currents is a huge mistake, an environmental catastrophe.
Europe should be scared to death.
“we will build a massive high-voltage grid in the ocean”
hmmm…. what could possibly go wrong?
And, what exactly creates these high voltages? Do the turbines output Mega DC voltages values directly or are electronics required? Remember, transformers won’t step up/down DC, only electronics. In a salt water environment and undersea. Good luck with that.
Good question! Maybe the report covers it. The backbone is definately DC.
Turbines can, and quite often do, drive alternators that directly output AC voltages. And yes, these AC outputs can be stepped-up to very high voltages for long distance transmission lines by use of high-efficiency transformers (not “electronics”).
In fact, most modern ICE cars today use belt-driven alternators to first produce AC power that is subsequently rectified to DC voltage to charge/recharge the vehicle’s on-board battery and to power on-board DC-based electronics, heaters and electrical actuators.
“Cost is no object.”
This is a good way to summarize the misguided thinking of proponents of wind and solar, and offshore wind in particular. Not only the dollar costs, but the costs in terms of impacts on sea life and habitat, are being ignored to push “action.”
Paraphrasing AOC: “The planet only has 12 years left unless we act, and you’re worried about the COST?”
How many years ago did AOC say that? I forget.
But I do remember her desperately trying to backtrack it.
November 5, 2024 cannot come soon enough.
Trump will dump all this climate change insanity.
It’ll be tough. But it needs to done.
They’ve been packing the employees in the Fed bureaucracies with “DEI hires” long before there was “DEI”.
(The “I” really stands for “Ideology”.)
We have been living with a CO2 DROUGHT, for millions of years, which causes desertification, as flora and fauna becomes extinct
The oil companies are providing very valuable CO2 to re-green the earth. to promote flora and fauna, to reduce deserts areas, and to increase crop yields per acre.
Plants grow best with 1000 to 1200 ppm CO2, as proven in greenhouses
El Niños, Hunga Tonga Volcanic Eruption, and the Tropics
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/hunga-tonga-volcanic-eruption
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/natural-forces-cause-periodic-global-warming
Retained Energy (Enthalpy) in Atmosphere
The RE in atmosphere is ONE net effect of the interplay of the sun, atmosphere, earth surface (land and water), and what grows on the surface and in water.
.
Dry Air and Water Vapor
ha = Cpa x T = 1006 kJ/kg.C x T, where Cpa is specific heat of dry air
hg = (2501 kJ/kg, specific enthalpy of WV at 0 C) + (Cpwv x T = 1.84 kJ/kg x T), where Cpwv is specific heat of WV at constant pressure
.
1) Worldwide, enthalpy of moist air, at T = 16 C and H = 0.0025 kg WV/kg dry air (4028 ppm)
h = ha + H.hg = 1.006T + H(2501 + 1.84T) = 1.006 (16) + 0.0025 {2501 + 1.84 (16)} = 22.4 kJ/kg dry air
RE of dry air is 16.1 kJ/kg; RE of WV is 6.3 kJ/kg
2) Tropics, enthalpy of moist air, at T = 27 C and H = 0.017 kg WV/kg dry air (27389 ppm)
h = 1.006 (27) + 0.017 {2501 + 1.84 (16)} = 70.5 kJ/kg dry air
RE of dry air is 27.2 kJ/kg; RE of WV is 43.3 kJ/kg
https://www.wikihow.com/Calculate-the-Enthalpy-of-Moist-Air#:~:text=The%20equation%20for%20enthalpy%20is,specific%20enthalpy%20of%20water%20vapor.
.
CO2
h CO2 = Cp CO2 x K = 0.834 x (16 + 273) = 241 kJ/kg CO2, where Cp CO2 is specific heat
Worldwide, enthalpy of CO2 = {(423 x 44)/(1000000 x 29) = 0.000642 kg CO2/kg dry air} x 241 kJ/kg CO2 @ 289 K = 0.155 kJ/kg dry air.
.
RE In 2023; 16 C
World: (16.1 + 6.3 + 0.155) kJ/kg dry air x 1000 J/kJ x 5.148 x 10^18 kg x 10^-18 = 1.161 x 10^5 EJ
Dry air, WV and CO2 played 71.4%, 27.9% and 0.69% RE roles. WV RE/CO2 RE = 40.6
Tropics: (27.2 + 43.3 + 0.155) kJ/kg dry air x 1000 J/kJ x 2.049 x 10^18 kg x 10^-18 = 1,448 x 10^5 EJ.
Dry air, WV and CO2 played 38.5%, 61.2% and 0.22% RE roles. WV RE/CO2 RE = 279.4
The Tropics is a major RE area, almost all of it by WV. At least 35% of the RE is transferred, 24/7/365, to areas north and south of the 37 parallels with energy deficits
.
RE in 1900; 14.8 C
World: (14.8 + 5.8 + 0.106) kJ/kg dry air x 1000 J/kJ x 5.148 x 10^18 kg x 10^-18 = 1.066 x 10^5 EJ
Dry air, WV and CO2 played 71.5%, 28% and 0.51% RE roles. WV RE/CO2 RE = 54.7
The 2023/1900 RE ratio was 1.089
.
NOTE: My calculations are based on three well-known items. I assumed 16 C in 2023 and 14.8 C in 1900, as the temp of the entire atmosphere, which is overstated, but helps simplicity. The RE ratio would not be much different, if complex analyses were used, such as how the three items vary with altitude and temp. The complex stuff would subtract from both REs, leaving the ratio in tact.
The above method is suitable to objectively approximate the RE role of CO2. How CO2 performs that role, the A-to-Z process, will keep many academia folks busy for many years.
.
NOTE: This short video shows, CO2 plays no RE role in the world’s driest places, with 423 ppm CO2 and minimal WV ppm, i.e., blaming CO2 for global warming is an unscientific hoax.
https://youtu.be/QCO7x6W61wc
This is not about my article. Wait for an open thread.
Advice that was given to environmental groups in the US some 3 years and 6 months ago (almost to the day!): be careful what you wish for.