Building offshore wind can permanently deafen porpoises, but OK now with Bubble Walls?

January 4th, 2024 By Joanne Nova @ CFACT 1 Comment

Now they tell us

Wind farms save the world, and absolutely do not hurt dolphins or whales but did you know the industry has developed bubble curtains to protect porpoises hearing from the things that never harm them (isn’t that nice of them)?  Bubble curtains are being “widely” used in Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands.

The BBC is happy to report it now there are good results from a study, but apparently they weren’t too enthused in 2013 about telling us how pile -driving during construction can permanently destroy hearing in marine mammals. Indeed, ocean noise is such a problem the pile-driving teams use acoustic deterrents — loud noises designed to scare marine life away before they get started on the industrial noise. But even the “safety warning” may itself be dangerous.

So that’s alright then, windfarm construction used to kill porpoises, and the BBC kept that a secret, but now that we’ve solved it, it’s news we can use, right?

“Like a giant jacuzzi.”

 How bubble curtains protect porpoises from wind farm noise 

As huge offshore wind farms spread across Europe’s North and Baltic seas, efforts grow to buffer the impact on wildlife.

Over the past decade, a curious invention has spread across Europe’s northern seas. It’s called a big bubble curtain, it works a bit like a giant jacuzzi, and it helps protect porpoises from the massive underwater noise caused by wind farm construction.

The original pile-driving in that study was actually done around 2009. If intrepid investigators from the BBC cared about marine life for real and investigated, they could possibly have reported it 14 years ago and before another 4,000 wind turbines were hammered in to the sea floor. Do dolphins matter or don’t they?

It appears the BBC only mentioned underwater noise pollution once before in 2018,  and the one reference to a windfarm was buried in a list of other industrial sources of noise. There were no headlines “Windfarm construction kills porpoises”. If coal miners used pile-drivers and was killing dolphins, the BBC would headline it and then repeat it until children at school were signing songs about it.

But those wind farmers are the nicest guys designing these jucuzzis just for porpoises:

A very large, perforated hose is laid on the seabed, encircling the wind turbine site. Air is pumped through, and bubbles rise from the holes to the surface of the water, forming a noise-buffering veil.

The quirky gadget, also known as a big bubble veil, was pioneered in Germany to help protect the endangered harbour porpoise, the only cetacean species living in its North Sea and Baltic Sea. The bubble curtain was designed around the porpoise’s specific needs and traits, lowering wind farm construction noise to a threshold deemed safe for the species, based on scientific research. Its proven muffling effect may also benefit other marine mammals that are vulnerable to noise, such as seals.

But the mid-air bird slicing will continue.

 

How many porpoises were deafened and left to die wandering the ocean blindly before the bubblers began?

 

The BBC propaganda team doesn’t think to ask when they started using the bubble walls:

 

The bubble curtain is now widely used by northern European countries racing to build more offshore wind farms as part of their efforts to curb CO2 emissions and fight global warming. Countries including the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark and Belgium have pledged to turn the North Sea into “the world’s largest green power plant“, aiming to jointly increase their offshore wind capacity there to 300GW by 2050.

 

In the North Sea, the number of wind turbines has risen from only 80 in 2002, to more than 4,000 today – and many more are planned as part of the green energy revolution. Spinning in fierce, fast sea winds, offshore turbines can produce more energy than those on land. On average, an onshore wind turbine generates around 2.5 to 3 megawatts (MW), …

It only took the BBC ten years to mention the Dähne study of 2013:

At close range, pile-driving noise can cause temporary hearing loss or even permanent deafness in harbour porpoises, leaving them disoriented and unable to survive. There can also be indirect damage. A 2013 study of pile-driving during the first offshore wind farm built in the German North Sea found that the noise prompted harbour porpoises to flee the area, swimming more than 20km (12 miles) away. Harbour porpoises need to eat and hunt almost constantly to meet their energy needs. Fleeing over long distances can disrupt that vital activity and make them vulnerable to starvation. Seals may be similarly affected.

Harbour Porpoises have been having a hard time in the Baltic Sea. At least one mammal experts suggests they are dying awfully young:

Siebert points out that while porpoises can generally live for more than 20 years, in the Baltic Sea the average life span for females is just under four years, and in the North Sea, just under six years. “The animals in our waters die far too early,” she says.

Where is Greenpeace when a porpoise needs them?

REFERENCE

Michael Dähne et at (2013) Effects of pile-driving on harbour porpoises (Phocoena phocoena) at the first offshore wind farm in Germany, Environmental Research Letters, Volume 8, Number 2, DOI 10.1088/1748-9326/8/2/025002

This article originally appeared at JoNova

Offshore wind is systematically violating the Marine Mammal Protection Act

By David Wojick September 28th, 2023, 37 Comments @ CFACT

New evidence says that offshore wind sonar surveys may have committed hundreds of thousands of violations of the MMPA, each potentially subject to tens of thousands of dollars in fines. The potential penalty total is in the billions. Moreover these incredible violations appear to be deliberate.

These astonishingly bad findings flow from research by the Save the Right Whales Coalition (SRWC). It is a bit technical but here is a simple summary.

First some legal background. We are talking about the activity of sonar blasting doing something called “incidental harassment”. In the MMPA harassment means doing bad things to a marine mammal. These can range from causing adverse behavioral changes to outright injury, such as in this case causing deafness. Incidental means the harassment is due to some activity that is not directed at the mammal, in this case the many sonar surveys done in conjunction with offshore wind development.

One of the fundamental rules in the MMPA is that incidental harassment is illegal unless it has been specifically authorized by NOAA. The extreme noise from offshore wind sonar surveys does a lot of incidental harassment so NOAA has issued an Incidental Harassment Authorization (IHA) for each one. Since sonar blasting geared up in 2016 NOAA has issued over 40 IHAs with more pending.

Each IHA lists the number of authorized harassments by species of affected mammal. How this is done is very important here. In simple terms it is like this. NOAA has established noise level thresholds, above which there is harassment. Given the loudness of the sonar the size of the ocean area where harassment will occur is then determined. Then the number of critters of each affected species that will be in that area, hence harassed, is estimated. That number of harassments is then authorized so the survey can proceed.

