[vtsnowedin]

Well they are out there anyway. I don’t see any additional expense.

But also, what is the cost of having no fish?

That an interesting point. Hard to place a price on something that isn't there. In this case the cost of building and running fish farms in protected off shore areas might serve.
Perhaps in the future they will suspend nets from wind mill to wind mill using them as fence posts to surround the wind farm as a fish farm.

[ROCKMAN]

Reuters - California will block the transport of petroleum from new offshore oil rigs through its state, officials told Reuters, a move meant to hobble the Trump administration’s effort to vastly expand drilling in U.S. federal waters. California's threat to deny pipeline permits for transporting oil from new leases off the Pacific Coast is the latest step by states trying to halt the biggest proposed expansion in decades of federal oil and gas leasing. Officials in Florida, North and South Carolina, Delaware and Washington, have also warned drilling could despoil beaches, harm wildlife and hurt lucrative tourism industries."

No problamo. A simple matter to produce the oil into tankers from an offshore (in federal waters) production facility. Commonly done around the world where pipeline access isn't available. Could be a little more expensive...or not depending on the water depth. Granted this greatly increases the possibility of an oil spill during the production phase. And a lack of pipeline access has zero effect on reducing the risk of an oil spill while drilling. As happened with the largest oil spill in US history: BP's Macondo.

And the best part for the companies: the state of CA would have no say in the operations. The oil would be inexpensively transported up the CA coast to refineries in Washington. I wonder if the CA politicians would ban the import of products made from oil produced of their coastline?

[rockdoc123]

Could be a little more expensive...or not depending on the water depth.

FPSO's are a lot cheaper to rent these days. Dayrates in and around $75K add some lifting costs and it still likely beats the cost of building a pipeline and then the associated repairs and abandonment costs. If shallower water you can just have an FSO aligned with a small production platform, also much cheaper set up than it was 5 years ago.

[AdamB]

History tells us that a drought is never very far away from us here in California. After a total of 0.06 inches of rain in December, February was nearly as dry with just 0.30 inches by the end of February. Water covers about 71 percent of our planet’s surface, and we only have to look offshore to see it. But freshwater, the stuff we drink, wash in, and irrigate our crops with, is often in short supply. Only 3 percent of the world’s water is fresh, and about two-thirds of that is tucked away in Antarctica, Greenland and in continental glaciers in places such as Alaska, the Himalayas and the Andes. This leaves 1 percent of all the planet’s water for the 7.6 billion people on Earth as well as all of the plants and animals. Many people around the planet, and California

Our Ocean Backyard: The Limits of the Earth

[dohboi]

“Thousands of dead starfish have washed up on a beach in the United Kingdom”

https://twitter.com/CNN/status/971067131709313024

[dohboi]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/ene ... cd466288ac

15% slowdown in the AMOC since mid-20th C.

[dohboi]

More on the AMOC slowdown:

“I think we’re close to a tipping point,” climatologist Michael Mann told ThinkProgress in an email. The AMOC slow down “is without precedent” in more than a millennium he said, adding, “It’s happening about a century ahead of schedule relative to what the models predict.”

….

A slow-down in deepwater ocean circulation “would accelerate sea level rise off the northeastern United States, while a full collapse could result in as much as approximately 1.6 feet of regional sea level rise,” as the authors of the U.S. National Climate Assessment (NCA) explained in November.

https://thinkprogress.org/climate-tippi ... 633f968fc/

[Plantagenet]

Just flew into Hong Kong and was surprised to see ca. 100 jack up oil rigs crowded into the harbor——it looked like an armada.

The fear has always been that China was claiming all the South China Sea right up to the 3 mile border of Vietnam, The Phillipines, Malaysia, etc. so they could drill for all the oil in the whole South China Sea.

With ca. 100 jack up rigs for shallow offshore drilling sitting in Hong Kong right now, China is now positioned to start a huge offshore oil drilling campaign any time it wants to.

Cheers!

[dohboi]

Interesting. Thanks for the eye-witness account.

[dohboi]

Studying oxygen, scientists discover clues to recovery from mass extinction.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2 ... 132829.htm

. . . The resulting variations of uranium isotopes gave the team the answers they were looking for. They were able to show that episodes of extinction coincided with pulses of ocean anoxia, driven by changes in ocean circulation and nutrient levels.

“This finding,” says Zhang, “provides important insights into patterns of oceanic environmental change and their underlying causes, which were ultimately linked to intense climate warming during the Early Triassic.”

This team’s discovery also calls attention to the possible effects of modern climate change, because global warming was the ultimate driver of marine anoxia in the Early Triassic period.

“One of the most interesting and worrying things about the Permian-Triassic extinction is how similar those events are to what is happening today,” says co-author Stephen Romaniello. “Similar to what happened during the Permian period, the Earth’s modern oceans are facing rapid climate warming and enhanced nutrient fluxes.”

Point in fact, scientists have discovered more than 400 marine dead zones in the modern oceans. These are mostly linked to elevated nutrient fluxes in coastal areas, and global warming is likely to cause these zones to expand dramatically in the future.

“Our work shows that if we continue on our present course, there is a good chance that oxygen depletion will exacerbate the challenges marine organisms are already facing,” co-author Thomas Algeo added.

[Newfie]

Turkey to build a mega canal. Interesting read.

http://gcaptain.com/turkeys-proposed-ka ... entalists/

[Newfie]

Paris MOU to Enforce IMO’s Low Sulphur Fuel Rule from “Day One”
May 14, 2018 by gCaptain

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Photo: Shutterstock/CNRN
The Paris MOU on Port State Control is warning that it intends to enforce new international regulations limiting the amount of sulphur in fuel oil used on board ships from “day one”.

