Deepwater Wind announced it has completed the 30-MW, five-turbine Block Island Wind Farm, an announcement that drew the praise of the National Ocean Industries Association and others, including the Sierra Club.
“The completion of any offshore energy project is no small feat; the road from concept to completion can be very lengthy and rife with challenging regulatory hurdles, unanticipated permitting delays, and vocal environmental opposition alongside enthusiastic public support,” NOIA President Randall Luthi said.
“Our untapped offshore wind energy potential is enormous and it holds the key to creating thousands of good paying clean energy careers, cleaning up the dangerous fossil fuel pollution endemic in many our coastal cities, and provides another effective solution to addressing the climate crisis,” said Mary Anne Hitt, director of Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal Campaign.
More: Morning Consult; USA TODAY
EIA: CO2 from Natural Gas to Surpass Coal
For the first time in more than 40 years, carbon emissions from natural gas this year are expected to exceed those from coal, according to data released last week by the Energy Information Administration.
Though natural gas is less carbon-intensive, Americans are using more of it, as the country eases its reliance on coal-fired generation.
At the same time, annual carbon intensity rates have been decreasing, in part because of the growing consumption of carbon-free generation such as nuclear and renewable power.
More: StateImpact
DOE: US a World Leader In Wind Generation
The U.S. remains No. 1 in the world for electricity generated by wind power and No. 2, behind China, for wind power capacity, according to an annual report released last week by the Energy Department and its Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
Nearly 8,600 MW of wind capacity were installed in the U.S. in 2015, a 77% increase over the previous year’s installations.
By comparison, China installed 30,293 MW of wind capacity last year.
More: Windpower Engineering & Development
River Group Sues Portland General over Dam Operation
An Oregon environmental group has sued Portland General Electric in federal court, alleging that the utility’s dam operations along the Deschutes River are violating the Clean Water Act.
The focus of the lawsuit is a $100 million, 273-foot underwater tower and fish-collection facility that PGE built in 2009 in partnership with the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs, co-owner of the Round Butte Dam.
The Deschutes River Alliance alleges the tower’s operation violates standards for water temperature and dissolved oxygen, while also contending that the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality is not enforcing water quality standards. The utility countered that the facility is intended to restore salmon and steelhead runs and that restoration will entail a long-term effort.
More: The Bulletin
NASA Study Shows Methane Hot Spot Comes from Natural Gas Leaks
Researchers say an unusual concentration of the atmospheric methane over the Southwest appears to come mostly from leaks in natural gas production.
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the California Institute of Technology released a report Aug. 15 that listed more than 250 sources of a methane hot spot over the Four Corners region, including gas wells, storage tanks, pipelines and processing plants. Only a handful were natural seeps from underground formations, according to researchers. The study said about 25 locations are responsible for most of the methane leaks.
Evidence of the hot spot dates back to 2003, and a satellite image released in 2014 showed it in vivid color, but the origin wasn’t clear until recently. The new study identified the sources with spectrometers aboard aircraft that flew 3,000 to 10,000 feet above the ground over about 1,200 square miles in the Four Corners in April 2015.
More: The Associated Press
Dakota Access Says It Will Halt Until Hearing
Developers of the Dakota Access Pipeline said last week they will halt construction on the $3.8 billion oil pipeline that is to run from North Dakota to Illinois pending a hearing in federal court in D.C. this week. The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe is suing regulators for issuing permits for the pipeline that the tribe says goes through sacred land and poses a threat to its drinking water.
Members of the tribe and its supporters blocked construction equipment last week while it waited for its request for a temporary injunction, which was approved this week.
More: The Associated Press
Judge Erred in Blocking BLM Fracking Rules, Law Profs Charge
Law professors arguing for the Obama administration said that a judge was mistaken when he ruled against the Bureau of Land Management’s rules concerning fracking on federal land.
The bureau in 2015 issued rules that would have required energy companies to disclose what materials they used in the fracking process. District Judge Scott Skavdahl of Casper, Wyo., vacated the rules, saying the bureau didn’t have the authority to regulate fracking.
In his ruling, Skavdahl pointed to an article written by Florida State University professor Hannah Wiseman to support his conclusion. Wiseman, however, joined 35 other law professors in a brief filed with the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, saying the judge misinterpreted her piece.
More: The Associated Press
NRC Reports Violations at Entergy’s FitzPatrick Plant
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission released a report citing Entergy’s James A. FitzPatrick nuclear plant for two violations of “very low safety significance,” including sending workers into high radiation areas without first meeting with the plant’s radiation protection department and for failing to address a long-term radioactive leak.
The report, which covered the second quarter of 2016, said an atmospheric control system failed and was not addressed within the required 30 days. It also cited the plant for allowing radioactive material to escape from a filter sludge tank in the radioactive waste building, though no radiation was leaked into the atmosphere.
Entergy says it has developed a corrective action that will be implemented within the next month.
More: CNY Central