Free Republic

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...

Over a year after a 15-foot great white shark was found dead with mysterious bite wounds and stripped of its internal organs, DNA analysis uncovered its killers. Two animals, orcas, also known as killer whales, and broadnose sevengill sharks, were responsible for the gruesome attack... The body of the massive shark, known as the Carcharodon carcharias, was discovered in October 2023 in southeastern Australia, baffling scientists. ... The carcass sparked significant attention from the public due to its size, bite marks, and the speculation of it being the result of a killer whale predation, ... Although its head, spine, and...

In November, Orsted nixed two major wind farm projects planned off the coast of New Jersey, citing the same problems that the company cited for the Skipjack Wind project.. Danish wind developer Orsted has canceled another contract on a planned offshore wind farm in the Atlantic Ocean. The company said the 966-megawatt Skipjack Wind project, planned to be constructed off the coasts of Delaware and Maryland, would no longer be commercially viable at the contract prices due to inflation, high interest rates and supply chain issues. “Today’s announcement affirms our commitment to developing value creating projects and represents an opportunity...

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy was expected to sign a bill Thursday giving a tax break to Danish offshore wind developer Orsted for the first of two energy projects it plans to place in the waters off the Jersey Shore. Before the ink is dry on that bill, he will face pressure from another offshore wind company looking for similar assistance. The governor’s office said he would sign the bill, allowing Orsted to keep federal tax credits that it otherwise would have been required to pass along to New Jersey utility ratepayers. Lawmakers who narrowly approved the bill last week...

On a chilly June day, with the Massachusetts island of Martha’s Vineyard just over the distant horizon, a low-riding, green-hulled vessel finished hammering a steel column nearly 100 feet into the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. This was the beginning of construction of the first giant wind farm off the United States coast, a project with the scale to make a large contribution to the Northeast power grid. For some of those looking on from a nearby boat, the driving in of the first piling marked a milestone they had labored to reach for two decades. The $4 billion project,...

Team JAJO had some special –– and terrifying –– visitors while sailing in the Strait of Gibraltar as part of the 2023 Ocean Race on Thursday. A group of orcas, otherwise known as killer whales, surrounded the Dutch crew’s yacht, first circling the boat and then ramming into it. “This was a scary moment,” Jelmer van Beek, Team JAJO skipper, said, according to the Associated Press. “Three orcas came straight at us and started hitting the rudders. Impressive to see the orcas, beautiful animals, but also a dangerous moment for us as a team.” Some of Team JAJO’s crew banged...

A reader named Bill Ponton has just produced an important new Report that explores the effects and costs of continuing increases in generation of electricity from wind. The Report has the title “The Cost of Increasing UK Wind Power Capacity: A Reality Check.” Ponton has sent his Report to me, and I’m writing about it now even though I don’t yet have a link to provide readers with access to the full Report. I will update this post with a link to the full Report as soon as I have it. Ponton’s Report follows and builds on prior work of...