The warning comes in anticipation of the International Maritime Organization’s low sulphur fuel rule which is to take effect on January 1, 2020.

http://gcaptain.com/paris-mou-to-enforc ... m-day-one/

[Tanada]

This has been coming for a long time and 18 months is ample warning to consume all the high sulfur heavy diesel currently in the system and replace it with ultra low sulfur diesel. The method of taking the sulfur out is very well known and is now done in Europe and North America and is now a requirement for all road fuel and IIRC all railroad fuel as well. Simply adding the sulfur scrubbers to process the heavy diesel used for shipping is not a big change and all the whining and gnashing of teeth is just that. Sure sea travel diesel costs are going up about 10%. Boo hoo! The End Is Nigh!

Reality check, we have been building zero carbon emission high powered ships since the 1950's. The only reason they are not the main form of sea power is fossil fuel is still freaking cheap as an energy source.

[dohboi]

Toxic Algae Blooms Occurring More Often, May Be Caught in Climate Change Feedback Loop

The blooms, primarily fed by farm runoff but exacerbated by warming, release methane and CO2. Lake Erie is a 'poster child' for the challenge.

Blooms of harmful algae in the nation's waters appear to be occurring much more frequently than in the past, increasing suspicions that the warming climate may be exacerbating the problem.

The Environmental Working Group (EWG) published newly collected data on Tuesday reporting nearly 300 large blooms since 2010. Last year alone, 169 were reported. While NOAA issues forecasts for harmful algal blooms in certain areas, the advocacy group called its report the first attempt to track the blooms on a nationwide scale.

The study comes as scientists have predicted proliferation of these blooms as the climate changes, and amid increasing attention by the news media and local politicians to the worst cases.

Just as troubling, these blooms could not only worsen with climate change, but also contribute significantly to greenhouse gas emissions...

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/1505 ... -lake-erie

(Sorry, this seems to apply primarily to inland water bodies, but the great lakes are basically inland seas, so I'm keeping this post in this thread, unless mods want to place it elsewhere or in a new thread )

Also in the news, in the real ocean:

Storms that moved across the area yesterday ended up creating a meteotsunami across the Mid-Atlantic & up into the SNE coastline. You can see the meteotsunami in the water fluctuations from area tidal gauges, esp in the New Haven gauge.

https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/meteotsunami.html “

https://twitter.com/nwsboston/status/996676909013618688

Has anyone heard of a meteotsunami before?

[Newfie]

I’ve been trying to catch some fish, but I can’t. The darn saragosum weed is ever where and it could your lures when trolling. I could not believe how much there was so I looked it up on Wiki. Seems there has been an unexplained bumper crop the last six years or so. Locals complain of it fouling the beaches and rotting and stinking. They even have saragosum alerts In some places.

[Newfie]

59DDA11D-9C87-40F4-88C5-8C011F50009F.jpeg (140.23 KiB) Viewed 19023 times

We are living “on the hard” as sailors say, the boat is on stands in a yard. Of course that means a trip to the bathroom at 5am entails getting dressed, climbing down a ladder and walking a couple of hundred yards to the facilities. En route we find the MONSTER turtle, the carpace is nearly 5’ and overall is more than my arm span, over 6’. She crawled out on to the little beach (to lay eggs?) but got stuck in this boatyard. We got her back in the water by making an aisle out of old tires and guiding her. Very sad she was frustrated but felt wonderful to see her swim off.

[Tanada]

Isn't Sargossa weed edible? And usable for livestock feed if nothing else?

[Newfie]

Isn't Sargossa weed edible? And usable for livestock feed if nothing else?

Not a clue. On Montserrat I was told that after the volcano cattle went wild and they ended up with more cattle than people. Supposedly the UK government sent us shooters to cull the herd, leaving the carcasses to rot as there was no butcher shop to handle them. Seems to me they could have just let the population harvest the animals. But I don’t know, maybe the folks do t have a culture that allows that?

I did find this on Wiki

Sargassum crisis in the Caribbean Sea Edit

In summer 2015, large quantities of different species of Sargassum accumulated along the shores of many of the countries bathed by the Caribbean Sea. Some of the affected islands and regions include the Caribbean coast of Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Barbados and Tobago.[12]

The algae washes ashore, piles up on beaches, and decays, often causing a foul odor, releasing fumes of sulphur compounds that rust metals, that can turn taps black in shore houses, damages modern conveniences, and causes respiratory problems, particularly for asthmatics. 52 patients were recorded by a single doctor in Guadeloupe with Sargassum-related symptoms. Insurance problems arise for tourist operators and homeowners, where the household and business losses do not fall into previous insurance categories. Wildlife also suffers; for example, sea turtle hatchlings that die on their way to the open water. The affected countries and territories are discussing causes of the outbreak, potential solutions, and the negative effects on tourism. One method of cleaning is by spade and barrow onshore, and it can be collected by raking boats offshore. Barrages of shallow nets floated by long buoys can be used to ward off algae drifts, depending on wave height and current. On the Caribbean island of Saint Martin, backhoes are also used in the process of clean up once the sargassum weed reaches the shorelines.[13][14]

Researchers say that the Sargassum outbreak started in 2011, but it has become worse over the years. As the sargassum is cleaned up on the shorelines, in a matter of a week the shorelines are once again filled in masses. It is still a recurring problem to this date. There are several factors that could explain the proliferation of Sargassum in the area in recent years. These include the rise of sea temperature and the change of sea currents due to climate change. Also, nutriments from agricultural fertilizers and wastewater from the cities, that end up in the sea, could also make the algae bloom.[12]

[Newfie]

Russians build a floating nuclear power plant.

http://gcaptain.com/russias-first-float ... he-arctic/