These IHA numbers are big. It is not unusual for 5,000 to 10,000 harassments to be authorized in a single IHA. Most of these are typically dolphins and seals, with dozens of whales as well. All the IHAs, effective, expired and pending, are listed here: https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/national/marine-mammal-protection/incidental-take-authorizations-other-energy-activities-renewable

These MMPA authorized harassments are an issue because they can cause deadly behavior, such as driving the critter into heavy ship traffic to be struck. But that is not our topic here as we now have something potentially far worse to consider.

Save Right Whales Coalition (SRWC) blows the whistle

SRWC noticed that the recent IHA calculations were using sonar noise levels that were much lower than those specified by the equipment manufacturer. So they did what NOAA should have been doing from the beginning; they measured the noise from a sonar in action doing a survey. They found that the noise level was comparable to the manufacturer’s specs, hence much louder than what the IHA assumed.

Here is how SRWC co-founder Lisa Linowes explained it to me (somewhat technically):

“Thirteen of the 13 IHAs now active for OSW sonar activity show all of the applications were approved based on a sonar level with a source sound level of 211 dB,pk and 203 dB,rms. Had the developers used the correct sound levels using manufacturer’s data of 226 dB,pk and 219 dB,rms (per NOAA’s own guidance), NOAA’s spreadsheet for determining Level B threshold for impulsive sound levels would be 890 meters from the survey boat. But instead, the quieter sonar value submitted to NOAA placed the threshold distance at just 141 meters and that’s what NOAA approved. Using the same calculation for impact area that the developers used but applying the 890 meter radius results in an area that is significantly larger.”

For more see https://saverightwhales.org/

If the local population scales with area, which seems likely, then the number of harassments will be about 6.3 times higher than authorized. That is 890 divided by 141. For simplicity call it 6 times higher.

Thus the number of unauthorized harassments will be roughly 5 times higher than the number authorized. All of these unauthorized harassments are illegal violations of the MMPA. The number of violations is huge. Note that these low-ball numbers come from the offshore developer not NOAA. The harassment calculations are in the developer’s application.

We know where these low-ball numbers come from. NOAA’s IHA guidance says that if the manufacturer’s data is not available then the applicant can use a proxy number from a 2016 technical publication. Despite the manufacturer’s specs being readily available, all the applicants used some of the lowest proxy numbers. Why NOAA approved this substitution is not known.

Staggering potential penalties for illegal harassment

The potential penalties for unauthorized harassment are sizable. Here is NOAA’s summary:

“If prosecuted, violators of the MMPA could face:

• Civil penalties up to $34,457.
• Up to 1 year in prison, plus criminal fines.
• Forfeiture of the vessel involved, including penalties for that vessel up to $25,000.”

See Frequent Questions: Feeding or Harassing Marine Mammals in the Wild

I have seen reports that to date NOAA has authorized over 400,000 offshore wind sonar harassments. If all of these use the low-ball loudness and given our 5 times ratio this implies an incredible 2 million unauthorized harassments or more. At $34,457 per harassment the civil penalties alone work out to just under 69 billion dollars! Not to mention the jail time and criminal fines.

This astonishing 69 billion dollars in potential penalties shows the staggering scale of this issue of unauthorized harassment by offshore wind sonar.

Clearly a thorough investigation is called for. In the meantime this illegal harassment must cease. Active IHAs should be suspended and no more issued until this issue is resolved.

Author

• 
  David Wojick Ph.D. is an independent analyst working at the intersection of science, technology and policy. For origins see here.   For over 100 prior articles for CFACT.  Available for confidential research and consulting.

  View all posts

 

A tale of two whale protection groups

By David Wojick September 18th, 2023 28 Comments @ CFACT 

 There are two groups specializing in trying to protect the severely endangered North Atlantic Right Whale, of which only about 340 critters remain alive, fewer every month, it seems. One is new and small, while the other is old and big.

The small group says that offshore wind development is killing whales, which I, too, believe, but NOAA denies. The big group, which includes NOAA and some of their funded researchers, is now up to thinking about the possibility that offshore wind might actually affect the whales. This dramatic difference is worth exploring a bit.

The small group is the Save Right Whales Coalition (SRWC). The really big group, founded in 1986, is the North Atlantic Right Whale Consortium (NARWC). The members of NARWC are a wealthy lot indeed.

The small Coalition is focused on wind, saying, “We are an alliance of grassroots environmental and community organizations, scientists, and conservationists working to protect the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale and other marine life from the industrialization of our ocean habitat through large-scale offshore wind energy development.”

The big Consortium says its mission is to “Eliminate human-caused mortality to right whales in critical habitats and migration corridors”. But their focus is on the old threats of fishing gear entanglement and ship strikes, never mentioning that both can be caused by the new and ongoing whale harassment noise from wind development.

Mind you, the big Consortium is now at least thinking about offshore wind. Their upcoming annual meeting has a session on it. Here are the presentations:

Session 2: Offshore Wind Interactions and Mitigation

• Upcalling behavior and patterns in North Atlantic right whales, implications for wind energy development
• Recommendations for real-time passive acoustic monitoring near offshore wind energy development activities to help mitigate risks to North Atlantic right whales
• From wind to whales: Potential hydrodynamic impacts of offshore wind on Nantucket Shoals region ecosystems
• Exploring overlap between NARW and ocean features: An autonomous-based oceanographic and ecological baseline
• BOEM-NOAA North Atlantic right whale and offshore wind strategy

Not exactly ‘save the whales from death’ stuff. Note that two of the five talks are by NOAA people, and the rest are their well-funded researchers. Regarding the so-called strategy in the last talk, I wrote about that. There is no strategy.

In dramatic contrast, the Save Right Whales Coalition recently sent a letter of deep concern to NOAA Administrator Richard Spinrad. The Coalition has been doing its own research on harmful sonar noise, with disturbing results. Here is the beginning of their letter:

“Dear Dr. Spinrad: We are writing to alert your attention to urgent and credible information involving offshore sonar activity occurring within wind lease areas in the Atlantic. Specifically, our data show that the sonar is producing Level B harassment noise levels at distances that exceed those set by NOAA Fisheries (NMFS). Consequently, the protective distances adopted in NMFS issued Incidental Harassment Authorizations (IHAs) for offshore wind sonar work are not protective at all. Rather, marine mammals are likely getting much closer to the sonar than should be allowed. We believe this is a major factor behind the recent spate of whale deaths in the Atlantic Ocean since December 1, 2022 and the ongoing Unusual Mortality Events (UMEs) dating back to 2017-18. The only mitigation for noise is distance. The shortened Level B the IHAs have, in effect, rendered any expected mitigations useless.”

