[GHung]

In a lot of places they call the old infrastructure 'artificial reefs'. They provide great habitat for fish and other sea creatures. Sinking stuff in the GOM to create artificial reefs is common these days. If these structures are considered a shipping hazard, decommissioning is a simple matter of planting a few charges 15-20 meters down. Boom!

I can think of a lot of other things we'll leave behind that future generations will need to worry about much more.

[Newfie]

And we should not leave them behind either. And yes they will be a hazard to navigation. And blowing them up is a great way to kill whole lots of sea animals. But even that won’t happen unless there is a fund to pay for it.

FWIW, I would attach a $1 a bag fee on all shopping bag to go to a General super fund clean up account.

I care about my kids future, I’m funny that way.

And while we are at it the China trade deal should have a clause dealing with all the plastic crap they are dumping.

[GHung]

And we should not leave them behind either. And yes they will be a hazard to navigation........

There's that "should" word. As I said, we have a long, long list of "shoulds". We're going to reach the age of prioritizing and triage soon enough. I'm betting seaside nuke plants will be much higher on that list than some steel and concrete structures that "should" be well marked on your charts. Or maybe we should get a head start with stuff like this:



Eighty+ years after its demise, I don't see any sense of urgency about cleaning up Flagler's Folly. I may have more sea time than you do and I've seen stuff like this all over the world. Nobody seems to be making it a priority to clean it up. It's EVERYWHERE.

[Pops]

Everyone of us make choices every day that affect the environment.

I'd guess a million concrete footings don't do the damage that the caps from 50 billion water bottles do, every year.

[Newfie]

And we should not leave them behind either. And yes they will be a hazard to navigation........

There's that "should" word. As I said, we have a long, long list of "shoulds". We're going to reach the age of prioritizing and triage soon enough. I'm betting seaside nuke plants will be much higher on that list than some steel and concrete structures that "should" be well marked on your charts. Or maybe we should get a head start with stuff like this:



Eighty+ years after its demise, I don't see any sense of urgency about cleaning up Flagler's Folly. I may have more sea time than you do and I've seen stuff like this all over the world. Nobody seems to be making it a priority to clean it up. It's EVERYWHERE.

I completely agree, it SHOULD be removed. And not just at sea but on the land as well. The total cost of anything should be included including the cost of removal and proper disposal. I know they have his for tires in NJ. But I don’t don’t know if that’s a state or Federal law.

Anyway I’m tired of see us shit in our bed everywhere.

I can’t tell if you are agreeing with me or saying it’s OK to leave this crap around.

[Newfie]

Yes Pops, everywhere. Doesn’t make it right.

We offshores a lot of production and a lot of pollution. But it also seems to be at least a little bit cultural. Last year in Luperon, DR I was suprised how clean the small town was. We spent a couple of night in Santo Domingo and the river there was a trash heap. It seems there is a correlation between population density and trash. Not always though. I hate it when going through a woods and I find dumped allliances and household crap. Sometimes on the road to the dump.

It’s not great thing to be proud of to be human. We Tenno more difficult than a pre K lesson, pick up after yourself.

[Outcast_Searcher]

Everyone of us make choices every day that affect the environment.

I'd guess a million concrete footings don't do the damage that the caps from 50 billion water bottles do, every year.

Even for people who meticulously throw them away in the garbage? Even for people who tend to refill the bottles at least 10 times before using a new one?

To me, bottled water is mainly a convenient container, with a cap. (And yes, in a public place, especially a Dr's office, I sure as hell DO want a cap. And yes, I do have a medical condition (side effects of BP medicines) which make me having water conveniently available a very desirable thing).

Every metal, plastic, etc. bottle to haul around water in (i.e. the permanent kind) has various problems, some of which look pretty nasty.

Let's not pretend that bottled water has to be the bane of civilization, even as certain folks around here pretend it's meat, taxes, guns, etc.

[Pops]

That pic of a baby albatross was taken on Midway, newf, which I believe is about as far from people as you can get on the surface. 60 Minutes did a thing on them back a few weeks.

My smug point was simply that we are killing everything with our smallest nonchalant daily choices so if we do leave some additional rubble on the seafloor in a deliberate attempt to lower whatever emissions it might still be a net positive on balance.

[Pops]

Even for people who meticulously throw them away in the garbage? Even for people who tend to refill the bottles at least 10 times before using a new one.

The factoid I read was only 25% or so are recycled.

Which was likely before China stopped accepting plastic to recycle early in 2018.

Which in turn was likely a result of the much lower price for ethylene — one of those worthless byproducts of fracking Pete is always carping about— that fell through the floor in 2014.

[Newfie]

Yes we all contribute to some degree. And no I don’t agree that some foundations in the sea fooornare a positive note.

