Dominion wind project gets final 2 permits
"The facility, 25 miles in the Atlantic off the #VirginiaBeach Oceanfront, will have 176 turbines capable of generating enough electricity to power up to 660,000 homes.
The more than $9 billion project is due to come on line in 2026."
#Virginia #OffshoreWind
https://richmond.com/news/state-regional/government-politics/dominion-energy-offshore-wind-virginia-beach/article_70be5e70-bf7f-11ee-a0d1-2baecbf317bd.html
Offshore wind is not dead, far from it.
"The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (BPU) approved two #OffshoreWind power projects with a combined capacity of 3,742-megawatts (MW) and whose backers include Invenergy and TotalEnergies.
The BPU said the two projects would bring about $6.8 billion in economic benefits to the state and provide enough energy to power around 1.8 million homes.
In total, the state wants about 11,000 MW of offshore wind power by 2040."
Same story as in NJ:
Whales struck by ships
"A collection of conservative groups filed a lawsuit to put a stop to Dominion Energy's Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind Turbine project. They're arguing the project could impact endangered whales.
Multiple dead whales washed up on Virginia shores two weeks ago.
Scientists said, however, those whales had signs of ship strikes.
A spokesperson for Dominion Energy told News 3 the issues raised in the lawsuit have "no merit.""
There's a reason the anti-offshore-wind arguments sound familiar:
"The [researchers] say the “report reveals how these East Coast offshore wind opponents are not solely local – they are embedded in a network of seasoned fossil fuel interests and climate denial think tanks that have perfected obstruction tactics for decades.”
One striking aspect of the anti-OSW network is the sharing of tactics and rhetoric, both in mainstream media and on social networks, said Slevin."
"Danish wind energy developer Ørsted and the utility Eversource plan to build a 924-megawatt project, #SunriseWind, 30 miles (48 kilometers) east of Montauk, New York. They say the wind farm will power about 600,000 New York homes when it opens in 2026."
You know that "windmills kill birds" crap?
That's part of the fossil fuel industry's smear campaign against clean wind energy.
"A study to be published in 2024 found that wind farms had no statistically significant effect on bird counts. But another kind of energy did. Fracking reduced the total number of birds counted in near shale and oil production sites by 15%."
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/investigations/2024/02/04/green-energy-fact-checked/72390472007/
[Edit to add]
It's the same with the "windmills kill whales" crap.
While windmills do kill birds (not many, see above), not a single whale has been killed by offshore wind turbines. However:
"Since late 2022, anti-offshore wind groups have weaponized incidents of whales washing ashore on beaches along the East Coast. A growing network of anti-offshore wind actors with documented ties to the oil & gas industry has been swift to exploit these tragedies," even though it's ships that kill the whales.
https://climatenexus.org/climate-issues/offshore-wind-whales-disinfo/
"A federal court has rejected the appeal filed by a group of #Nantucket residents aimed at stopping the #VineyardWind #OffshoreWind energy project southwest of the island."
“At this point, there is no scientific evidence that noise resulting from offshore wind site characterization surveys could potentially cause mortality of whales,” NOAA states. “There are no known links between recent large whale mortalities and ongoing offshore wind surveys."
The Science Is Clear: #OffshoreWind Isn’t What’s Killing Whales
"It is starkly clear that human activity—in the form of ships that hit #whales or fishing gear that wraps around them—is often to blame.
There are "no links whatsoever between the offshore wind development activity and especially the humpback whale mortalities. None. Zero.""
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/whales-are-dying-but-not-from-offshore-wind/
Offshore wind opponents in Australia, Europe lean on US groups for advice
"These groups are among a dozen or more local activist organizations across the U.S., Europe and Australia who told Reuters they have begun sharing tactics, talking points and other resources in their common mission to derail #OffshoreWind – a development they hope will transform what was once a disorganized scattering of local activists into an increasingly sophisticated global network."
@CelloMomOnCars The pollution from oil & gas spills and the water heating etc. from climate change certainly isn't doing the whales any good.
And just my pedant. Wind turbines. Wind mills are for grinding grain and are a bit old school.
It is the heating waters that made the whales' food move - into the shipping lanes.
But "wind turbines", while correct, doesn't rhyme. As in,
"Offshore wind mills,
or offshore oil drills:
Your choice."
@CelloMomOnCars @ariaflame if a whale or other marine mammal is washed up here (or closer to London), it is usually due to a collision from entering shipping lanes, the turbines are 50-100 km away from where the whales are ending up.
Even the well fed cats round here don't catch as many birds these days, I've seen them sleeping in gardens with all sorts of birds twittering above their heads..
@CelloMomOnCars Ah, OK artistic licence. Not a problem
@CelloMomOnCars
Also, simple autopsies will confirm that plastics account for many whale deaths. Plastics made from oil...
‘Image’ of American Bald Eagle killed by Wind Farm has been propagating on Facebook lately. Typical election year tactics.
Whenever you see one you might comment with a link to one of the articles in this thread.