A 5-page summary of these disturbing findings follows.

This is by no means the first time NOAA has been given technical information regarding the threat of excessive noise from offshore wind development. Such noise can easily cause deadly behavior by whales, including ship strikes, entanglements, and reproductive decline.

We shall see how NOAA responds to this serious letter of concern from the Save Right Whales Coalition. Their ongoing research is also of great interest to us, especially since the rich North Atlantic Right Whale Consortium seems to be doing little or nothing about offshore wind.

Author

 

David Wojick, Ph.D. is an independent analyst working at the intersection of science, technology and policy. For origins see here.  For over 100 prior articles for CFACT see here. Available for confidential research and consulting.  View all posts

 

To Be Green is to Be Irrational, Misanthropic, and Morally Defective, Part II

By Rich Kozlovich

The world has been told for decades we must go green or we're doomed.  We don't need 'fossil' fuels, we can provide all humanities needs by moving to alternative energy sources.  There's only one problem.  It's a lie, and all in support of the greatest scientific fraud ever perpetuated on humanity. Anthropogenic Global Warming. 

These next articles demonstrate one lie after another, and one green boondoggle after another.  Boondoggles and insane polices the taxpayers are funding, and are expected to continue to fund.  There are two things the left, and especially the green left excel at.  Being wrong and failing to deliver, and they fail to deliver massively.  And the reason they're always wrong, and always fail is because everything they promote is predicated on lies.  Lies of commission and lie of omission.  

Normally I wouldn't care except they've pushed this on to humanity and there are serious consequences for them being wrong, and those consequences result in serious penalties to humanity and the environment.  

What we're seeing are deranged people, many are wealthy, many are in powerful positions promoting insane policies that even the average guy on the street can see are insane.  Why?  That's the 64 thousand question.  But it's clear all their schemes will ultimately lead to tyranny, leading to dystopia for humanity.  To be as delusional as they are, one has to think there's something seriously wrong with their minds.  In short, they're all certifiable. 

As Afghanistan collapsed, Pentagon had greenie better things to do report - August 31, 2023 By Monica Showalter - So when they should have been focusing on the Afghanistan withdrawal, they were locked up in committee meetings and reading bureaucratic paperwork about the importance of inserting the green agenda climate considerations into every decision the military made. This sounds like bad satire. The Pentagon has one job: To win wars. The only "war" they were paying attention to for vast stretches of time as the world looked on in horror at the shambles of the U.S. military pullout was the green agenda.  Anybody over there notice the junk priorities?..........

Cult Failure: Green Energy Companies Want to Renegotiate Their Contracts With Blue State as Costs Eat Into Profits - A number of green energy companies and advocacy groups have petitioned the New York Public Service Commission (NYPSC) to renegotiate contracts with state utilities as rising costs could threaten the viability of numerous projects, according to UtilityDive. The requests to increase prices in established offshore wind and other green energy contracts in New York could bump up residential electricity rates by 2.5% and 1.5%, respectively, or a cumulative $4.67 per month, according to New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA). “New York has outlined ambitious targets for clean energy generation and transmission, and the projects that have sought these modifications to their contracts are crucial parts of those targets. If these projects are not able to move forward, yes, it would endanger the goals New York has established,” Anne Reynolds, executive director of Alliance for Clean Energy New York (ACENY), told the Daily Caller News Foundation..........

Western economies wither at the altar of climate lies -  Under President Trump, the U.S. economy thrived. In 2023, that same economy—together with those of most European countries—is being destroyed by a campaign of climate lies. One of the biggest attempts at disinformation ever perpetrated is that man-made global warming is an existential threat. We can thank opportunists like Al Gore, Barack Obama, John Kerry, and Greta Thunberg for spreading the hysteria that the ice will melt, the oceans will rise, and we will all die from heat exhaustion. Contrary to their frightening warnings, the glaciers have not melted, and the world has not ended. The global warming hoax is the result of faulty science, endorsed by inept bureaucrats at the UN, the WEF, the EU, and the Biden administration. Government policy in the U.S., and most of Europe, is based on the delusion that human beings can control the climate. This is pure nonsense that is contradicted by the facts..............

Green pusher Michael Mann ramps up the rhetoric against the people on MSNBC segment By Jack Hellner MSNBC continued its campaign against average Americans by bringing on Michael Mann, a well-known “green” pusher, who blamed Republicans for Hurricane Idalia, because we won’t sign our own death warrants and go along with the rapid destruction of industries that use oil, coal, and natural gas. To summarize what Mann said: warming water caused the storm to be more severe, and severe storms cost more, in terms of life and property. What you don’t see is any scientific data that shows a direct link between our consumption of oil, coal, and natural gas and temperatures, because temperatures have fluctuated while consumption of these natural resources has skyrocketed. Basically, this is a propaganda piece pushing a book and the radical green agenda................

The Key to Understanding the Global Warming Fraud - As vice president, Al Gore led the negotiations to establish the U.N. Kyoto Protocol in 1998.  The Kyoto Protocol was a "climate treaty" ostensibly designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by the signatories during the period 2005–2012 to a level equivalent to 95% of each country's 1990 emissions.  While it did not introduce any new scientific means to reduce CO2 emissions (worldwide CO2 emissions grew by 32% during the period), the Kyoto Protocol introduced a novel economic concept: the trading of carbon credits and offsets. At first, the concept of trading carbon credits was straightforward; it was known as "cap and trade."  Each country was allocated a level of carbon emissions each year by the signatories to the agreement based on an annual targeted reduction in carbon emissions to reach the goal.  If a country or emitter expected to exceed its cap, it could "trade" or buy unused carbon credits from other countries that expected to emit less than their cap.  However, if a country failed to meet its emissions target and did not purchase carbon credits, the protocol required it to make up the difference in the second commitment period, with an additional 30% penalty...............