FIRST REDUCE

We waste enoumous amounts of everything.

I’m a big advocate of DEGROWTH. Learn to live with what you have. Those windmills are not helping anything, they are just another form of expansion, feeding the problem.

[ROCKMAN]

Ghung - Dropping old oil production platforms to the bottom of the GOM is a decades old Federal program for the benefits you described. And about 25 years ago the Feds approved a method of leaving deep portions (100' or more below sea level) in place since they had already essentially became artificial reefs: cut the upper 100' off and drop in deep water. Mark remaining structure with a permanent buoy maintained by the states. The states receive a one time payment ($5 million?) from the oil company. Texas also has a program of sinking old ships in deeper water for reef building.

The Texas artificial reefs are by far the most productive areas off our coast. We have to hard bottoms off our coast for natural reef development so it's something of a barren "desert".

[rockdoc123]

The Texas artificial reefs are by far the most productive areas off our coast. We have to hard bottoms off our coast for natural reef development so it's something of a barren "desert".

years ago before the hurricane hit there was a huge aquarium in New Orleans that had a large tank near the entrance lobby that contained a small rig structure. The idea was to show how a natural reef formed. The tank was pretty amazing with a couple of sea turtles a few huge tarpons and two whale sharks.

[Newfie]

Dropping oil platforms 100’ below sea level and sinking ships for artificial reefs is far different from surface level concrete structures or aging bridges.

Or coal mines, or chemical factories, or old tires.

Are some of you truly arguing against cleaning up the environment?

[Pops]

Newf that's quite the strawman you have there, LOL. I don't know about anyone else but I can't figure your argument, concrete footings are pretty inert when compared to CO2 and PO which are not inert. I'm pretty sure that either the footings that never get removed would either be too deep to interfere with any likely traffic or they don't get removed because the world has gone to pot in which case they are way down the list of worries, even a sailor's. Regardless protecting the environment is about the weirdest argument against RE I've seen.
Unless this about trump thinking GW is a China hoax, in which case I give up. LOL

[KaiserJeep]

This is what happens to abandonned chunks of concrete in the oceans:


Any questions?

[Tanada]

After legal win, Lake Erie offshore wind project backers look to reboot progress

Downtown Cleveland, Ohio, rises on the shore of Lake Erie. A six-turbine wind project about 8 miles northwest of the city would be the first freshwater offshore wind farm in North America.

The backers of the Great Lakes’ first offshore wind farm are working to reboot the project following an Ohio Supreme Court decision this week that resolves more than two years of legal and regulatory uncertainty.

The Icebreaker Wind project was first proposed more than a decade ago by a public-private partnership in northern Ohio. The 20.7-megawatt project will consist of six turbines installed about 8 miles north of Cleveland.

The project has been largely mothballed since May 2020, when state regulators approved a permit for the project with a “poison pill” provision that would have kept it from operating for much of the year. That set off months of legal and regulatory appeals that were finally resolved by a 6-1 decision Wednesday by the Ohio Supreme Court.

“Despite the good news today, it is going to be challenging to get this project rolling forward again,” said Will Friedman, president and CEO of the Port of Cleveland and a board member of LEEDCo, the Lake Erie Energy Development Corporation, which was formed in 2009 to launch the project.

The project has a commitment from the city of Cleveland and Cuyahoga County to purchase one-third of the electricity, but efforts to sell the remaining two-thirds were put on hold amid the legal challenges. Without commitments to buy all of the electricity, it’s unlikely the project will be able to borrow money for upfront construction costs.

Meanwhile, the project’s lead officer, Dave Karpinski, left his role as president last summer for another job. Other key staff members have retired. Friedman said one of the first priorities in the wake of the court ruling will involve staffing. Fred. Olsen Renewables remains contracted as a developer for the project.

As the United States’ first freshwater-based wind farm, Icebreaker is a pilot project. The project caught a break in January when the U.S. Department of Energy extended a deadline for LEEDCo to use previous grant money. Additional funding will be necessary even if the promoters get commitments to sell all the output at market rates.

“It’s R&D, is what it is,” Friedman said.

“We want to get out there and get these turbines in the water and start generating power and show that this is feasible,” Friedman said. “And then when that happens, then we can let the market kind of come in. And hopefully we would see what’s happening on the East Coast where larger utility-scale projects are moving ahead.”

Ohio’s Republican caucus rejected a proposed surcharge for Northeast Ohio ratepayers to subsidize the project last December. The charge of roughly 20 cents per month would have been an amendment to House Bill 389, a bipartisan bill that seeks to restore some energy efficiency programs that were cut after House Bill 6, the law at the heart of Ohio’s ongoing corruption scandal.

“And so here we are in Ohio, doing it with sort of two legs of a three-legged stool,” Friedman said. “We’ve got local people working on this and the federal government partnering in the project. But the state is absent, and that just remains very challenging.”

