Offshore Oil & Gas

 

Democrats To Scrutinize Trump Offshore Drilling Plans. According to E&E News, “A House panel will respond to the president’s new offshore oil drilling moratorium for Florida and other states with a debate over permanently banning the industry’s expansion on the outer continental shelf. The Natural Resources Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources noted that the forum, titled ‘The Threat of Offshore Drilling and the Need for a Permanent Federal Ban,’ follows comments from the president that his coastal protections, a surprise reversal of earlier attempts to expand oil and gas access in federal waters, are easily changed. President Trump announced the 10-year moratorium last month for the eastern Gulf of Mexico, essentially extending a congressional moratorium set to expire (Energywire, Sept. 9). The states initially affected by the decadelong ban on leasing included Florida, Georgia and South Carolina, where coastal opposition to oil drilling is strong. He also initially imposed the decadelong ban on leasing for Georgia and South Carolina, where coastal opposition to oil drilling is strong. The president later agreed to extend the moratorium to North Carolina, as well, and then told supporters in Virginia the ban would also apply to the commonwealth, noting at the time that if Virginians opposed the action, he could easily reverse it (Greenwire, Sept. 28).” [E&E News, 10/12/20 (=)]

 

Marine Renewable Energy

 

Wind Turbines Taller Than The State’s Tallest Building Make Energy Off Virginia Beach Coast. According to The Virginian-Pilot, “Dominion Energy’s two massive wind turbines loom large off of Virginia Beach’s coast. You can’t see them from the Oceanfront, but at more than 600 feet tall, they would eclipse the state’s tallest building, the 508-feet Westin Virginia Beach Town Center. Together, those two turbines, churning along with three 253-foot blades apiece, represent a key step toward Virginia’s carbon-neutral future. And the groundbreaking pair — at about 27 miles off the coast, they’re the first turbines in federal waters — is just the tip of the iceberg. In 2026, Dominion officials say, the pair of research turbines will have grown by another 220, with an underwater cable transporting enough energy to land to power some 660,000 homes. Dominion says it will become the nation’s largest offshore wind farm. On a Thursday morning trip out to see the turbines — which will begin regularly feeding electricity into Dominion’s system this November — it’s clear the ambitious $8 billion project has gained some serious momentum. Onboard the Atlantic Explorer were a few dozen key stakeholders, including officials from Dominion and Old Dominion University, as well as local leaders such as Doug Smith, the CEO of the Hampton Roads Economic Development Alliance.” [The Virginian-Pilot, 10/12/20 (=)]

 

Trump’s Offshore Oil Ban In SC Also Covers Wind Farms, Feds Say. According to The Post and Courier, “Oil and gas drilling wasn’t the only thing halted by President Donald Trump’s recent order covering offshore South Carolina. It also blocked the expansion of wind farm technology, which came as a surprise to state and coastal leaders. ‘I think almost no one was expecting that it would affect offshore wind,’ said Chris Carnevale of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy. It’s a blow to a nascent industry in South Carolina, where some areas offshore of the northern half of the state have been flagged for future wind farms, though the government hasn’t started leasing waters yet. ‘Oh, well that’s disappointing,’ North Myrtle Beach Mayor Marilyn Hatley said upon hearing wind was included in the presidential order. The beach town was opposed to fossil fuel extraction but passed a resolution years ago supporting wind technology and has two experimental turbines on land that power electric car charging stations.” [The Post and Courier, 10/11/20 (=)]

 

Fishing Industry Group Casts Doubt On Offshore Wind’s Job Creation Promises. According to Energy News Network, “While offshore wind developers are promising tens of thousands of U.S. jobs from wind farm development along the East Coast over the next decade, the commercial fishing industry is sowing doubt about the projections. An economic analysis commissioned by the Responsible Offshore Development Alliance, a fishing industry coalition, concludes that ‘a surprisingly low’ number of new positions will be permanent, and that the bulk of jobs will be created overseas. ‘The claim that the huge investments on offshore wind would provide significant job and economic benefits in the U.S. has been grossly inflated,’ wrote the report’s author, Janet Liang, an economist with Georgetown Economic Services, a consulting firm. Wind industry representatives are not convinced by the findings, however. So long as Eastern Seaboard states can provide sufficient training to help businesses and workers capitalize on wind industry opportunities, the economic benefit is bound to be substantial, said Liz Burdock, chief executive and president of the Business Network for Offshore Wind.” [Energy News Network, 10/12/20 (=)]

 

Sea-Level Rise

 