New Discoveries In Climate Science - Climate science is a wild and woolly multi-disciplinary field in which virtually every proposition is controversial. It is only the politics that is settled; the science is up for grabs. A recent study in Climate illustrates the point, not by introducing new concepts but by measuring the obvious:  A new study published in the scientific peer-reviewed journal, Climate, by 37 researchers from 18 countries suggests that current estimates of global warming are contaminated by urban warming biases.  It is well-known that cities are warmer than the surrounding countryside...........There is no question that the Urban Heat Island Effect exists. The question is, how much does it skew current temperature readings in an upward direction?...........The study also found that the IPCC’s chosen estimate of solar activity appeared to have prematurely ruled out a substantial role for the Sun in the observed warming........

Zero Carbon Is a Whale-Killer - John D. Rockefeller destroyed the whaling industry by replacing whale oil with Earth's natural compost: refined oil.  Whale oil had many uses, pharmaceutical and industrial, including lubricants for nearly all machines and trains.  And it was the age of machines.  The whaling ships of Nantucket were slow.  Their primary prey were gray whales who do not navigate by echolocation, like many other whales.  They follow the contour of coastlines, and they swim only about 3–6 mph.  Modern ships move much faster, and they will have technology to find and kill the faster and more acrobatic whales, including blue whales and humpbacks.  Using modern technology, they can find and kill them where they feed, in the Bering Sea...........

 

In order to save the whales, we must kill the whales - September 7, 2023 By Ben Bartee - That's how The Science™ works, boys and girls.  Respect it, or be made to answer to the Department of Homeland Security, bigot. If you live on the East Coast of the U.S., chances are you've seen and/or heard tell of the increasing-in-frequency local news reports on the dead-whale-washing-up-on-shore phenomenon. Via Michael Shellenberger: "A new documentary, 'ThrowThat's how The Science (TM) works, boys and girls.............Anyway, what's a few thousand dead whales when a totalitarian social control agenda is on the line?  You want to make a climate change omelet, you're gonna have to break some marine mammal eggs.......

 

The hidden energy crisis -  September 4, 2023 America is wrestling with the worst energy crisis in its history, a period of high prices and limited supply. According to the Brookings Institution, in 2022, the average U.S. residential retail electricity price was 15.12 cents/kWh, an 11% increase from 13.66 cents/kWh in 2021. In the first three months of 2023, the average U.S. residential monthly electricity bill was $133, or 5% higher than for the same time in 2022. There is confusion with savings or cost expectation of solar and wind conversion, also government decisions have impacted the natural gas and energy supply. While electric vehicles are a much-touted solution for replacing oil, gasoline or diesel fuel contains 40 times the energy as a state-of-the-art battery. Questionable efforts are being made by utilities and government leadership to address our energy future. Critical solutions have been avoided and hidden. Fossil-fuel plants are closing faster than green alternatives can replace them. Producers of oil and gas can't keep up with the confusion in supply. Fantasy thinking has taken hold of President Biden and Democrat leaders. Progressives and their media followers are guilty of denial concerning the reality of how to solve a potential climate/energy crisis.

 

Bill Gates and others behind massive deforestation scheme, for ‘global warming’ of course - We're being held hostage by "green" megalomaniacs with man boobs and CIA-linked eco-terrorists.As reported by Joshua Philipp, investigative reporter and host of the Epoch TV's Crossroads program, Bill Gates's company Breakthrough Energy Ventures is a main player behind a new deforestation scheme.  Per Philipp, Gates and "other investors" have contributed $6.6 million in a "stealth effort" to a California startup called Kodama Systems, which is offering a "novel" approach to the net zero agenda.Wondering who those "other investors" might be?  Well, for one, a woman named Jackie Kossman.  Wondering who those "other investors" might be?  Well, for one, a woman named Jackie Kossman.  Kossman is a partner at Congruent Ventures, a San Francisco–based investment firm, and according to her company bio, she previously worked for In-Q-Tel (the venture capital firm of U.S. government intelligence agencies, notably the CIA).So what does Kodama Systems have in mind?  Well, the company is launching efforts to deforest about seventy million acres, or around 110,000 square miles of trees, and then bury the biomass, all with the help of the U.S. Forest Service.............

 

Western economies wither at the altar of climate lies - Under President Trump, the U.S. economy thrived. In 2023, that same economy—together with those of most European countries—is being destroyed by a campaign of climate lies. One of the biggest attempts at disinformation ever perpetrated is that man-made global warming is an existential threat. We can thank opportunists like Al Gore, Barack Obama, John Kerry, and Greta Thunberg for spreading the hysteria that the ice will melt, the oceans will rise, and we will all die from heat exhaustion. Contrary to their frightening warnings, the glaciers have not melted, and the world has not ended. The global warming hoax is the result of faulty science, endorsed by inept bureaucrats at the UN, the WEF, the EU, and the Biden administration. Government policy in the U.S., and most of Europe, is based on the delusion that human beings can control the climate. This is pure nonsense that is contradicted by the facts..........

Bloomberg Falsely Says Climate Change Is Harming Crop Production, Reality Says Otherwise - A recent post at Bloomberg, titled “Climate Change Is Helping Pests and Diseases Destroy Our Food,” claims that recent crop shortages are due to increases in pest infestations and disease because of climate change. This is false for multiple reasons. First, the crops listed are not seeing substantial declines outside of particular production regions, which is to be expected from agriculture some years. Bloomberg contributor Mumbi Gitau writes that pests and disease “are exacerbating crop shortages that have sent prices for goods like cocoa, olive oil, and orange juice soaring.” Gitau also asserts that these shortages will “become even more prevalent as extreme weather events multiply.” To be clear data show that extreme weather events are not getting more frequent or extreme, even amid the last hundred-plus years of warming. Climate Realism has covered this fact many times, here, here, and here, for just a few examples..................

