Green energy here and there

A group of small wind turbines in  Dali, Yunnan, China

— Photo by Popolon 

From Robert Whitcomb’s “Digital Diary,’’ in GoLocal24.com

I think  that much of the future of alternative green energy will be in small-scale, “distributive energy” projects, such as the small wind turbines that the Bank of America wants to put up at 3400 Pawtucket Ave., in East Providence. As these proliferate, electricity-generation by big regulated utilities will become less important.

We’ll get increasingly used to seeing solar-energy arrays and small wind turbines in parking lots and on roofs of  office buildings,  factories and apartment buildings all over the place.

Suntactics dual axis solar trackers are useful for small businesses.

— Photo by Adsala 

And hit this link for an unusual small solar device:

Lisa Prevost: European study finds wind turbines don't affect lobster harvest

European lobster

Via Energy News Network ( https://energynews.us/) and ecoRI News (ecori.org)

In New England, offshore wind developers and the fishing industry continue to grapple with questions over potential impacts on the region’s valuable fisheries.

A recent European study not only offers good news on that front, it also provides a template for how the two industries can work together.

Research conducted over a six-year period concluded that the 35 turbines that form the Westermost Rough offshore wind facility, about 5 miles off England’s Holderness coast, have had no discernible impact on the area’s highly productive lobster fishing grounds.

The overall catch rate for fishermen and the economic return from those lobsters remained steady from the study’s start in 2013, before the facility’s construction, to its conclusion last year, according to the lead researcher, Mike Roach, a fishery scientist for the Holderness Fishing Industry Group, which represents commercial fishermen in the port town of Bridlington, England.

“It was quite a boring result,” Roach said. “All my lines are flat.”

Ørsted, the Danish energy giant and developer of the offshore wind facility, contracted with Holderness’s research arm to carry out the study, as the group has its own research vessel. The collaborative approach, Roach said, has made the findings all the more credible to local fishermen, who were initially certain that the energy project would destroy the lobster stocks.

“We did the research the same way a fisherman would fish — the same gear types, same bait, deploying in the same way,” Roach said. “We were basically mirroring the commercial fishing method in the area. And that has allowed the fishermen to relate directly to the fieldwork.”

Hywel Roberts, a senior lead strategic specialist for Ørsted and a liaison with the researchers, called the collaboration “a leap of faith on both sides to join together and agree at the outset to live and die by the results.” He noted that the level of research also went well beyond what was required for government permitting.

Ørsted announced the study’s results last month in a press release, even as Roach is still in the process of getting the research approved for publication in a peer-reviewed journal.

It’s no wonder the European-based wind developer was eager to share the news more widely, as the fishing industry has proven to be a powerful force in slowing the progress of offshore wind development off the Northeast coast, such as the Vineyard Wind 1 project.

Last year, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management announced it was pausing the approval process for Vineyard Wind 1, a joint venture between Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners and Avangrid, to be constructed off Martha’s Vineyard. The agency said it wanted to devote more study to the cumulative environmental effects of the many offshore wind projects lining up for approval.

In June, the agency issued a supplemental environmental impact statement that concluded that the cumulative impacts on fisheries could potentially be “major,” depending on various factors. The federal agency is considering requiring transit lanes between turbines to better accommodate fishing trawlers, a design change Vineyard Wind argues is unnecessary and could threaten the project’s viability.

The developer has proposed separating each turbine by a nautical mile. The transit lanes would require additional spacing.

A final report is expected in December.

The outcome of the Holderness study has “very important” implications for wind projects all over, Roberts said.

“The lobster fishery there is one of the most productive in Europe, and we were tasked with building a wind farm right in the middle of it,” Roberts said. “If it can work in this location, we think it can work in most places around the world.”

Ørsted even brought Roach and one of the Holderness fishermen to Massachusetts last year to spread the word to worried lobstermen about the minimal impact of Westermost Rough.

Roach said he’d like to think his findings “eased some concerns” in New England. However, he said he disagrees with Ørsted that the outcome in the North Sea is applicable to other areas of the world, where habitats and the ecology of the species could be very different.

“There are lessons to be learned and guided by, but I can’t say it’s directly transferable,” he said.

Lisa Prevost is a journalist with Energy News Network, an Institute of Nonprofit News (INN) member that has a content-sharing agreement with ecoRI News.

Wind-farm configurations

From Robert Whitcomb’s “Digital Diary,’’ in GoLocal24.com

Predictability and standardization are generally sought by businesses, large and small. Thus it should be good news that five companies seeking to set up offshore wind-turbine farms off southern New England have agreed to a common layout for their projects: a standard east-west orientation, with each turbine a nautical mile apart. That’s mostly to try to satisfy fishermen, some of whom express the (exaggerated) fear that the wind farms would reduce their ability to maneuver.

