Yesterday, Dec. 7th 2023, we visited the newly operational first turbine of the South Fork Wind Farm. It is also a first for New York State. It was an amazing event covered by news reporters from Reuters, CBS, NY Times, Newsday, East Hampton Star and more, with State officials from Albany, and local political figures from East Hampton and Long Island, also including NYSERDA, LIPA, PSEG, etc.,. Jen Garvey of Orsted ran the show, competent as always.
The star of the event was the first operational turbine which is already transmitting electricity to East Hampton! As Judith Hope puts it:
We celebrated “First Power” today when the first wind turbine, 35 files off the Montauk coast, was turned on and began transmitting electricity to the Cove Hollow substation! Eleven more turbines are on the way and together they will provide electric power to 70,000 South Fork homes. It was so satisfying to come home tonight and to hit the light switch knowing that it is even partially fueled by our own offshore wind. Very soon, the South Fork Wind Farm will be entirely powering our homes. Happy Holidays! Judith
There follows a ‘slide show’ from our visit to the wind farm aboard our vessel, the “Julia Leigh.” Missing is a picture of an uninvited guest spouting off: a whale just about 100 yards from our ship, swimming among the wind turbines and construction vessels, and joining the party, in celebration it seems!
To understand the construction site for the wind farm, I found this quite useful:
(2) Concrete foundation for a future turbine. Penetrates the sea bed floor about 60 feet:
(3) A “lift boat”. A platform from which the turbine and blades are mounted onto the foundation. The 3 blades are visible on the platform waiting to be mounted next.
(4) The “switch station”: this is where the electricity from the turbines is transformed to a higher voltage and then loaded on to the cable which runs along the sea bed and eventually makes landfall in Wainscott. Also shown is a transport vessel for construction material from the mainland supply port. It can house 40 construction workers who spend 2-week shifts working on the wind farm.
(5) The crowd watching from our boat!
(6) The wind farm construction site from a distance:
New York is days away from having its first offshore wind turbine. The first wind turbine components for the South Fork offshore wind farm have been loaded onto a barge and the installation vessel Aeolus is already in the project site area.
The South Fork team has loaded out the components for the first wind turbine – the tower sections, blades and the nacelle – onto a barge at the State Pier Terminal in New London, Connecticut.
All monopile foundations and the project’s offshore substation were installed this summer, and the wind turbine components started arriving in New London around the same time.
·
According to a recent post by South Fork Wind, a project company owned by Ørsted, Van Oord’s installation vessel Aeolus arrived in the US last week and stopped in Rhode Island for inspection before heading to the offshore wind farm site.
The vessel’s AIS currently shows Aeolus in the project site area. The 132 MW South Fork offshore wind farm is located some 30 kilometres (19 miles) southeast of Block Island, Rhode Island, and around 56 kilometres (35 miles) east of Montauk Point, New York. The project, the first offshore wind farm in New York, will comprise twelve Siemens Gamesa 11 MW wind turbines and is expected to produce its first electricity by the end of this year.
Adrienne Esposito, Executive Director, Citizens Campaign for the Environment, 225A Main Street , Farmingdale, NY 11735
Ninety years ago, Franklin Delano Roosevelt told a nation locked into the miseries of the Great Depression, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”
FDR’s reassuring words and resolute tone rallied Americans and set a pattern of optimism that helped carry the United States to economic recovery and, later, victory in a world war.
Today’s calamity, global climate change, should have special resonance for Long Island. Our trademark sea-splashed geography and low-lying beach topography place Nassau and Suffolk in the path of rising sea levels. Just as Americans rebuilt our economic system and prevailed in World War II, confronting the climate crisis means all hands on deck.
It also requires taking a page from FDR and conquering our fears. Unfounded, baseless fears. Unfortunately, a pair of local legislators are doing the opposite as they work to scuttle the proposed Equinor wind farm off my hometown of Long Beach on Nassau County’s south shore.
Delusional thinking reaches a whole new level when officials representing fossil fuel-dependent, storm-vulnerable and barely-above-sea-level communities seek to block Long Island’s and New York State’s first significant offshore wind power array.
Climate change is here and for some, literally at our doorsteps. Wind farms have been proven to be safe and an effective part of the solution.
So why are State Senator Patricia Canzoneri-Fitzpatrick of Malverne and Assemblymember Ari Brown from the Five Towns mobilizing against the project? Why did they recently circulate tens of thousands of flyers telling voters that the 150 offshore wind turbines threaten their way of life, when in reality the power they will produce is key to preserving it?