Electric vehicles plagued by logistical issues, but few mention the elephant(s) in the room - The push to exchange gas for electric in transportation is an idea that has ironically placed the proverbial cart in front of the horse. While the problems of an inadequate power grid, too few charging stations, short range, high costs, long recharging times, and battery fires are real, there are two gigantic issues looming that rival them all. Current state and federal gas-tax regulations siphon off more than $53 billion a year in tax revenue; for reference, about 67 cents from every gallon of gasoline purchased in New York, and around $1.18-per-gallon in California. Those taxes account for more than a quarter of the expense of road and highway costs around the nation.  No such system of taxation exists for electric vehicles. For every ten-percent reduction in gas vehicles being replaced by electric, a resulting decrease of more than $5 billion in tax revenue will occur. Add this to the long list of issues that the rush-to-electric crowd has failed to address........

Pelosi: China Terrible on a Lot of Issues, but We Need Them for Climate Utopia - During portions of an interview with Bloomberg released on Thursday, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) stated that “we have to find an accommodation” with how the U.S. and China treat each other, and while China is awful on security, the economy, and human rights, “we have a shared planet, and we have to work with the Chinese to save the planet, because they’re now, I think, the biggest emitter, if not us, they’re second, and they are part of the solution in all of this.” But we shouldn’t reward China, but have a “mutual discussion about how we can go forward.”...........

The whale killing study the Feds are afraid to do

By David Wojick  July 11th, 2023 32 Comments @ CFACT

The Feds have admitted that offshore wind development can cause the death of whales and other marine mammals, but they refuse actually to assess that threat for any wind facilities. So I here outline what such a study should look like. This sort of study is what they are afraid to do because it would give numbers to the deaths that are likely to occur, species by species.

First off, here is the Feds’ own description of some of the known deadly threats. In this case, the offshore wind activity is driving the monster piles that support the turbine towers, but there are others. The Feds say this in the Draft Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Empire Wind project off of New York and New Jersey:

“It is possible that pile driving could displace animals into areas with lower habitat quality or higher risk of vessel collision or fisheries interaction. Multiple construction activities within the same calendar year could potentially affect migration, foraging, calving, and individual fitness. The magnitude of impacts would depend upon the locations, duration, and timing of concurrent construction. Such impacts could be long term, of high intensity, and of high exposure level. Generally, the more frequently an individual’s normal behaviors are disrupted or the longer the duration of the disruption, the greater the potential for biologically significant consequences to individual fitness. The potential for biologically significant effects is expected to increase with the number of pile-driving events to which an individual is exposed.” Empire Wind DEIS v.1, Page 3.15-14, PDF page 372

The federal agencies, in this case, are the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) and NOAA Fisheries (NFMS), who jointly prepare the DEIS. Other agencies also have responsibilities for marine mammals.

My focus here is displacement leading to a higher risk of vessel collision or fisheries interaction, as mentioned in the first DEIS sentence above. This is the obvious case where a whale or other critter is driven by excessive noise into a high-traffic ship lane and killed or into a net, tangled, and drowned. Many proposed wind facilities are located where this is a reasonably likely occurrence.

It is important that the first step in my study design is already being done in great detail. What I describe is a straightforward extension of the present method. For every wind project activity that produces excessive underwater noise, NMFS estimates the number of critters, by species, that will experience unsafe noise levels.

They call this experience of unsafe noise a harassment. For some projects, the number of predicted harassments is hundreds for whales and thousands for smaller protected mammals like dolphins and seals.

How the number of harassments is estimated is pretty technical, but the basic idea is simple enough. First, figure how the excessive noise will be distributed in the ocean. Then given the estimated population density of critters within that noise distribution, calculate the number of animals hit with excessive noise.

As the quote above makes clear, harassment can cause deadly behavior. The Feds do not address this issue, which is simply the likely death rate of harassment. So here is an outline of how it could be done.

Step 1: Harassment

Get or estimate data on critter densities and unsafe noise distributions, both over time. Estimate the number and distribution of likely harassment. This a already being done.

Step 2: Avoidance due to harassment

Given critter density and noise distribution, both over time, derive critter density changes due to noise. The animals will likely flee the unsafe noises and move to adjacent areas, increasing the population density of these.

Step 3: Threat densities

Get or estimate threat densities and distributions over time. Threat densities include things like ship traffic numbers, perhaps by vessel type and speed, net locations, etc. Detailed ship traffic data is available for some sites.

Step 4: Death increases

Derive increases in deadly threat exposure due to avoidance. An increased critter density in a high-threat area implies an increased likelihood of mortality.

Step 5: Refinement

Factor in adverse effects accompanying avoidance, such as deafness, panic, etc.

That is the study outline. If they can estimate harassment numbers by species, they can readily go on to estimate the deadly consequences of harassment using the same density-based methods. This can also be done for migration, foraging, and the other obvious impacts listed in the DEIS quote above.

The research question is simple: What is the mortality rate of harassment for a given offshore wind project?

The Feds must answer that mortality rate question before a project’s environmental impact assessment is complete. They should also assess multiple projects, as discussed in the DEIS quote above.

Author

David Wojick

David Wojick, Ph.D. is an independent analyst working at the intersection of science, technology and policy. For origins see http://www.stemed.info/engineer_tackles_confusion.html For over 100 prior articles for CFACT see http://www.cfact.org/author/david-wojick-ph-d/ Available for confidential research and consulting.

CFACT to Feds: Wind turbine survey cuts off whale migration corridor

By Craig Rucker May 2nd, 2023, 2 Comments @ CFACT

The Biden Administration is preparing to rush approval for the Atlantic Shores offshore wind project, which is located approximately 10-20 miles off the coast of New Jersey between Atlantic City and Barnegat Light, despite the risk it poses to marine mammals — particularly the severely endangered right whale.

They are poised to allow NOAA (the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) to grant Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind the right to harass, and potentially kill through a generous IHA 

(Incidental Harassment Authorization) permit, the following numbers of marine mammals:

42 Whales
2,534 Dolphins
142 Porpoises
1,472 Seals
Total = 4,190 adversely impacted marine mammals

CFACT just submitted a detailed comment to NOAA opposing this authorization and urging them to pay attention to the potential harm that could be wrought on the natural world.

Read CFACT’s full submission at CFACT.org.