The five companies are Vineyard Wind, Eversource Energy, Mayflower Wind, Orsted North America and Equinor Wind.

The Trump administration, in thrall to the Red State-based fossil-fuel industry, seems to be using some fishermen’s complaints as cover in trying to stop some big renewable-industry projects, which the regime, as with “green energy’’ projects in general, associates with Democrats.

An irony in all this is that the supports for turbine towers act as reefs that attract fish.

The long debate about offshore wind farms continues as signs rapidly multiply that global warming caused by burning oil, gas and coal is accelerating, along with the damage it’s doing, although most people are not yet concerned enough about the crisis to push for serious political and policy action to reverse it. Some of those actions would indeed be quite inconvenient.

Jack Clarke: Fossil-fuel burning, not wind turbines, is the huge threat to birds

Via ecoRI News (ecori.org)

President Trump recently criticized “windmills” as a source of energy, claiming: “They kill so many birds. You look underneath some of those windmills, it’s like a killing field.”

All this while he attempts to prop up a fading coal industry that is responsible for killing 24 times as many birds as wind energy.

But do wind turbines really “kill so many birds?” It’s one of the most commonly repeated criticisms of wind power: that they are giant Cuisinarts for birds.

Last winter, Trump’s secretary of the interior, Ryan Zinke, told an oil and gas industry audience that wind facilities kill 750,000 birds a year. Yet his own Fish & Wildlife Service put the estimate at less than half that number. Meanwhile, Zinke is doing away with century-old protections under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.

Estimated bird deaths from wind turbines are small when compared to other human-caused sources of avian mortality. In contrast to the 5 billion birds killed annually as a result of encounters with a variety of hazards ranging from domestic cats to building glass, turbines are a much smaller risk.

The greatest threat to birds today is climate change. Of Massachusetts’s 143 breeding bird species evaluated by Mass Audubon, 43 percent are “highly vulnerable” to its impacts.

Climate change produces warmer temperatures that alter the length of seasons, interrupting traditional migration patterns. It also causes accelerated sea-level rise and stronger ocean storms, which wreak havoc on coastal bird habitats, drowning out the nesting and foraging areas for species such as the federally protected roseate tern and piping plover.

The impacts of climate change on birds will become even more severe unless we reduce our over-dependence on fossil fuels, which are clogging the atmosphere and heating up the planet.

We can do this by increasing conservation and efficiency, and producing more renewable energy. Wind energy is now among the most cost-effective, competitive, and reliable technologies available.

Today, the U.S. wind energy industry is primarily comprised of land-based turbines. As the third-most densely populated state, Massachusetts isn’t a very hospitable place for big, terrestrial wind-energy development — we’re just too crowded. So, we look offshore where there’s more space, fewer people, and stronger winds.

Europe can boast a 24-year history of successful offshore wind-energy development, with more than 4,000 turbines in the water. In comparison, the United States has just five operating structures, planted in the seabed off Block Island, R.I.

Bay State voters support offshore wind, as a WBUR/MassINC September poll showed, with an overwhelming 80 percent of those tallied saying we should rely more on wind for our electricity.

Consistent with this opinion, Beacon Hill lawmakers recently passed legislation that will hopefully result in at least 3,200 megawatts of offshore wind energy, as we work to reduce our reliance on dirty fossil fuels and reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.

In response, the Vineyard Wind company aims to build the first U.S. industrial-scale wind farm 35 miles south of Cape Cod. Its 80-100 turbines would remove 2 million tons annually of heat-trapping carbon dioxide, in addition to thousands of tons of poisonous nitrogen and sulfur oxides. That’s good for people, birds, and wildlife.

For this wind facility to be viable, however, it must first demonstrate that it will pose no significant threat to the marine life and environment in and around the project area.

That doesn’t mean the wind facility can have absolutely no affect on the region’s wildlife and habitat, as any development of energy will entail some level of impact. However, the project must be designed to avoid any significant environmental damage, and anticipated impacts need to be minimized and mitigated. That’s the sequence to success and the review standard for this project and those in the future.

If Vineyard Wind gets it right, others will follow as leases in two more deep-water areas off Massachusetts and Rhode Island have been granted, with a fourth sale scheduled next month.

And while Mass Audubon supports the deployment of renewable wind-energy projects off our shores, that commitment can’t and will not be at any cost. With appropriate design, siting, and mitigation, the industry can grow and prosper as Massachusetts does its part to combat the devastating impacts of global climate change.

