by PORTLAND, Maine (AP) – Unsubstantiated claims about whales threatening offshore wind have become a flashpoint in the fight over the future of renewable energy.
In recent months, conservatives including former President Donald Trump have claimed that the construction of offshore wind turbines is killing the giant animals.
Scientists say there is no credible evidence linking offshore wind farms to whale deaths. But that hasn’t stopped ad hoc “not-in-my-backyard” conservative and anti-development groups from making the connection.
The Associated Press sorts fact from fiction regarding whales and wind power as the North Atlantic whale migration season begins:
WHERE ARE THE USN OFFSHORE WIND PROJECTS?
To date, two commercial offshore wind farms are under construction in the United States. Danish wind energy developer Ørsted and utility Eversource are building South Fork Wind, located 35 miles (56 kilometers) east of Montauk Point, New York. Ørsted announced on December 7 that the first of its 12 existing turbines is now sending electricity to the grid. Vineyard Wind is building a 62-turbine wind farm 15 miles (24 kilometers) off Massachusetts. Both plan to open early next year, while other large offshore wind projects are receiving licenses.
There are also two pilot projects – five turbines off Rhode Island and two off Virginia. The Biden administration aims to power 10 million homes with offshore wind by 2030 – a key piece of its climate goals.
Lawsuits from community groups have delayed two of Ørsted’s major offshore wind projects in New Jersey and the company recently announced it is canceling those projects. That decision was based on their economic viability and had nothing to do with opposition to offshore wind in New Jersey, said David Hardy, group executive vice president and Americas CEO at Ørsted.
ARE AGE FARMS WHICH ARE THAT LITTLE LITTER DEATH?
Experts say there is no evidence that any whale deaths are a direct result of the limited construction of wind farms on the Atlantic Coast, despite political statements suggesting a link.
Rumors began to swirl after 2016, when an unusual number of dead or stranded whales were found on New England beaches – a trend ahead of the construction of large offshore wind farms that began this year.
“With whale strandings along the Northeast earlier this year in places like New Jersey, the reality is that it’s not from the offshore wind,” said Aaron Rice, a marine biologist at Cornell University.
Responding to questions about whale strandings earlier this year, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported that about 40% of whale carcasses found showed evidence of death from fishing gear entanglement or vessel strikes. The others could not be linked to a specific cause.
In Europe, where offshore wind has been developed for more than three decades, national agencies have not found causal links between wind farms and whale deaths.
Meanwhile, US scientists are collecting data near offshore wind farms to monitor any potential non-fatal impacts, such as altered behavior or changes in migration routes. This research is still in its early stages, said Doug Nowacek, a marine biologist at Duke University who helped place whale trackers this summer off Massachusetts as part of a federally funded 5-year study.
What are the real dangers that whales face?
Although the exact reasons for the recent stranding of whales along the East Coast are largely unknown, whales face dangers from human activities.
The biggest threats are shipping collisions and entanglement in fishing gear, according to scientists and federal authorities. Another concern is underwater noise pollution, they say.
Some whale protection advocates have characterized the push against offshore wind power as avoiding real issues. “It seems that this is being used opportunistically by anti-wind interests,” said Gib Brogan, director of fisheries campaigns at the environmental group Oceana.
Since 2016, humpback whales have been dying at a high rate – what the federal government says is an “unusual mortality event”. The North Atlantic right whale has experienced an unusual mortality event with fewer than 360 individuals worldwide.
NOAA reports that 83 whales have died off the East Coast since December 1, 2022. About half were humpbacks between Massachusetts and North Carolina, and two were critically endangered whales in North Carolina and Field. New York.
WHAT CAN BE DONE TO PROTECT MITE AGAINST WIND FARMS?
Federal law sets limits on human-generated sound underwater for continuous noise and short sudden bursts.
Marine construction projects can reduce the potential impact on marine mammals, including pausing construction during migration seasons, using “bubble curtains” to limit sound from pile driving and installing trained observers with binoculars on ships to search for marine mammals.
Offshore wind developers are taking steps required by regulators, but they are also taking voluntary steps to ensure marine mammals are not harmed. Ørsted will not drive piles between 1 December and 30 April, when whales are on the move. It uses additional surveillance vehicles, surrounds turbine blades with bubble curtains and conducts underwater acoustic monitoring.
Equinor plans to use acoustic monitoring and infrared cameras to detect whales when it begins developing two lease areas off Long Island with partner bp. The company says it will limit pile driving to months when right whales are less likely to be present.
WHY DO SOME PEOPLE ACCUSE WIND FARMS OF BEING DEATHS?
One vocal opponent of offshore wind is the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank based in Washington, DC Diana Furchtgott-Roth, director of the Foundation’s energy, climate and environment center, wrote in November that Ørsted’s scrapped New Jersey wind project “ugly. ” and a threat to wildlife.
“Whales and birds … if an offshore wind abandons the Garden State,” wrote Furchtgott-Roth.
Hardy Ørsted said the claims about wind farms killing whales are not “scientific” but “highly politically motivated”.
The Heartland Institute, another conservative public policy group, has also pushed back on offshore wind projects. H. Sterling Burnett, director of the Arthur B. Robinson Center for Climate and Environmental Policy at the institute, said that the wind projects are subject to unfairly lax regulatory restrictions compared to fossil fuel projects.
“We think it should be held to the same standard as any oil and gas project,” Burnett said.
Smaller anti-wind groups have also organized in coastal communities to oppose projects they feel threaten water views, coastal industries and recreation.
WHAT IS THE IMPACT OF KNOWLEDGE?
Opponents of offshore wind are using unsupported claims of harm to whales to try to stop projects, and some of the strongest opposition is centered in New Jersey.
Misinformation can cause anger in coastal communities when developers have to build offshore infrastructure to operate a wind farm.
Opposition from coastal towns and community groups was taken seriously by Republican politicians. GOP congressmen from New Jersey, Maryland and Arizona have called on the US Government Accountability Office to open an investigation into the impacts of the offshore wind industry on commercial fishing and marine life and are calling for a moratorium on the projects.
New Jersey’s Democratic Legislature is consistently behind the industry.
IS CLIMATE CHANGE AFFECTING MINES?
One reason the whalers advocate pushing for renewable energy is that they say climate change is harming the animals – and that less reliance on fossil fuels would help solve that problem.
Scientists say global warming has shifted the right whale’s food choice – tiny crustaceans – as the waters have warmed.
That means the whales have strayed from protected ocean areas in search of food, leaving them vulnerable to ship strikes and entanglement. Right whales play a vital role in the ecosystem by storing carbon, so some scientists say they are also part of the solution to climate change.
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