The flaws in the wind turbine plan are myriad, but here’s a biggie:

Proponents of the plan point to the very large survey area as mitigating the danger to the whales.  They couldn’t be more wrong.  As CFACT makes clear in our submission, “what is crucial is that the survey area is about 35 miles wide East to West and almost all of the migrating whales presently pass through this space. Thus the survey has the potential effect of blocking the migration, or at least seriously disrupting it, taking nearly 100% of the needed space not 2.11%.”

That’s right, virtually all of the whales would have to make it through the vast underwater din the survey would create in order to complete their annual migration.

Gifted mathematician David Wojick did his trademark thorough scouring of the governmental record and unearthed direct admissions of the threat wind turbines pose to marine mammals buried deep within.

Wojick concluded at CFACT.org that:

What is important is that NOAA and BOEM [the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management] are clearly stating that the acoustic threats we have been warning about and suspecting are real. The telling correlations between sonar blasting and increased whale deaths cannot be waived away. 

Correlation is not causation, but correlation between cause and predicted effect is very strong evidence that the cause is effective. NOAA and BOEM’s repeated insistence that there is no evidence offshore wind development is killing whales is clearly contradicted by their own Environmental Impact Statements. 

Intermittent energy from offshore wind turbines is expensive and inefficient.

Their large, dirty footprint should not be ignored.

Wind turbines should not get a pass on the risk they pose to marine life.

• Craig Rucker

  Craig Rucker is a co-founder of CFACT and currently serves as its president.

Whale death confusion abounds and some is deliberate

By David Wojick |March 10th, 2023|73 Comments @ CFACT

 

Press coverage of the tragic whale deaths is a supreme study in confusion, especially the foolish attempts to somehow exonerate offshore wind development. Here are some prominent examples.

The evergreen New York Times wins the race for worst coverage by claiming to explain the numerous recent whale deaths as due to online shopping. I am not making this up.

Their headline promises an explanation: “Why 23 Dead Whales Have Washed Up on the East Coast Since December”. The primary reason claimed is that East Coast shipping has increased due to people buying lots of stuff post Covid, especially online, and ship strikes account for a lot of the deaths.

Here is how NYT puts it: 

“Online pandemic buying habits are also fueling a record-setting surge in cargo shipments that last year made ports in New York and New Jersey the nation’s busiest. Much of the merchandise is now toted on far bigger ships — some of which have altered their routes to help alleviate the supply-chain chaos that last year left some store shelves bare. As a result, more whales appear to have found themselves in the direct path of more ships. “When the whales are in these channels,” said Paul Sieswerda, executive director of Gotham Whale, a New York City-based whale research group, “you have to cross your fingers and hope there are no collisions.”“

This ignores the role offshore wind plays in putting the whales into those busy ship channels.

The problem with this excuse is that ship strikes are a likely cause of death due to offshore wind development. NOAA predicts that many hundreds of whales will have been harassed by offshore wind sonar surveys, which likely causes a lot to flee into the nearby heavy traffic lanes. Some may even be deafened at the time.

So increasing ship traffic actually makes offshore wind more deadly. The widespread idea that ship strikes are an alternative to wind deaths is a complete fallacy.

The NYT also says that the coastal humpback whale population has increased and most of the deaths are humpbacks. But such an increase subjects even more whales to sonar harassment, again making it deadlier. Plus this ignores the fact that the humpback death rate suddenly tripled in 2016, as did the right whale die off, when large scale sonar harassment began.

More typical is the headline from the also-green Virginia Mercury: “Wind and whales: ‘No evidence’ links projects to deaths”. No “link” is the prevailing mantra.

In reality the link is staring us in the face. It is the dozen active, large scale sonar harassment projects presently lining the coast from Virginia to Massachusetts. A whale’s reaction to sonar harassment can easily become deadly. In fact the NOAA harassment potential is calculated based on how many whales are forecast to be exposed to unsafe sonar noise levels.

It is suspiciously odd that no article I have seen even mentions these widespread, ongoing sonar harassment numbers. Is this appalling ignorance or a cover up?

I do know of one case where the failure to mention the scourge of sonar harassment is deliberate. This is in several recent articles on whale deaths in USA Today.

Before these articles were written I had a lengthy correspondence on the death threat of sonar harassment with one of the authors. The author even said they had looked at the long list of NOAA numerical harassment authorizations. Yet not one word was said about this quantitative threat in a subsequent article.

Of course the folks at NOAA and BOEM know all about the authorized ongoing harassment of hundreds of whales. They tend to say there is no “direct link” by which they mean the sonar is not killing the whales directly, which is true. The whales are not being killed by the sound blasts.

But the sonar blasting is very likely killing a lot of whales indirectly by inducing things like deafness and deadly behavior. Thus the Feds are lying by technical omission. News articles then compound this deception by using the term “link” more generally.

In truth the link between sonar harassment and whale deaths is obvious. It is this link that needs to be investigated.

Author

• David Wojick

  David Wojick, Ph.D. is an independent analyst working at the intersection of science, technology and policy. For origins see http://www.stemed.info/engineer_tackles_confusion.html For over 100 prior articles for CFACT see http://www.cfact.org/author/david-wojick-ph-d/ Available for confidential research and consulting.

Feds push ignorance defense for whale killing by offshore wind development

By David Wojick |January 30th, 2023|Energy|211 Comments @ CFACT

 

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and the NOAA Fisheries agency have both put out what amount to “arguments from ignorance” claiming that offshore wind development has nothing to do with the recent whale deaths. “We know nothing about it so it must not be happening” is a ridiculous defense to the charge of offshore wind development causing the death of a lot of whales. But this is exactly what the Feds are now saying.

NOAA Fisheries is a scientific agency and their version is more scientific, which is important because this is really a scientific issue. Let us look at their arguments. They have a fairly long FAQ page on wind and whales here: https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/new-england-mid-atlantic/marine-life-distress/frequent-questions-offshore-wind-and-whales

Here is their core argument: “At this point, there is no evidence to support speculation that noise resulting from wind development-related site characterization surveys could potentially cause mortality of whales. There are no specific links between recent large whale mortalities and currently ongoing surveys for offshore wind development.”

These two sentences present different aspects of the argument. Let’s take the second sentence first.

