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Australia's largest company has been taken to court for allegedly breaching a contract by outsourcing hundreds of local jobs to India. The Finance Sector Union said it has commenced action in the Fair Work Commission against Commonwealth Bank of Australia for allegedly breaching the CBA Enterprise Agreement. CBA has been accused of defying Clause 36 of the agreement which defines redundancy. Redundancy can occur, according to the clause, if the work is no longer required, the work is required to be done at a different location that is not within reasonable commuting distance or if the work is restructured so...

New Yorkers would be forced to pay 2.5 times the market rate for electricity generated by the Empire Wind One offshore wind farm if the deal goes through, according to an independent financial analysis. The Trump Administration paused construction of the controversial project — 54 turbines in the Atlantic Ocean some 14 miles south of Long Island — last week, saying it needs further review. The project has seen strong backing from Gov. Kathy Hochul and Mayor Eric Adams. Trump’s move was welcomed by those who claim the project is going to overcharge taxpayers. “New Yorkers are entitled to clean,...

On Wednesday afternoon, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum directed the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management to halt construction on Equinor’s Empire Wind project off the New York coast. It’s a new frontier for President Donald Trump’s war on offshore wind, marking the first time his administration has attempted to shut down a fully permitted, in-construction project. In a post on X, Burgum said the order will allow for “further review of information that suggests the Biden administration rushed through its approval without sufficient analysis.” Equinor had been planning the Empire Wind project for years, receiving its first site assessment approval from...

Shell announced its withdrawal from the Atlantic Shores offshore wind farm project in the US, resulting in a write-off of nearly $1 billion. The decision was disclosed in the company's quarterly earnings report on Thursday, marking another setback for the American offshore wind industry. Shell's decision to exit the project comes as the industry faces challenges from President Donald Trump's executive orders aimed at halting its development. This is a significant shift from the support the industry enjoyed under Joe Biden, despite the recent increase in costs. Shell's Chief Financial Officer, Sinead Gorman, explained the decision during a call with...

Multiple reports over the weekend indicated that President-elect Donald Trump is promising near-immediate action to shut down offshore wind farm projects throughout the Northeast United States, which were widely unpopular with locals who feared the industrialization of their natural shorelines and environmental destruction. The administration of outgoing President Joe Biden had prioritized funding and support for offshore wind projects during its four years in power, including major wind farm subsidies in the so-called “Inflation Reduction Act” and relying on leftist governors in New Jersey, New York, and Massachusetts to back the projects. The projects attracted loud opposition from local tourism...

WASHINGTON — President Biden is moving to ban new offshore oil and gas drilling in most US coastal waters, a last-minute effort to block possible action by the incoming Trump administration to expand offshore drilling. Biden, whose term expires in two weeks, said he is using authority under the federal Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act to protect offshore areas along the East and West coasts, the eastern Gulf of Mexico and portions of Alaska’s Northern Bering Sea from future oil and natural gas leasing. “My decision reflects what coastal communities, businesses and beachgoers have known for a long time: that...

Denmark received no bids in its largest-ever wind power tender, aimed to more than triple its offshore capacity by the end of the decade. The Danish Energy Agency hadn’t received a single bid in a tender for three offshore wind farms in the North Sea by Thursday’s deadline, it said in a statement. It now will initiate a dialog with the market to find out why. Denmark’s Climate and Energy Minister Lars Aagaard called the results “very disappointing” and said they were “not at all what was expected” when a broad majority in parliament entered into the political agreement to...

A group of fishing associations is sounding the alarm about new plans from the Biden administration to industrialize the Gulf of Maine by leasing two million acres of area for wind farm construction, a move that fishermen say will be detrimental to their business and marine life.One large portion of the WEA is frequented by the endangered North Atlantic right whale, the groups said. Leasing the area to wind farming "is flatly inconsistent with a policy of endangered species protection."

Due to the Biden administration's decision to waive financial assurance fees, should Vineyard Wind fail and not fully fund their decommissioning account in a timely manner, the public will likely have to pick up the tab.. Biden administration reportedly waived fees for an offshore wind project that are in place to ensure that the infrastructure is removed and the site reclaimed at the end of the project’s life.. Joe Biden, as part of his climate agenda, is pushing an aggressive buildout of offshore wind projects along the East Coast. With the offshore wind industry struggling financially, the waiving of these...

Green advocates remain undaunted by the energy source’s surging costs and questionable efficiency... Like the proverbial skunk at a garden party, reality has disrupted the offshore-wind fantasy. After announcing a potential $2.3 billion write-down on its U.S. offshore-wind projects, Ørsted CEO Mads Nipper said that it was “inevitable” that consumers would need to pay more for renewable energy, since offshore wind “faces cost increases in orders of magnitude.” Nipper’s confession makes a jarring contrast with claims made about offshore wind’s costs only a few years ago. In 2017, Michael Liebrich told BloombergNEF that green-energy costs were at a “tipping point”...