Equinor’s wind turbines will reduce Long Island families’ carbon footprint, protect marine life, and create enduring, high-paying jobs for their communities.
Denmark and northern Germany have been reaping those benefits for nearly two decades, followed by Scotland and soon, Ireland. Although the United States has been slow to develop offshore wind, our land-based wind turbines last year produced a stunning 435 billion kilowatt-hours — one-tenth of all electricity generated in the 50 states.
Every kilowatt-hour of that energy was spun from free air and didn’t have to be made by burning oil or coal or fracked methane gas. Commercial wind power is a huge U.S. climate success story, reducing our carbon emissions and helping ensure that our electric cars and electric heat are climate-friendly.
What do Canzoneri-Fitzpatrick and Brown have to say to that? Nothing. Rather than deal in facts, their mailer trades in fear and misstatements.
The dangers it alleges are not based on facts, science, or experience. “Electromagnetic cables … Harmful to marine life … Reduced property values … Potential high cost of environmental damage.” It would appear to be the work of a cynical, well-oiled propaganda campaign whose agenda has little to do with the protection of our environment or the ability to confront climate change. Rather, this campaign seems to bind itself to political rhetoric and the bottom-line concerns of special interests who hope to delay or deny the arrival of competitive renewable energy.
The climate crisis confronts our beautiful island with a circumscribed future. Solving the crisis requires that every country, state, city, and region play a part. Long Island’s biggest climate asset by far is our offshore wind resources. Turning our backs on Equinor’s wind turbines and, yes, other wind farms to follow, isn’t climate Russian roulette. It’s climate suicide.
Charles Komanoff, a native of Long Beach, is a consulting economist based in New York City.
Posted by D. Posnett MD On Apr 5, 2023, at noon, CCE (Citizens Campaign for the Environment) put together a great webinar to address increases in whale strandings and whale deaths off the Atlantic sea shore and in particular the New York blight.
Adrienne Esposito led the discussion. She reminds us that whales are under threat from several sources, including ship strikes, fishing gear, plastic pollution, and climate change. Unfortunately, misinformation has targeted offshore wind development. Local wind projects are crucial to combat climate change, which in itself threatens whales, other marine mammals, fisheries, and our local communities.
Check out this virtual educational forum to hear from experts at the US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), NYS Dept. of Environmental Conservation, and Atlantic Marine Conservation Society. Learn more about the recent whale strandings and deaths, and what is being done to protect whales. Hosted by CCE, NY League of Conservation Voters, and the NY Offshore Wind Alliance.
For a complete review of the webinar, watch it on YouTube (1 hour):
Here are some points that struck me:
There is a real increase in whale deaths since 2016 (about 4-5 fold over baseline). It is over a large area of the Atlantic coastline. It involves all whale species. Leading causes are vessel strikes and entanglement in fishing gear.
With the return of menhaden fish schools (food for whales), whale sightings have also increased.
The nascent offshore wind farms have nothing to do with this real and important problem
The following are a few highlights from the webinar. Courtesy of the speakers:
Julie Tighe (New York League of Conservation voters). Meghan Rickard, NY State Dep of Environmental Conservation. Erika Staaterman, BOEM. Robert A. DiGiovanni, Atlantic Marine Conservation Society. Adrienne Esposito, Citizens campaign
Large whale (with white fins) feeding on Menhaden school.
Beach construction near the sun-blanched mansions of the Hamptons represents a turning point for offshore wind in America. The industry struggled for years to gain a toehold in the United States. Now it is on the precipice of becoming a reality.
BY:
BENJAMIN STORROW
| 12/05/2022 06:42 AM EST
A view of the jackup vessel Jill as seen from the beach in Wainscott, N.Y. The vessel is assisting with construction of the South Fork wind farm, a 12-turbine project off Long Island.Benjamin Storrow/E&E News
CLIMATEWIRE | WAINSCOTT, N.Y. — Bill Fielder usually has the beach to himself in December.He arrives in the mornings, letting his dogs burst from the car onto the empty sand. He takes a seat on a wooden bench and puffs a cigar as he watches them romp. Sometimes another dog walker will pass by. Maybe a truck, fishing pole strapped to the roof, rumbles onto the beach. But that’s usually it.