The concept of “specific links” is pretty vague. It has a narrow meaning that BOEM has asserted, namely sonar blasting killing whales on the spot. There is indeed no evidence that this has ever happened. This is not like land based wind, where you can count the dead eagles on the ground around the tower.

Instead, likely causes of death are indirect and death may occur relatively far away in space and time. These causes range from injury, such as bleeding and deafness, to fleeing or avoidance or other behavioral changes.

But ask this question about possible injury: “How many whales have been examined for injury after being sonar blasted?” The answer is none, because there is no way to examine wild whales for bleeding or deafness. Thus the fact that we know of no instances of injury in no way means there are no such injuries. Injury might actually be common.

There are however some very specific links between mortality and sonar survey blasting in the broader sense. First of all, the East Coast humpback whale mortality rate roughly tripled beginning in 2016, which is just when offshore wind surveying really geared up. I discuss this in my article here: https://www.cfact.org/2023/01/23/evidence-says-offshore-wind-development-is-killing-lots-of-whales/.

The recent humpback deaths look to be part of this long term trend. The NOAA FAQ suggests that this huge 2016 jump in mortality might be due to a big increase in humpback numbers. This conjecture is falsified by the fact that the dramatic die-off of the severely endangered North Atlantic Right Whales (NARW) also started in 2016.

Given no other apparent cause, the ongoing sonar blasting surveys are the likely link between offshore wind development and ongoing elevated whale mortality. Thus sentence two is false. There is a likely link.

Sentence one says there is no evidence that survey noise could potentially cause mortality. It is amusing that this claim is falsified by NOAA’s own activity. Since 2016 they have issued over 40 authorizations for survey noise to harass large numbers of whales. One authorization I looked at permitted harassment of over 100 right whales, whose entire population is estimated at just 340 critters.

Harassment is defined as potentially inducing a change in behavior and these changes can potentially cause mortality. Thus NOAA Fisheries has emphatically certified the potential for survey noise to cause mortality.

I first pointed out a simple case last year in an article titled “How to kill whales with offshore wind”. See https://www.cfact.org/2022/09/27/how-to-kill-whales-with-offshore-wind/ (which I sent to a lot of people at NOAH Fisheries).

The article is about operational noise but site survey noise is just as bad, perhaps much worse. The wind site described is in a low traffic area, as most likely are, with heavy coastal traffic passing nearby. To avoid the horrendous noise, the migrating whales are forced to go around the site, which puts them right into heavy traffic.

The potential for increased deaths is obvious, making sentence one deeply false.

In fact there seems to be a huge gap in the science being done at NOAH Fisheries. On one hand they do a lot on underwater acoustics, that is noise, in order to do these Harassment Authorizations.

As I understand it they first estimate the size and location of the area where the noise level will be above the safe level. Then they use a density model to estimate the number of critters that will be adversely affected and the authorization number is derived from that. This is in effect a forecast of the potential, forced behavior changes.

On the other hand they also do a lot of what is called “population dynamics”. This means looking at what it takes to sustain or grow a given critter population, be it whales, other marine mammals, various monitored fish species, or even sea turtles.

For example they recently lowered the allowed human kill rate for NARW from 0.9 kills per year to 0.7, reflecting the steadily declining population. This means we can safely cause the deaths of no more than 7 whales every 10 years. Killing 2 whales every 3 years also meets this standard as the average is 0.67 whales a year. NOAA estimates we are presently killing well over 2 NARW per year.

What NOAA Fisheries does not seem to be doing is looking at the potential adverse impact of the authorized wind site harassments on the monitored populations, especially whales. Instead they now seem to be claiming that there are no such potential impacts, which is clearly false.

It is precisely this kind of adverse population impact that needs to be assessed before any more Harassment Authorizations are issued by NOAH Fisheries.

What harassment driven behavior changes are to be expected? How might they lead to deaths, such as by injury, infection, ship collision or fishing gear entanglements, etc? In some cases, especially the NARW’s shrinking population, adverse impacts on fertility might also be important.

The basic scientific question is very simple: “What is the potential death rate from proposed authorized harassment?” Authorizing harassment of whales and other protected animals should be suspended until this question is answered.

Author

• David Wojick

  David Wojick, Ph.D. is an independent analyst working at the intersection of science, technology and policy. For origins see http://www.stemed.info/engineer_tackles_confusion.html For over 100 prior articles for CFACT. Available for confidential research and consulting.

 

Biden Administration throws lobstermen under the bus

By Collister Johnson February 2nd, 2023 @ CFACT

 

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) is trying to extricate itself from a dilemma placed squarely in its lap by the Biden Administration.

The dilemma is how to pretend that it is doing everything it can to protect the critically endangered Right Whale, while at the same time green-lighting massive wind energy industrialization of the ocean waters off the East Coast.

These wind projects consist of over 3,000 giant wind turbines, coupled with more than 9,000 miles of underwater cables, covering 2.3 million acres – an area larger than the states of Rhode Island and Delaware combined. This is all mandated by President Biden’s Executive Order 14008, directing all federal agencies – from the Post Office to the Department of Defense – to expedite offshore wind energy development.

BOEM’s problem is that the two objectives of protecting the whale and implementing wind energy are fundamentally incompatible. The North Atlantic Right Whale is clinging to its continued existence by a thread. Fewer than 350 of them are still alive. Their feeding, mating, and migrating patterns lie directly in the path of the areas where BOEM has determined that these monstrous, industrial strength wind towers, each taller than the Washington Monument, should be erected.

Something has to give. The square peg of offshore wind industrialization cannot fit in the round hole of endangered species protection. And BOEM has decided that the something that has to give is…the lobster fishing industry!

Yes, lobster fishing. The Biden Administration has determined that a centuries old industry employing thousands of hardy, sole proprietors should be sacrificed in favor of a new industry consisting of foreign built, highly inefficient, very expensive, taxpayer subsidized, bird killing machines.

How imperiled is the Right Whale, exactly? NOAA Fisheries has the answer. It has declared that, for the species to survive, the Potential Biological Removal for the Right Whale (the number of human caused fatalities that can occur in any given year ) is less than one. In other words, for the species to survive, there can be zero human caused Right Whale fatalities: none.