This is why I keep these threads: so I can pull out the relevant link whenever I need one.
@Chancerubbage @CelloMomOnCars This one? It's actually a red kite.
You found it!
I have a hawk or two stationed on my daily commute- they tend to have a regular beat always the same lookout, for years. Perhaps it’s a dynasty.
@Chancerubbage @CelloMomOnCars I found this bit of detective work. The red kite picture was taken in Spain and is more likely to have been killed by illegal hunting than by wind turbine collision.
@Chancerubbage @CelloMomOnCars cats kill birds, but probably not many eagles
Windows kill birds. Down with windows!
Climate change kills eagles too.
"Over the past 50 years, bald eagles in the U.S. have returned from the brink of extinction. Now, the birds perch on tree branches over rivers and lakes across much of the country.
But as the climate changes, eagles will face new challenges."
https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2023/07/how-climate-change-could-hurt-bald-eagles/
@CelloMomOnCars @Chancerubbage I’m not arguing
@CelloMomOnCars With whales, it's the cats as well, isn't it?
Yes!
Okay, only the fat cats.
The ones that make huge profits off shipping*, selling us goods we don't need, and selling the fossil fuels that power that whole machine.
Sure, it's those cats.
*see up and down this thread for how ships kill whales.
@CelloMomOnCars
Those statistics are guesswork based on extrapolations, not facts.
what's the difference?
That's from a peer reviewed journal. You tell me where to find peer reviewed work that says otherwise, and I pledge to read it carefully.
If you don't produce a link, I will forget you made that comment, it sounds like something the fossil fuel industry would say.
@troglodyt @CelloMomOnCars
Nobody knows how many birds have been killed by any of those means, because it would be impossible to count them. It is an extrapolation from a small sample. Extrapolations are not facts; They are guesses.
Ya that's how polls work too:
Pew, Gallup et al. ask 1000 Americans.
They tell you so.
You can also tell because the accuracy of the polls is ± 3 percent, which is 1/sqrt (1000).
@CelloMomOnCars @troglodyt
This is not a poll. It’s a spurious dead bird count.
how does that differ from fact?
@CelloMomOnCars @troglodyt
It would be a fact if every cat were monitored and their bird consumption recorded. That didn’t happen. It is not a fact.
Okay.
So you also don't believe medical studies, or polls, or anything that extrapolates from a small sample, even thought that science is well developed.
I'm not the one who's going to convince you otherwise.
Also, You're not the one who's going to convince me to ditch the science.
@CelloMomOnCars @troglodyt
You have projected opinions on me that I do not hold. Medical studies do not make unsafe extrapolations based on incomplete statistics. I do not want to stop wind turbines. I want people to stop making untrue extrapolations based on guesses and laughable mathematics. I also want people to understand and question these dumb graphs on *any* topic. My views are not anti science, they are anti bad scientific method.
@CelloMomOnCars How many billions of wild animals have been killed by the whole "petroleheadsystem"?! Just asking.
@CelloMomOnCars yeah cats are total murder hobos, people who think they won't kill if they're well fed know little of the nature of cats. Free roaming pet cats are killing machines. They kill for fun not for food. It's insane to see people trying to claim fossil fuel is better for the environment than wind/renewables. Like totally ignoring the deaths from asthma, lung disease, cancers, radioactive waste (yes from fossil fuels) etc.
@CelloMomOnCars as a side bar, I lived near a wind farm. I loved the whooshing sound of the turbines. Horror stories told to locals before it was built included:
It'll sour the cows milk.
It'll drive you insane.
It'll cause epilepsy.
It'll devalue your home.
None of those things happened. It also had zero negative effect on the nearby bird sanctuary.
@deantoir_ceardaiochta @CelloMomOnCars Cause epilepsy in your cows, sour their milk, drive them insane, and devalue them.
All the things dairy farmers said back when trains were first proposed to pass near their lands.
@deantoir_ceardaiochta @CelloMomOnCars Wind turbine syndrome - the only 'illness' cured by money. People paid to have them on their lands experienced no ill effects. Those who didn't get paid got nocebo effect. They devalue the home thing has been debunked in a recent paper I think.
@ariaflame - Reminds me of the owner of a floating restaurant in St Helens, Tasmania, who insisted that he could feel when people had their phones turned on and that it spoiled the dining completely. He insisted that everyone turned off their phones. The fact that mine remained on throughout the meal undetected rather disproved his belief...
@deantoir_ceardaiochta @CelloMomOnCars
"This will devalue your homes" is the scare tactic to snare privileged assholes. No matter what the benefits may be they will cling to their delusion of owning something.
@deantoir_ceardaiochta @CelloMomOnCars yeah it’s indoor only kittehs for me now. Our last indoor outdoor ones wreaked havoc on the local fauna
@CelloMomOnCars I am sharing it
Thank you!
It's a DIY fight now to counter the disinformation put out by the increasingly desperate oil and gas industry.
See the rest of the thread on how they pollute the discussion around offshore wind by invoking dead whales (most died from being run over by ships).