Except this year.A 177-foot liftboat recently anchored a short distance offshore, its three towering legs looming over the dunes, as well as the neatly lined hedgerows and sun-blanched mansions of the Hamptons.On the narrow road leading to the beach, a drilling crew is working in front of a mansion owned by Ron Lauder, the billionaire CEO of the cosmetics company Estée Lauder Cos. Inc. They are digging a tunnel 80 feet below the sand, which will be used to string a transmission cable linking New York’s first offshore wind farm to the state’s power grid.The project has roiled this well-heeled hamlet, attracting opposition from the likes of Lauder and the area’s other rich beachgoers. But unlike on Cape Cod, where wealthy residents helped sink America’s first proposed offshore wind farm five years ago, this 12-turbine project is moving ahead with construction. Its Danish developer expects it will begin generating electricity late next year, providing enough power for 70,000 Long Island households.Fielder, a 69-year-old Massachusetts transplant to the Hamptons, is thrilled by the sight. He jabs the air with his cigar as he talks, describing the arrival of the liftboat several weeks ago and how its deck has been outfitted with a pair of cranes. And he is quick to dismiss the opposition. When work is done in several months, there will be no visible signs of the transmission line, which will be buried beneath the road. Most year-round residents, he reckons, are supportive of the project.“It has to happen somewhere. It has to happen in someone’s backyard,” says Fielder, who lives in the nearby village of East Hampton. “It’s for my kids more. The climate change up to now is nothing compared to what it’s going to be.”The beach construction here in the Hamptons represents a turning point for offshore wind in America. The industry struggled for years to gain a toehold in the United States due to soaring installation costs and not-in-my-backyard opposition. Now it is on the precipice of becoming a reality.Developers hold leases for nine projects in the shallow waters between Martha’s Vineyard and Long Island. Two are already under construction. Cable installation recently began for Vineyard Wind 1, a 62-turbine project serving Massachusetts. The 800-megawatt development is expected to begin generating electricity in 2024.The New York project is relatively small by comparison. The South Fork wind farm, which will be built 35 miles east of Montauk, has a listed capacity of 132 MW. But it represents proof of concept for Northeastern states such as New York, which have designed their climate plans around the presumption they will be able to generate vast amounts of carbon-free electricity from turbines in the ocean.
“It helped pave the way and kind of really flush out what the issues are for us here in New York,” says Peter Van Scoyoc, town supervisor in East Hampton, the community encompassing Wainscott. “Now, obviously, things are getting scaled up.”President Joe Biden has set a goal of installing 30,000 MW of offshore wind by 2030. New York alone has a target of building 9,000 MW by 2035.The industry figures to have a large presence on Long Island.Ørsted A/S, the Danish wind developer behind South Fork, is planning two larger developments with Eversource Energy in the waters between Long Island and Martha’s Vineyard. Those projects will be served by a control room in Port Jefferson, on the north side of the island. Montauk, at the eastern tip of Long Island, will be home to a small operations and maintenance hub. And the transmission cable for Sunrise Wind, a 924-MW project to be built near South Fork, will come ashore further west in the community of Brookhaven.The challenges facing projects such as Sunrise Wind are different. Ørsted officials said they have yet to experience the kind of local opposition they encountered with South Fork’s transmission line. Instead, they face the obstacle of building a bigger project at a time when supply chain bottlenecks and inflation are roiling global markets.“Trade prices are going up, material prices for copper and steel are going up,” says Troy Patton, Ørsted chief operating officer for North America. “We’re impacted. Commodity cost pressure, there’s been supply chain disconnects that are happening all over the place because we’re getting parts from all over the world. And they’re seeing some knock-on effects. And sometimes it’s simple little things like switches and wires that you need to order that you can’t get. So we’re having conversations with the states about the pressures that we’re facing.”South Fork, then, is something of a test case for how to build offshore wind in the United States. The country has installed a total of seven turbines to date at two installations off Rhode Island and Virginia.The project here dates to efforts by the Long Island Power Authority (LIPA) to secure new power generation to satisfy growing electricity demand in the southeast corner of the island. In 2017, LIPA selected South Fork from 21 projects to meet that demand.The project faced headwinds at first. Only two of the five members of East Hampton’s town board initially supported routing a transmission cable from the wind farm through the community, leaving supporters such as Van Scoyoc in the minority.Yet opposition faded as the community learned more about the project, Van Scoyoc said.Concerns over temporary construction needed to site the transmission line paled next to other challenges. In 2014, East Hampton set a goal of achieving 100 percent renewable energy by 2020 — a target it missed. A coastal assessment undertaken by the town showed much of East Hampton was at risk due to sea-level rise. And the community had a visible pollution problem stemming from its power needs. In the summertime, when the Hamptons’ population swells, it turns to a series of small oil generators to crank out power, sending plumes of dirty smoke into the air.Shifting local attitudes toward the idea of running the transmission line for South Fork through the community are evident in the town’s politics. In 2019, Van Scoyoc a Democrat, won reelection in a race where South Fork loomed large. The town board subsequently approved a key permit for the transmission line in a 4-1 vote last year. By the time Van Scoyoc faced reelection again late last year, South Fork was barely an issue.“I think it was a matter of just socializing the idea and, you know, weighing benefits versus detriments,” Van Scoyoc says. “Not doing this was going to be more harmful over time.”