Other challenges include revisiting engineering plans, to see if any updates are necessary. Costs also will need updating, Friedman said. And revised estimates will feed back into efforts to raise capital.

Even when all of that is in place, the permit contains various requirements and conditions that will need to be satisfied. Consequently, Friedman could not yet give a firm timeline for when the project would be built and operational.
Fossil fuel opposition

LEEDCo’s legal existence as a public-private nonprofit partnership stretches back to its incorporation in 2009 as the Lake Erie Energy Development Corporation. Justice Jennifer Brunner, who penned the Ohio Supreme Court’s majority opinion last week, was Ohio Secretary of State at the time. She’s now running for Chief Justice of the Ohio Supreme Court against Justice Sharon Kennedy, who cast the only dissenting vote against the Icebreaker project.

Despite funding setbacks in 2014, the project’s supporters pushed ahead with planning and environmental studies. Icebreaker’s completed permit application was filed with the Ohio Power Siting Board in 2016. Planners hoped construction would take place in 2018.

In 2017, however, attorney John Stock, who had represented Murray Energy in other matters, appeared in the case on behalf of a pro-coal group and then acted as the lawyer for several individuals who opposed the project. Stock followed a similar pattern in other Ohio wind farm siting cases.

Documents uncovered through pre-hearing fact-finding confirmed that Murray Energy paid the individuals’ costs for fighting the Icebreaker wind project. Payments continued for at least some time after the coal company filed for bankruptcy in late 2019. American Consolidated Natural Resources, Inc., the company’s successor-in-bankruptcy, did not respond last year when asked if it had continued to pay for legal fees in the case.

“The fossil fuel industry continues to hamper renewable energy development in Ohio,” said Trish Demeter, interim executive director for the Ohio Environmental Council, which was a party in the proceedings. “In this case, Murray Energy funded legal opposition to thwart the development of Icebreaker Wind, but they failed in stopping this innovative project from clearing another hurdle.” Nonetheless, she noted, “the ongoing legal challenges most likely led to some slowdowns in securing funding and planning of the project.”

By 2019, all parties except Stock’s clients had nonetheless agreed on a settlement, which included extra environmental protections such as additional pre-construction monitoring. Then, Gov. Mike DeWine made wind-energy foe Sam Randazzo chair of the Power Siting Board and Ohio Public Utilities Commission. FirstEnergy admitted last year that it paid $4.3 million to a Randazzo-linked company shortly before that appointment, although Randazzo has denied wrongdoing.

Two months before the first arrests in the HB 6 scandal, Randazzo and the rest of the Power Siting Board approved a permit for the Icebreaker project, but with a “poison pill” provision that would have shut the project down for two-thirds of the year. A bipartisan group of 32 lawmakers objected, and LEEDCo and others asked for reconsideration.

The board finally removed the condition and approved the permit in October 2020, roughly one month before Randazzo resigned from the board following a search of his home by federal agents. Then the individual defendants appealed to the Ohio Supreme Court. Briefs were filed in July 2021, but the judges didn’t hear oral argument until December. Then it took another eight months before the decision came out.
Moving ahead

Even with all the drawbacks, Friedman remains optimistic. “It’s undeniable that there’s an imperative to develop non-fossil-based energy as quickly as we can,” he said. At least one estimate suggests the U.S. offshore wind supply chain could grow into a $70 billion industry, and he would like Northeast Ohio to have its share of that growth.

“It’s the right environmental policy, and it’s the right economic policy, for sure,” Friedman said. As he sees it, the work could provide thousands of jobs, many of which would benefit the Port of Cleveland and surrounding areas. “We just see that as right in our wheelhouse,” he said.

“It’s our hope that LEEDCo can now resume selling the remainder of the power and turn this dream into a reality,” said Ronn Richard, LEEDCo board chair and chief executive officer for the Cleveland Foundation, when the Ohio Supreme Court’s ruling came out.

Meanwhile, Demeter and her colleagues urge the Ohio Power Siting Board to adopt rules from the Ohio Judicial Code of Conduct to attorney examiners and board members. “The Icebreaker case is a strong reminder of the inappropriate influence the fossil fuel industry can have on Ohioans’ access to clean innovative energy,” she said.

The OPSB is accepting comments from the public for its current rule review until Sept. 2. Emails can be sent to [email protected] with “Reply Comment for 21-0912” in the subject line.

Energy News Network

[theluckycountry]

rising costs are making offshore wind projects so expensive that ‘it doesn’t make sense to continue’

Well you could have see this coming a mile away, if you had your eyes open that is. The Great Ethanol Revolution taught us that a renewable energy source, exploited by mountains of oil and coal, simply goes up in price as the underlying oil and coal goes up in price.