Birds, other wildlife, and people will all reap the benefits.

Jack Clarke is the director of public policy and government relations at the Massachusetts Audubon Society.

Oily East Coast to come?

Kelp covered with oil from coastal spill.

The Trump administration wants to allow oil and gas drilling off the East Coast, except off big swing state Florida. But Republican and Democratic governors and local leaders are up in arms about it because of the potentially devastating effect on tourism -- people generally don’t like oily beaches – and fishing.

Trump’s love love of retro, fossil-fuel energy seems particularly vivid when seen against the news of the big wind turbine installations soon to go up south of Massachusetts.

Some fishermen --- squid catchers particularly -- are concerned about the impact of  setting up these “wind farms,’’ but they should think about what an oil spill could do. And, as has been shown in European coastal wind farms, the wind-turbine foundations act as reefs,  which can increase the number of  fish (and species) around coastal and offshore wind installations. Hit this link to read more on this.

and this link.

Todd Larsen: Ditch Md. LNG unit and build wind farm

  WASHINGTON

Shortly before Congress left for its long summer vacation, Sen.  Barbara Mikulski tried to block a 150-megawatt wind farm.

The Maryland Democrat’s move would delay Pioneer Green Energy’s construction of the project in her own state until an independent study from  the Massachusetts Institute of Technology concerning the effects of wind turbines on naval radar testing at the Patuxent River Naval Base is completed.

While it’s understandable that Mikulski wouldn’t want anything to interfere with a major military installation, what makes her move inexplicable is that Pioneer Green Energy is already working with the base to ensure that its wind farm won’t disrupt the base’s radar, as required by law.

Technically, she’s seeking a delay via language inserted in a Department of Defense appropriations bill. But the postponement would potentially push the project’s timeline out past the qualifying deadline for tax credits. That could effectively end the project, no matter what the MIT study finds.

This is just one of many attempts to kill wind farms. Opponents have lodged about 50 lawsuits in this country and around the world against wind projects because they allegedly cause “wind turbine syndrome,” a discredited condition first described by a pediatrician in 2009. The alleged symptoms of the syndrome range from headaches to sleeplessness to forgetfulness. These symptoms haven’t held up in court: 48 of the 49 suits have been dismissed.

Wind power foes also object to clusters of turbines for aesthetic reasons and their potential to reduce property values. This concern doesn’t pass the sniff test either. An extensive Energy Department study found no “consistent, measurable, and significant effect on the selling prices of nearby homes.”

Other opponents fear that turbines will kill tons of birds. In reality, wind farms aren’t nearly as deadly to our feathered friends as office buildings and cats, just to name two major avian killers. And when was the last time you heard about someone trying to ban buildings and cats to save birds?

Even when the opposition to wind power fails — which it often does — the resistance hurts wind farm developers. It also sends a chilling message to an industry that lacks the deep pockets of fossil-fuel companies and lobbyists. And those oil, gas, and coal special interests are funding many of the attacks on wind and renewable energy in the first place.

What makes these assaults on wind particularly troubling is that the United States is rapidly moving forward with several projects that will ramp up domestic oil and gas production.

In fact, the United States is now on track to be the world’s top oil and natural-gas producer, and is a net oil exporter for the first time since 1995.

Much of this increased oil and gas output is being extracted through hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking.” And the toll of this method is becoming increasingly clear. From contaminated drinking water, to polluted air, to ruined infrastructure from endless trucks carting water, fracking is leaving its devastating mark on towns across the country.

Fracking, and fossil-fuel extraction in general, also contributes to boom-and-bust economies that siphon most economic benefits out of local communities, which are then left to deal with the resulting devastation on their own.

Maryland faces the same energy choices as the nation overall. While Mikulski’s legislative maneuvers may kill a major wind farm, Dominion Energy is working to build a $3.8 billion liquefied-natural-gas-export terminal on Maryland’s Eastern Shore called Cove Point. That facility would endanger local communities, increase pollution, and ramp up fracking in nearby states — potentially leading to fracking in Maryland itself — while boosting natural-gas prices in the U.S. market.

A Maryland judge recently ruled that zoning laws and the Maryland Constitution were violated in permitting Cove Point, which will slow the project. That gives the state and Cove Point’s Wall Street backers time to heed the concerns expressed by opponents of this dangerous facility.

Ideally, investors could shift the $3.8 billion going to Cove Point to wind power. That move would increase East Coast wind production by 50 percent, and create over 7,500 jobs. It would also serve as a model for the country in how to invest in a clean energy future.

Todd Larsen directs Green America’s (GreenAmerica.org) responsibility division.  This was distributed via OtherWords.org.

