Alboran Energy Strategy Consutlatns

BOEM

  • Energy Musings, August 24, 2023

    Written by

    Allen Brooks

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    Energy Musings contains articles and analyses dealing with important issues and developments within the energy industry, including historical perspective, with potentially significant implications for executives planning their companies’ future.

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    August 24, 2023

    Is National Fisheries Pissed At BOEM?

    The latest comment letter from the National Marine Fisheries Service to BOEM about the Beacon Wind offshore projects. NWFS has concerns with the plan and was sharply critical of the way BOEM has handled the agency’s prior comments and concerns. The gauntlet was thrown down with the warning that continued ignoring of NWFS concerns would lead to a rejection of a “no jeopardy” ruling that would derail the wind farm’s development. How much is the surge in whale deaths playing in this interagency dispute? Another dead whale washed ashore on Monday – now 66 since December 1, 2022. READ MORE

    Is National Fisheries Pissed At BOEM?

    We recently read the August 14, 2023, cover letter to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) from Michael Pentony, the Regional Administrator of the Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office of the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS). NWFS is part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The letter was in response to BOEM’s request for comments related to its Notice of Intent (NOI) to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the construction, operation, and decommissioning (COP) of Beacon Wind Energy LLC’s proposed wind energy facilities (Beacon Wind 1 and 2) off the coast of Massachusetts.

    Pentony wrote of his organization’s concerns with the plan and recommended approaches to help ease the regulatory process. The letter also contained criticisms of BOEM’s work, with NWFS’ sharpest rebuke in the opening paragraph of Appendix A attached to the letter. The critical comment reflects frustration with BOEM’s treatment of NWFS’ input to previous requests for comments about various offshore wind projects. Here is what NWFS wrote in that opening paragraph in a section headed “Purpose and Need.”

    “Since NMFS is an action agency and anticipating a request for incidental take authorization under the MMPA [Marine Mammal Protection Act], we need our Purpose and Need for the action to be clearly stated in the EIS. While BOEM did provide cooperating agencies an opportunity to coordinate on development of the Purpose and Need for the EIS before publication of the NOI, corrections provided by NMFS were not incorporated in the Purpose and Need statement included in the NOI. Some of the edits made by BOEM are additional deviations from previously agreed upon language. We recommend this be corrected in the DEIS [Draft Environmental Impact Statement] by incorporating previously provided revisions for Beacon Wind and following template language developed through extensive interagency cooperation in 2022, including for the NMFS-specific purpose and need.”

    Where does this frustration with BOEM come from? Most likely it began with the December 1, 2021, comment letter about the Mayflower Wind (now known as SouthCoast Wind) NOI to prepare an EIS. In those comments, NMFS discussed the speed with which BOEM was putting out requests for input and information about various offshore wind projects, which was not allowing adequate time for the agency to respond. Pentony wrote in his cover letter for NWFS’ comments on the SouthCoast Wind project:

    “The high number of projects moving through the NEPA [National Environmental Policy Act] process between now and 2024 makes it very difficult for us to provide the detailed level of review and interagency cooperation we have provided in the past. The extensive interagency cooperation we have invested with you to improve the NEPA documents for previous wind energy projects is no longer feasible, and we will be required to take a more limited Cooperating Agency role in the process.”

    So BOEM was working so fast that a key agency that advises on the maritime and fishing environmental risks of offshore wind couldn’t do its job properly. Is that like a doctor skipping an examination before telling you what you must do to cure an illness?

    Read the full article on Energy-Musings.com »

  • Energy Musings, August 12, 2023

    Written by

    Allen Brooks

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    in

    Energy Musings contains articles and analyses dealing with important issues and developments within the energy industry, including historical perspective, with potentially significant implications for executives planning their companies’ future.

    Download the PDF

    August 12, 2023

    The Unlevel Offshore Regulatory Playing Field

    Offshore wind has been adopted as the high-value way for America to cut its carbon emissions and stop climate change. The Biden-Harris administration has established a goal of installing 30 GW of offshore wind generating capacity by 2030. This goal has motivated offshore energy regulators to move aggressively to approve new wind projects. They have gone from impartial regulators to offshore wind cheerleaders. As they administer the regulatory process, they often ignore the laws and rules that should be governing the offshore wind program. Those laws and rules govern offshore oil and gas. Why are oil and gas treated differently than offshore wind?