In a less than 24-hour span this weekend, two more dead whales have been discovered off the northern Atlantic coast of the U.S., and pro-cetacean activists are blaming Joe Biden’s offshore wind initiative. One whale washed up on Rockaway Beach in New York, while the other was filmed floating off of Chatham, Mass. While the connection between whale fatalities and offshore wind power development hasn’t been rigorously studied, some environmentalists believe that loud sonar mapping, high boat traffic, and other disturbances to whales’ natural habitat are contributing to the surge in deaths. ... New England Fishermen’s Stewardship Association (NEFSA) said...

A Danish offshore wind company with major projects in the U.S. has taken huge losses Wednesday after warning about its so-far unsuccessful effort to get more federal subsidies, according to Reuters. Orsted stated Tuesday that it anticipates that its three developments in U.S. waters may be $2.3 billion less valuable than anticipated, in part because the firm is having trouble receiving more tax credits from the Biden administration, according to Reuters. Other problems the firm’s projects face include supply chain backups and rising interest rates that make refinancing difficult. “The situation in U.S. offshore wind is severe,” Orsted’s CEO, Mads...

A county in New Jersey voted unanimously to oppose an offshore wind farm proposed for its coastline, citing the project's negative impacts on the environment, tourism industry and beach vistas. In a 4-0 vote this week, the Cape May County, New Jersey, Board of Commissioners passed a resolution green-lighting reasonable use of all the county's resources to oppose the wind projects developed by Danish multinational energy company Orsted. The county is also considering legal options and appealed a state public utility permit it says would transfer "real property interests" from residents to Orsted. "At first, the County of Cape May...

A multibillion-dollar energy developer has wired tens of thousands of dollars to Democratic Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine's campaign in recent years while aggressively pushing a massive offshore wind project. The Richmond, Virginia-based Dominion Energy's political action committee (PAC) has funneled $23,000 to Kaine for Virginia since 2011, with the latest, a $1,500 contribution, coming in February. In that same time span, Dominion Energy has given another $44,500 to Common Ground PAC, the leadership PAC affiliated with and chaired by Kaine. Since 2021, Dominion Energy executives led by CEO Robert Blue and Senior Vice President William Murray have donated $19,600 to...

Fulfilling President Biden’s goal of deploying 30 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2030 would require the rapid scale-up of a domestic supply chain and at least $22.4 billion in infrastructure investments, a new report has found. The success of such a build-out would rely upon “resilient, sustainable and equitable manufacturing” of primarily U.S.-based facilities, ports and vessels, according to the report, published by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and other partners on Monday. While the necessary investments would be substantial, individual states and companies could leverage existing manufacturing capabilities to create a new workforce and bring economic benefits nationwide, per...

In a case of odd bedfellows, environmental groups and Republican politicians are calling for a pause in offshore wind farm development following a string of whales washing up dead on New Jersey and New York beaches. Seven whales have turned up dead in little over a month. The latest victim, a 20- to 25-foot juvenile Humpback whale, turned up in Brigantine, New Jersey on Thursday afternoon, close to a Coast Guard station. “The wave of dead whales is the ocean sounding the alarm, and we must heed the warning,” said Cindy Zipf, executive director of Jersey-based Clean Ocean Action, after...

Joe Biden is trying to have his cake and eat it too as he shuts down exploration and production of oil and gas on onshore federal lands while acknowledging the importance of fossil fuels in the U.S. energy landscape. The Oil Price dot com website reported on the Biden Administration shutting down lease sales for offshore oil and gas in the Gulf of Mexico as prices for the fossil fuels soar. The reported was based on a Bloomberg analysis of the president’s budget plan for fiscal year 2023:

"WASHINGTON – Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) joined Sens. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.) and Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) to introduce the American Energy Independence Act of 2022, which reverses President Biden's shutdown of the American energy sector and returns American energy to full production." "Shortly after taking office, Biden canceled the Keystone XL Pipeline, blocked new oil and gas leases, (especially offshore) issued regulations designed to stymie domestic energy investment and advocated for measures that focus more on Green New Deal priorities than on American security. As energy prices soared at home, Biden turned to Russia and the global oil...

A federal judge invalidated the results of an oil and gas lease sale in the Gulf of Mexico on Thursday saying the Biden administration failed to properly account for the auction's climate change impact. The decision has cast uncertainty over the future of the U.S. federal offshore drilling program, which has been a big source of public revenue for decades but also drawn the ire of activists concerned about its impact on the environment and contribution to global warming. The Gulf of Mexico accounts for 15% of existing U.S. oil production and 5% of dry natural gas output, according to...

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