Florida Sees Signals Of A Climate-Driven Housing Crisis. According to The New York Times, “With single-family homes selling for an average of $3.6 million, Bal Harbour epitomizes high-end Florida waterfront property. But around 2013, something started to change: The annual number of homes sales began to drop — tumbling by half by 2018 — a sign that fewer people wanted to buy. Prices eventually followed, falling 7.6 percent from 2016 to 2020, according to data from Zillow, the real estate data company. … The researchers identified a decline in sales in low-lying coastal areas beginning in 2013, followed a few years later by a drop in prices compared with safer areas. On less vulnerable land, sales and prices continued to grow. The idea that climate change will eventually ruin the value of coastal homes is neither new nor particularly controversial. In 2016, the then-chief economist for the federal mortgage giant Freddie Mac warned that rising seas ‘appear likely to destroy billions of dollars in property and to displace millions of people.’ By 2045, more than 300,000 existing coastal homes will be at risk of flooding regularly, the Union of Concerned Scientists concluded in 2018. The question that has occupied researchers is how soon, and how quickly, people will respond to that risk by demanding price discounts or fleeing the market. Previous research has begun to tackle that question, showing that climate change, far from being a distant threat, is already starting to hurt real estate values.” [The New York Times, 10/12/20 (+)]

 

Ice Melt Projections May Underestimate Antarctic Contribution To Sea Level Rise. According to Phys.org, “Fluctuations in the weather can have a significant impact on melting Antarctic ice, and models that do not include this factor can underestimate the global impact of sea level rise, according to Penn State scientists. ‘We know ice sheets are melting as global temperatures increase, but uncertainties remain about how much and how fast that will happen,’ said Chris Forest, professor of climate dynamics at Penn State. ‘Our findings shed new light on one area of uncertainty, suggesting climate variability has a significant impact on melting ice sheets and sea level rise.’ While it is understood that continued warming may cause rapid ice loss, models that predict how Antarctica will respond to climate change have not included the potential impacts of internal climate variability, like yearly and decadal fluctuations in the climate, the team of scientists said. Accounting for climate variability caused models to predict an additional 2.7 to 4.3 inches—7 to 11 centimeters—of sea level rise by 2100, the scientists recently reported in the journal Climate Dynamics. The models projected roughly 10.6 to 14.9 inches—27 to 38 centimeters—of sea level rise during that same period without climate variability.” [Phys.org, 10/9/20 (+)]

 

Arctic Odyssey Ends, Bringing Home Tales Of Alarming Ice Loss. According to Courthouse News Service, “The biggest Arctic expedition in history will return to the German port of Bremerhaven on Monday after a yearlong mission, bringing home observations from scientists that sea ice is melting at a ‘dramatic rate’ in the region. Coronavirus restrictions mean there will be no grand fanfare when the German Alfred Wegener Institute’s Polarstern ship docks. But the information gathered by researchers as the ship drifted through the ocean trapped in ice will be vital to helping scientists understand the effects of climate change. In the summer, the researchers saw for themselves the dramatic effects of global warming on ice in the region, considered ‘the epicenter of climate change,’ according to mission leader Markus Rex. ‘We could see broad stretches of open water reaching nearly to the Pole, surrounded by ice that was riddled with holes produced by massive melting,’ Rex said. His sobering conclusion: ‘The Arctic ice is disappearing at a dramatic rate.’” [Courthouse News Service, 10/19/20 (=)]

 

Ocean Health & Management

 

House Panel Sets Hearing On Coastal Grant Inequities. According to E&E News, “A House Natural Resources panel will this week examine how federal grants are administered for coastal communities and whether any changes should be made. The Subcommittee on Water, Oceans and Wildlife, led by Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.), will hold a remote hearing Thursday to take testimony on how NOAA and the Fish and Wildlife Service are doing in distributing the grants. ‘The hearing will assess, in part, whether eligibility and application requirements for these grants should be revised to better support environmental justice and human health needs,’ the committee said in a statement, adding that applying for federal grants ‘is often difficult for communities that need them.’ The grant programs run by NOAA and FWS and other federal agencies are aimed at helping communities protect their living space and wildlife habitats from natural disasters and pollution. The hearing is titled: ‘Environmental Justice for Coastal Communities: Examining Inequities in Federal Grantmaking.’” [E&E News, 10/12/20 (=)]

 

The Plastic Problem: No Sign Of Plastic Waste Levels Decreasing. According to Digital Journal, “COVID-19 has seen a reversal of attempts to minimize plastic waster. The coronavirus pandemic has seen large amounts of plastic used in face masks, testing kits, and screens. What is the current state of plastic waste? Levels of plastic pollution continue to rise, especially in the oceans. The situation has not been helped by the necessary health measures put in force by COVID-19. However, there are signs in some areas that recycling is increasing and new ideas continue to come forwards to aid the recycling of waste products. Plastic pollution in the oceans The extent of plastic pollution in the world’s seas continues to grow. The level of plastic waste in the oceans is equivalent of a refuse truck of plastic waste being dumped into the sea every minute. This figure is moving ever-upwards. The current rates indicated that by 2040 the amount of plastic entering the ocean will grow from 13 million tonnes this year, to 29 million tonnes in 2040. To look at this figure from a different perspective, this represents 50 kilograms of waste plastic entering the ocean for every metre of coastline.” [Digital Journal, 10/10/20 (=)]

 

 

Please do not respond to this email.

If you have questions or comments please contact mitch@beehivedc.com