So, in order to create an ocean environment where there are zero human caused fatalities, BOEM has enacted a suite of regulations that crush the lobster industry.

For example, it has passed a regulation for offshore zones covering the entire Atlantic coast ordaining that any vessel above 35 feet in length cannot operate at speeds greater than 10 knots for the majority of the year. This new rule covers virtually the entire deep water lobster fishing fleet, most of whose ships exceed 35’ in length. Lobstermen cannot harvest lobsters economically while creeping around to and from their deep-water fishing grounds. The rule is as if the Department of Transportation declared that commercial trucks cannot operate at speeds greater than 20 mph on interstate highways.

Then there are the “entanglement” rules. On rare occasions, Right Whales become entangled in lobster trap lines. This is often fatal for the whale. So, to make sure that the mortality rate is zero, NOAA issued regulations requiring the lobster industry to retrofit its lobster trap gear to be “releasable,” meaning that if a whale becomes entangled in lobster trap lines, special devices will release them from the lobster traps to which they are attached. This rule will certainly not save the whales, but it will definitely ensure that the lobstermen’s means of harvesting lobster – the traps – become abandoned on the ocean floor.

These regulations make earning a living as a lobsterman very difficult, if not impossible. The Lobstermen’s Association has sued BOEM for relief, but the judge in the case ruled in favor of the government, based on that the specific language in the Endangered Species Act and Marine Mammal Protection Act which directs BOEM to “ensure” that the Right Whale species is protected.

But what about the offshore wind program, which has a far greater capacity for Right Whale endangerment than the lobster industry? Will it get a pass from the Biden Administration?

It sure seems that way. BOEM is marching forward with the issuance of Draft Environmental Impact Statements for both the Virginia and New York offshore wind projects. BOEM maintains that “climate change poses a significant global threat” and the solution – somehow – is to forge ahead with the construction of offshore wind factories.

Something has to be sacrificed on the altar of “climate change,” and hardworking lobstermen are the victims, collateral damage in the mindless appeasement of the wind industry and its allies.

Never mind that offshore wind projects will do nothing to improve or impact the climate. The wind energy industry, with massive amounts of money and Biden Administration gifted tax credits, thinks it can win this battle by buying off many of the major environmental groups and appeasing both wealthy suburban liberals and well-meaning but clueless urban millennials – two core constituencies of the Democratic Party.

And if destroying a centuries old industry maintained by lobstermen and their families is the price that has to be paid – well, too bad for them. They are small potatoes, mere nobodies standing in the way of a wind energy fantasy that will help Democrats maintain political power.

The lobstermen’s only salvation will be regime change at the presidential level in 2024. They deserve as much.

Author

• Collister Johnson

  Johnson has spent the last four decades working in the public and private sectors in Virginia, primarily in the fields of project finance and maritime transportation. He began his career in public service as Chairman of the Board of the Virginia Port Authority. He was appointed by President George W. Bush, and confirmed by the Senate, as a member of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, and most recently, as Administrator of the St. Lawrence Seaway Development Corporation. In that capacity, he became knowledgeable in the field of climate and its impact on the Great Lakes. He currently serves on CFACT's Board of Advisors. Johnson holds a B.A. degree from Yale University, and a J.D. from the University of Virginia.

The Sierra Club Loves Wind Turbines, Not Whales

By Robert Bryce January 30, 2022

Imagine for a moment what might happen if an oil company say, Exxon Mobil or Chevron announced plans to put dozens of offshore drilling platforms on the Eastern Seaboard, smack in the middle of where endangered North Atlantic right whales congregate. If that were to happen, it's easy to imagine that America's biggest environmental groups would express their outrage and immediately begin filing lawsuits under the Endangered Species Act, Marine Mammal Protection Act, and other federal rules to protect the whales and stop the industrialization of their habitat.........To Read More....

Video: Alternative Energy is a Scam and an Expensive Failure

Cape Cod environmentalists plan to wreck their lobster Industry to save the whales

February 23, 2018 by Tim Pearce, 0 Comments @ CFACT

Scientists trying to convince New England lobstermen to invest in “ropeless fishing” to cut the risk current fishing methods pose to northern right whales, The Boston Globe reported.

Scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution say ropeless fishing will allow lobstermen to continue in their livelihood, but without long ropes running from buoys on the ocean’s surface to lobster traps on the ocean floor. Whales are caught in these lines, which fishermen use to haul up their catch, and tangle themselves until they drown.

Woods Hole scientists met with lobstermen to pitch their idea but failed to make much headway. Lobstermen say the technology involved and the many problems and glitches still left to work out make the idea too costly for thousands of lobstermen to adopt and learn to use.

“It’s not going to work,” Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association President Arthur Sawyer told The Boston Globe. “It’s complete foolishness — very far-fetched.”

Two methods of ropeless fishing were introduced and both involve bags that can be inflated remotely under the water. In the first, one such bag is attached to a spool of line that, once inflated, will unroll the spool and rise to the surface, allowing the fisherman to pull in lobster cages like the current method. The second method involves attaching a bag to each cage.

If the technology fails, fishermen do not have any way of retrieving their equipment. They also lack a way of marking where they plant their cages.

Scientists warn if this technology is not pursued, the only other option to save the whales is government regulation of fishing seasons and areas, which would devastate the industry much more than ropeless fishing.

“Our goal in developing ropeless fishing methods is to give those fishermen who are interested in solving this problem the tools to do so,” Woods Hole biologist Mark Baumgartner told The Boston Globe. “I have yet to hear of any other solution from the industry, scientists, or conservationists that will solve this problem once and for all. Ropeless fishing will solve this problem.”

Scientists tried to tackle the problem of whales tangling themselves in ropes by changing the ropes color in 2014, The Associated Press reported.

The New England Aquarium’s Scott Kraus, a leading researcher on northern right whales, conducted tests with different color ropes. Whales seemed to react more to brighter colors, such as orange and yellow, and safely avoid the ropes.

Some lobstermen were skeptical about the practicality of brightly colored ropes, noting that they would eventually fade and need to be replaced.

Follow Tim Pearce on Twitter

This article originally appeared in the Daily Caller

About the Author: Tim Pearce    writes on energy for the Daily Caller News Foundation