July 23, 2023
Offshore wind projects are facing an economic crisis that erased billions of US dollars in planned spending this week — just as the world needs clean energy more than ever.

A unit of Spain’s Iberdrola SA agreed to cancel a contract to sell power from a planned wind farm off the coast of Massachusetts. Danish developer Orsted A/S lost a bid to provide offshore wind power to Rhode Island, whose main utility said rising costs made the proposal too expensive. Swedish state-owned utility Vattenfall AB scuttled plans for a wind farm off the coast of Britain, citing inflation.

Together, the three affected projects would have provided 3.5 gigawatts of power — more than 11% of the total offshore wind fleet currently deployed in the waters of the US and Europe. And the numbers could soon expand. At least 9.7 gigawatts of US projects are at risk because their developers want to renegotiate or exit contracts to sell power at prices that they say are now too low to make the investments worth it

https://fortune.com/2023/07/22/offshore ... rgy-needs/

Another dream scuttled on the reefs of reality. When are people going to wake up to the fact that you can't get something for nothing. Wake up to the fact that All the progress we have made in past 200 years was made on the back of cheap coal and oil. I'm not talking about the companies and politicians engaged in this waste of resources, they have done very well, mission accomplished. No I'm talking about the armchair scientists who sit in front of the TV digesting this drivel and then go out and proclaim to the world how we're on the track for a bright green future.

There is a conceited world view held by the average uneducated TV watcher that we have arrived where we are in history because of technology alone, because we humans are so smart, we can solve anything. Well this world view will not outlive the vast stores of oil coal and gas the Earth was endowed with I assure you of that.

[theluckycountry]

Financial Crisis Brewing In Offshore Wind

-The costs associated with U.S. offshore wind projects have risen by 57% since 2021 due to inflation in components and labor costs, as well as rising interest rates, leading to a large number of canceled or renegotiated deals.
-The recent cancellations of major offshore wind projects have erased billions of dollars in planned spending and put at least 9.7 additional gigawatts of offshore wind projects in the U.S. at risk.
--Despite the financial crisis in offshore wind energy, the Biden administration is persevering with its goal of achieving 30 GW of offshore wind energy capacity by 2030.

https://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy ... nergy.html

[mousepad]

The australians are dumping old win turbines in ecologically sensitive forests.
https://youtu.be/KMui1Lr0eic

I'm confused. kublikhan produced so many studies showing how great, cheap, and environmentally wonderful all them renewables are. Is it all a lie after all?

[kublikhan]

I'm confused. kublikhan produced so many studies showing how great, cheap, and environmentally wonderful all them renewables are. Is it all a lie after all?

No, that's not what I said. I said offshore was more expensive than onshore. Repeatedly.

Offshore wind really is more much expensive than onshore wind.

A Critical Discussion the Limits to Renewable Energy Pt 3

offshore projects remain more expensive to operate

A Critical Discussion the Limits to Renewable Energy Pt 3

EIA numbers are not very favorable for offshore either. They got $58 vs $169 for capital costs alone onshore vs offshore. Or $74 vs $197 for total levelized cost onshore vs offshore(offshore partially offsets it's higher capital costs with higher utilization rates). That makes onshore wind one of the cheapest sources of electricity and offshore wind one of the most expensive.

THE Wind Power Thread pt 3

Offshore wind farms are more expensive than onshore wind farms. The costs can be anywhere from 50 percent to double the cost of onshore. There are many reasons someone might choose offshore vs. onshore.

New Wind Power Capacity Surges 45% in ONE YEAR.

Do you not realize that offshore wind power is more expensive than onshore?

New Wind Power Capacity Surges 45% in ONE YEAR.

Also, I would hope you are not as, shall we say, mathematically challenged as lucky is when it comes to industry downturns. He gets a bit over excited every time there is a dip in numbers for a few months and starts frothing at the mouth about "peak" EVs, "peak" wind, "peak" nuclear, or whatever he is crapping all over at the moment. Only to look like a complete fool when the numbers come back up. Case in point, onshore had a slow few years while offshore was booming. Now it has reversed and onshore is booming and offshore is slowing. But listening to lucky, and you would think Armageddon was here:

Following two consecutive years of decline, onshore wind capacity additions are on course to rebound by 70% in 2023 to 107 GW, an all-time record amount. This is mainly due to the commissioning of delayed projects in China following last year’s Covid-19 restrictions. Faster expansion is also expected in Europe and the United States as a result of supply chain challenges pushing project commissioning from 2022 into 2023. On the other hand, offshore wind growth is not expected to match the record expansion it achieved two years ago due to the low volume of projects under construction outside of China.

In 2022 wind electricity generation increased by a record 265 TWh (up 14%), reaching more than 2 100 TWh.

Wind - IEA