Ørsted A/S employees Troy Patton and Jennifer Garvey posing for a photo in Wainscott last week. Ørsted began construction on its South Fork wind farm last year and expects the project to come online in late 2023. | Benjamin Storrow/E&E News
It has fallen to Ørsted employees like Jennifer Garvey to build support for the project.She reflected on that job as she and Patton offered a tour of the work in Wainscott last week. It was afternoon, and dog walkers like Fielder had long since gone. A mechanical hum from the horizontal drill on the beach road cut through the sound of crashing surf.The drill will dig a 2,500-foot-long tunnel under the beach out in the direction of the liftboat. The vessel has set its three legs down on the ocean floor about a third of a mile offshore, lifting its hull some 20 or 30 feet above the waves and offering workers a stable platform to work on. The tunnel should be done around the first of the year. Then, if all goes to plan, the transmission line will be laid and turbines installed.“This project, we talked about it for so long,” Garvey says. “It’s really satisfying to see the milestones and then to see actual physical progress. You know, just to see vessels show up, to see the work on shore and to see it going well.”
Today was the Ground Breaking ceremony for East Hampton’s South Fork Wind Farm with NY Governor Kathy Hochul in attendance. It is a huge milestone and well worth watching:
Good vibrations: bladeless turbines could bring wind power to your home
‘Skybrators’ generate clean energy without environmental impact of large windfarms, say green pioneers
The giant windfarms that line hills and coastlines are not the only way to harness the power of the wind, say green energy pioneers who plan to reinvent wind power by forgoing the need for turbine towers, blades – and even wind.
“We are not against traditional windfarms,” says David Yáñez, the inventor of Vortex Bladeless. His six-person startup, based just outside Madrid, has pioneered a turbine design that can harness energy from winds without the sweeping white blades considered synonymous with wind power.
The design recently won the approval of Norway’s state energy company, Equinor, which named Vortex on a list of the 10 most exciting startups in the energy sector. Equinor will also offer the startup development support through its tech accelerator programme.
The bladeless turbines stand at 3 metres high, a curve-topped cylinder fixed vertically with an elastic rod. To the untrained eye it appears to waggle back and forth, not unlike a car dashboard toy. In reality, it is designed to oscillate within the wind range and generate electricity from the vibration.
It has already raised eyebrows on the forum site Reddit, where the turbine was likened to a giant vibrating sex toy, or “skybrator”. The unmistakably phallic design attracted more than 94,000 ratings and 3,500 comments on the site. The top rated comment suggested a similar device might be found in your mother’s dresser drawer. It received 20,000 positive ratings from Reddit users.
“Our technology has different characteristics which can help to fill the gaps where traditional windfarms might not be appropriate,” says Yáñez.
These gaps could include urban and residential areas where the impact of a windfarm would be too great, and the space to build one would be too small. It plugs into the same trend for installing small-scale, on-site energy generation, which has helped homes and companies across the country save on their energy bills.
This could be wind power’s answer to the home solar panel, says Yáñez.
“They complement each other well, because solar panels produce electricity during the day while wind speeds tend to be higher at night,” he says. “But the main benefit of the technology is in reducing its environmental impact, its visual impact, and the cost of operating and maintaining the turbine.”
The turbine is no danger to bird migration patterns, or wildlife, particularly if used in urban settings. For the people living or working nearby, the turbine would create noise at a frequency virtually undetectable to humans.
“Today, the turbine is small and would generate small amounts of electricity. But we are looking for an industrial partner to scale up our plans to a 140 metre turbine with a power capacity of 1 megawatt,” says Yáñez.
Vortex is not the only startup hoping to reinvent wind power. Alpha 311, which began in a garden shed in Whitstable, Kent, has begun manufacturing a small vertical wind turbine that it claims can generate electricity without wind.
The 2 metre turbine, made from recycled plastic, is designed to fit on to existing streetlights and generate electricity as passing cars displace the air. Independent research commissioned by the company has found that each turbine installed along a motorway could generate as much electricity as 20 sq metres of solar panels, more than enough electricity to keep the streetlight on and help power the local energy grid, too.