Addendum from Robert Whitcomb: People rarely think of the massive number of birds killed by air, water and soil pollution from fossil fuel.

Robert Whitcomb: Ignore 'inverson'; marina people; Tughill Plateau

Corporate “inversion’’ involves a previously U.S.-based company merging with a foreign one, reincorporating abroad and, by so doing, taking advantage of foreign corporate income-tax rates generally lower than ours. Many public companies are not paying anywhere near the 35 percent federal corporate income-tax rate because of assorted tax breaks; some companies pay no income tax because of loopholes. Still, all in all, our corporate rate is not competitive with our major foreign competitors’.

Some have called companies using inversion “unpatriotic.’’ I disagree. The senior executives and members of the boards of directors making these decisions are legally maximizing their and the company’s wealth in a partly capitalist system that, for all its faults, fuels innovation and prosperity for the entire country — over the long haul. Most individual taxpayers also try to optimize their tax situation.

And, as I have long argued, the corporate income tax is stupid, except for the lobbyists it enriches. It encourages maneuvers such as inversions. It sends jobs abroad. It supports a lobbying system in Washington that spawns corruption and makes the world’s most complicated tax system ever more complex and inefficient as corporations seek tax breaks from elected officials.

Anyway, in the end companies’ customers, employees and shareholders pay the corporate income tax. Companies just pass along the cost.

We need to end the corporate tax and enact a value-added (consumption-based) tax. We should also put personal earned income and capital gains on a more equal tax basis and maintain substantial estate taxes. The aim should be to help streamline and detoxify our tax system, encourage economic growth and at least mildly mitigate the growth of a permanent plutocracy based on inheritance.

* * *

Automation and information technology are now rapidly wiping out well-paying jobs. They’ve long been wiping out low-paying ones. Indeed, those automatic store checkout machines are starting to make inroads into one of the last few fallbacks for those with only a high-school education.

The line is that somehow the economy, blessed by ever-increasing productivity, will create a whole new wave of well-paying jobs to replace the ones killed. We’re still waiting.

Even upper-middle-class jobs are in peril. Consider lawyers, much of whose routine work can be done through computers and low-paid (by our standards) people, in, say, India. And medical equipment, nurse practitioners and ever-better prescription drugs will undermine physicians’ affluence.

Then there’s finance. Many college undergraduates, especially at elite institutions, career plan as if Wall Street were the only sure way to fortune. But they may be guessing wrong. Just because finance was the big thing in the last three decades doesn’t mean that it will be in the next 20. Many young people could find their Wall Street jobs as redundant as many jobs in manufacturing became in the ’70s. We tend to fight the last war.

Some futurists suggest plausibly that such service jobs as plumbers, electricians, gardeners and maids, along with home health-care and social workers and other counselors, may have the best chance of survival. In some fields, even the middle class will still demand personal service.

To reduce social disorder, will the government eventually establish a minimum income for those millions who truly can’t find work?

* * *

I just visited the gorgeous Thousand Islands, on the St. Lawrence River. We cruised for parts of two days in our host’s powerboat, which he keeps in a roofed marina in Clayton, N.Y., another one of those small Northeast towns whose downtowns seem to be regaining a bit of their old energy as big-box stores lose some allure to an aging population.

The vast majority of boats remained in their slips, rather than being taken out on the river, on a beautiful summer weekend. This can be explained in part by fuel costs but more, I think, by the marina’s social role. Most of these boat owners, whose age generally ranges from 50 to 80, primarily see the marina as their summer colony, with the boats (most with sleeping space for from two to eight people) as their summer bungalows.

During the short North Country season, they relentlessly schmooze with their neighbors and derive some meaning from endless boat maintenance. They live in a cozy waterborne village. What most of these people would not have liked back home — living cheek-by-jowl — they thrive in for a few weeks every summer.

* * *

We drove home through upstate New York’s Tughill Plateau, which has hundreds of wind turbines. The white wind turbines and the vivid green of the countryside, with its view of the Adirondacks, create a spectacular, if a bit eerie, landscape. Most of the farms are far better kept up than I remembered from years before — because of the fees paid to them by the utilities. A very green cash crop and no cash paid to the Mideast!

Robert Whitcomb (rwhitcomb51@gmail.com) oversees New England Diary. He is also a senior adviser and partner at Cambridge Management Group (www.cmg625.com), a health-care consultancy,  a former finance editor of the International Herald Tribune, a former editor at The Wall Street Journal, a former  editorial-page editor and vice president at The Providence Journal and  currently a Fellow of the Pell Center for International Relations and Public Policy.