Articles include: Exxon & carbon capture; offshore wind; glaciers melting in the Andes; coal financing; cities hardest hit by climate change; Biden trying to reinstate US climate change leadership; shrinking sea meadows and GHGs; Canadian budget; Euro lawsuits derail clean energy; DOI heads towards clean energy; climate change and coffee; melting Arctic & Russia.
Tag: Department of the Interior (DOI)
The Daily Climate, April 15, 2021
Articles include: 2050 Goals are inadequate; champagne & climate change; 100% clean power; renewable energy powers decarbonization; electric vehicles by 2035; Interior Department and Manchin; Epic Drought; Indian monsoon season; ticks moving into the Arctic; East African oil pipeline; American research station abandoned; food web in the Great Lakes.
First major U.S. offshore wind project moves closer to reality under Biden
Axios: First major U.S. offshore wind project moves closer to reality under Biden.
Plans for the first major U.S. offshore wind project are closer to reality now that the Interior Department has completed an environmental review of Vineyard Wind, which is proposed for construction off Massachusetts.
Why it matters: Offshore wind has been very slow to develop here despite large power generating potential, but a wave of projects are now planned off the coast of Atlantic states including New York and New Jersey.
- Deep-pocketed companies including Equinor, Shell and BP, Portugal’s EDP and others are involved in various partnerships for U.S. projects.
Where it stands: Yesterday Interior announced the completion of its formal environmental impact statement for the 800 megawatt Vineyard Wind project.
Interior Department halts seismic surveys for oil in Alaska’s Arctic refuge
Arctic Today: Interior Department halts seismic surveys for oil in Alaska’s Arctic refuge. The company proposing to survey parts of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge’s coastal plain missed a deadline for its plan to protect polar bears.
lans for seismic surveys to help find oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge have fizzled due to a lack of protection for polar bears, according to a brief statement Saturday from the Department of the Interior.
The Kaktovik Inupiat Corp (KIC), the Alaska Native-owned company that applied for permission to conduct the survey, failed to do the required work to identify polar bear dens in the region that would be surveyed, Interior spokeswoman Melissa Schwartz said in an emailed statement.
The likely demise of the seismic plan is the latest in a series of setbacks that have deflated the decades-long ambition to convert the refuge into an oil-producing frontier.
Alaska’s oil production has been waning since the late 1980s, when the state produced more than 2 million barrels of crude per day. Now its output is roughly 500,000 bpd.
Former President Donald Trump pushed tax legislation that passed in 2017 and would have allowed for drilling in ANWR, and the federal government held a lease sale in the last days of his presidency.
NY Times Climate Fwd, February 24, 2021
NY Times Climate Fwd: nationwide crises waiting to happen. Biden’s pick to lead DOI; Insurance costs going up; Rejoining the Paris Climate Accord; Arctic drilling; community wood banks.
Arctic drilling plan in Alaska hits roadblock
Reuters: Arctic drilling plan in Alaska hits roadblock.
Plans for seismic surveys to help find oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge have fizzled due to a lack of protection for polar bears, according to a brief statement Saturday from the Department of the Interior.
The Kaktovik Inupiat Corp (KIC), the Native-owned company that applied for permission to conduct the survey, failed to do the required work to identify polar bear dens in the region that would be surveyed, Interior spokeswoman Melissa Schwartz said in an emailed statement.
The likely demise of the seismic plan is the latest in a series of setbacks that have deflated the decades-long ambition to convert the refuge into an oil-producing frontier.
Studies: Offshore Wind Power is Ready to Boom. Here’s What That Means for Wildlife
The Revelator: Offshore Wind Power is Ready to Boom. Here’s What That Means for Wildlife. Climate change threatens many marine species, but some climate solutions pose risks, too. Researchers say offshore wind needs continued study and better regulations.
A key part of the United States’ clean energy transition has started to take shape, but you may need to squint to see it. About 2,000 wind turbines could be built far offshore, in federal waters off the Atlantic Coast, in the next 10 years. And more are expected.
East Coast states from Maine to North Carolina are working to procure nearly 30 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2035 — a huge leap from the five turbines currently generating 30 megawatts in Rhode Island waters. If a regulatory backlog of projects awaiting approval from the Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management is finally unstuck — as experts hope will happen this year — the buildout of offshore wind will arrive during a crucial decade for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
One of the gravest threats facing birds is climate change, according to Audubon, which found that rising temperatures threaten nearly two-thirds of North America’s bird species.
But a study published in December 2020 conducted at Bass Rock, Scotland — home to the world’s largest northern gannet colony — found that wind developments could reduce their growth rate, though not enough to cause a population decline.
Other marine mammals may also perceive the noise, but at low decibels it’s unlikely to be an impediment, research has found.
And it’s possible that wind development could help some ocean life. Turbine foundations can attract fish and invertebrates for whom hard substrates create habitat complexity — known as the “reef effect,” according to researchers from the University of Rhode Island’s Discovery of Sound in the Sea program.
Once turbines become operational, reducing the amount of light on wind platforms or using flashing lights could help deter some seabirds, NRDC researchers reported.
Trump to Birds: Drop Dead
Audubon: Trump to Birds: Drop Dead. Just days before leaving office, the administration has finalized its three-year rush to gut the Migratory Bird Treaty Act—despite a court ruling that its position is against the law and will increase preventable bird deaths.
With two weeks left in office, on National Bird Day, the Trump administration—defying opposition from the general public, scientists, tribal governments, international treaty partners, and a federal judge who last summer all but laughed its legal arguments out of court—today announced it has finalized a rule allowing companies and individuals to kill migratory birds as long as they didn’t mean to.
Conservation groups blasted the decision as a desperate attempt by the administration to give industry a free pass to kill birds on its way out the door. “Secretary Bernhardt’s former oil industry clients have explicitly asked for this policy change, and now he is delivering, just days before returning to the private sector,” said Jennifer Rokala, executive director of the Center for Western Priorities, in a statement referring to Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt, a former lobbyist for the energy industry. “By finalizing this proposal, the Trump administration is signing the death warrants of millions of birds across the country.”
First U.S. offshore wind farm put on hold
E&E News discusses First U.S. offshore wind farm put on hold.
Vineyard Wind will temporarily withdraw its application for federal approval to erect the first large offshore wind farm in the country, in an apparent attempt to pause the Trump administration’s review of the project days before it was scheduled to publish a final analysis.
The pause, which could last several weeks, makes it unclear if a final decision on Vineyard will come from the Trump administration or that of President-elect Joe Biden, who takes office Jan. 20.
Trump’s Interior Department has expressed trepidation about the project, delaying a decision on it last summer in order to conduct a cumulative impact study (Energywire, June 10). The incoming Biden administration, which is looking for ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and create jobs amid an economy-crushing pandemic, is expected to take a more favorable view.
U.S. has 7 ocean turbines. Companies see hundreds soon
E&E News discusses how the US has 7 ocean turbines. Companies see hundreds soon.
When construction was completed last month on two wind turbines in the rolling Atlantic waters off the Virginia coastline, it marked the passage of a key milestone.
It was the first commercial project built in federal waters and also the boldest plunge yet into this European-dominated business by a U.S. energy company.
“It’s part of our commitment to be the cleanest energy company in the United States,” announced Dominion Energy Inc., a Richmond, Va., company that serves over 5 million customers.
The Department of the Interior, which leases offshore wind tracts, has approved 16 projects altogether and an additional seven proposals under review, the agency said. The operating leases are located exclusively on the East Coast, and the list of companies involved in those ventures is likely unfamiliar to most Americans.