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    The Unlevel Offshore Regulatory Playing Field

    “As part of the Biden-Harris administration’s goal of deploying 30 gigawatts of offshore wind energy capacity by 2030, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) today announced it will initiate the environmental review of a proposed 2,430-megawatt wind energy project offshore Massachusetts.” That was the opening line of BOEM’s June 29th press release announcing the publication of its Notice of Intent (NOI) to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the Construction and Operations Plan (COP) submitted by the wind project’s developer, Beacon Wind, LLC. One more offshore wind (OSW) project is moving forward.

    The announcement signaled the opening of the review process for Beacon Wind, whose highlights were described in the press release:

    “Construction and operation of two wind energy facilities (Beacon Wind 1 and Beacon Wind 2) offshore Massachusetts with a total capacity of at least 2,430 megawatts of clean, renewable wind energy, which could power over 850,000 homes each year.

    “Installation of up to 155 turbines, up to two offshore substation platforms, and up to two offshore export cables, which are planned to make landfall in Astoria, New York, and Waterford, Connecticut.”

    Those 155 wind turbines represent roughly 5% of the total expected to be approved by BOEM in support of the Biden-Harris administration’s OSW program. The program calls for building 30 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind generating capacity by 2030. This will require 3,000 offshore wind turbines pounded into the seabed between Massachusetts and Virginia over the next seven years. Their approvals are being “streamlined” by BOEM, and that sea of turbines will be bolstered by another 5,000 turbines thereafter. Critics have described Biden’s OSW program as the “industrialization” of the Atlantic Ocean, suggesting it will dramatically change our offshore waters with the possibility of creating multiple environmental issues and potentially putting a meaningful portion of our fishing industry out of business.

    Read the full article on Energy-Musings.com »

  • Energy Musings, May 19, 2023

    Written by

    Allen Brooks

    on

    in

    Energy Musings contains articles and analyses dealing with important issues and developments within the energy industry, including historical perspective, with potentially significant implications for executives planning their companies’ future.

    Download the PDF

    May 19, 2023

    Who Will Save The Whales This Time?

    BOEM has proposed changes to its offshore wind farm approval process to speed it up. We do not know what changes will be adopted, but likely whales will remain threatened. Moreover, the changes are designed to help improve the economics of projects by reducing the regulatory burden and cost for developers. Still, BOEM and NOAA officials refuse to acknowledge that underwater noise from offshore wind development likely contributes to whale deaths. A new NOAA report highlights how much is not known about underwater noise and marine mammals. READ MORE

    Who Will Save The Whales This Time?

    If the Biden administration has anything to say about it, offshore wind farms need to be built faster even at the risk of killing more endangered whales. The johnny-one-note policy of fighting climate change at all costs with renewable energy puts marine mammals at risk. Some 23 whales have died along the East Coast in the past five months as offshore wind activity has picked up. Slowing the activity or pausing it until we better understand how underwater noise from construction activity may disorient marine mammals would be a smart move.

    Efforts are underway to revise the government’s rules for approving offshore wind farms making it easier for them to advance while ignoring the underwater noise and marine mammal issues. Equally questionable is accelerating approvals without requiring as much environmental data as early in the process as is now required.

    After a one-month extension of the public comment period, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) is considering the feedback it received about its Renewable Energy Modernization Rule proposal. BOEM wants to modify the approval process for new offshore wind developments “to reduce administrative burdens for both developers and the Department’s staff, reduce developer costs and uncertainty, and introduce greater regulatory flexibility in a rapidly changing industry to foster the supply of OCS renewable energy to meet increasing demand, while maintaining environmental safeguards.”

    BOEM goes on to say that this is a “major modernization of the regulations,” which is based on lessons learned from the last 13 years. Modifying the process is estimated to save “the renewable energy industry $1 billion over 20 years,” certainly meaningful for an industry struggling to improve profitability while dealing with explosive inflationary pressures. Surprisingly, there is no mention of increased “safety or protection of commercial fisheries and species” when considering the potential conflict between fishermen and wind farm developers.

    When you read the 85 pages of proposed modernization actions in the January 30, 2023, edition of the Federal Register, you find numerous changes proposed that would allow the approval process to proceed at a faster pace than under the existing process. BOEM’s proposal lists eight major components for revision. They include:

    Eliminating unnecessary requirements for the deployment of meteorological (met) buoys.

    Read the full article on Energy-Musings.com »

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