A scaled down version of the turbine, standing at less than 1 metre, will be installed at the O2 Arena in London where it will help to generate clean electricity for the 9 million people who visit the entertainment venue in a usual year.
“While our turbines can be placed anywhere, the optimal location is next to a highway, where they can be fitted on to existing infrastructure. There’s no need to dig anything up, as they can attach to the lighting columns that are already there and use the existing cabling to feed directly into the grid,” says Mike Shaw, a spokesperson for the company. “The footprint is small, and motorways aren’t exactly beauty spots.”
Perhaps the most ambitious divergence from the standard wind turbine has emerged from the German startup SkySails, which hopes to use an airborne design to harness wind power directly from the sky.
SkySails makes large fully automated kites designed to fly at altitudes of 400 metres to capture the power of high-altitude winds. During its ascent the kite pulls a rope tethered to a winch and a generator on the ground. The kite generates electricity as it rises into the sky and, once completely unspooled, uses only a fraction of the electricity generated to winch back towards the ground.
Stephan Wrage, the chief executive of SkySails, says the airborne wind energy systems mean “the impact on people and the environment is minimal …The systems work very quietly, practically have no visible effect on the landscape and barely cast a shadow,” he adds.
Today, the design can generate a maximum capacity of 100 to 200 kilowatts, but a new partnership with the German energy firm RWE could increase the potential output from kilowatts to megawatts. A spokesperson for RWE said the pair are currently looking for the ideal kite-flying site in the German countryside.
As the ocean warms, North Atlantic Right Whales are moving north to cooler waters in unprotected zones, where they die from vessel strikes and entanglement in fishing gear and where their food sources may be scarce.
Fewer than 250 mature North Atlantic right whales were estimated to be alive at the end of 2018, with the total population having plummeted by 15% over the last decade.
The factors contributing to the dwindling population of Right Whales include vessel strikes, fishing gear entanglements and lack of food. Climate change is redistributing the crustaceans called copepods that Right Whales eat.
Right Whales are spending more time in Canada than they used to, which is causing serious problems for their conservation. The deaths since 2017 are largely due to some form of human action, like boat collisions, both in United States and Canadian waters. Quite a few, though not all, of these collisions have happened in the St. Lawrence Estuary in Canada.
But the Right Whale population has also seen low reproductive rates and declining health status in recent years that can’t be explained by vessel impacts. New research points to another possible culprit: climate change.
The Gulf of Maine is warming more rapidly than nearly any other ocean ecosystem on the planet. Scientists think the reasons include changes in the path of the Gulf Stream and the way its warm waters are interacting with other currents in the North Atlantic.
“Deep waters are warming and we think that is having an impact on the life cycle, and the distribution of the critters that right whales eat,” says Pendleton. Those critters – flea-like animals known as copepods, specifically the species Calanus finmarchicus – are a critical food supply for the endangered whales. Read more about this here.
Noise pollution can mask whales’ important underwater communication calls and reduce foraging success, which affects species’ health and reproductive abilities. Ocean noise can also divert the whales from their typical migration paths into areas unsuitable for feeding or into the path of passing ships.
Thus, it is heartening that offshore wind project plans are adopting restrictions, beyond those required by law, on vessel speed and limits on loud turbine construction from pile driving and geophysical survey activities. The limitations take in to account the times when North Atlantic Right whales are unlikely to be in the area.
Local NIMBY groups in East Hampton fighting offshore wind projects, such as the South Fork Wind Farm, are using the plight of Right Whales in a sinister ploy to derail these offshore wind energy projects, which would only worsen ocean warming and the lack of critical food supply for Right Whales. Yet these same groups can not even tell the difference between a Right Whale and a Humpback Whale! See their posters attached in pdf format.
SOUTH FORK WIND – Field Surveys & Site Evaluation Purpose.
South Fork Wind is performing nearshore geotechnical surveys to inform the cable landing. The work will be performed by a lift boat named the Laredo Brazos – a barge that can stand out of the water for protection from wave action. The surveys will consist of three soil borings of the seafloor. The soil borings will be taken at points 780 feet, 1470 feet, and 2,160 feet from shore, directly off the Wainscott Beach.
Timeline: The vessel is anticipated to arrive on or around November 15 and activity will begin on November 16. We anticipate the work will be completed by November 25. The barge, as well as a smaller vessel named the Kristen Miller, will be visible from shore during this time. Timeline & Location
WIN WITH WIND 