Offshore
4/7/22 – Offshore wind energy, the fishing industry, and the life they impact
Hello everyone:
Next week’s writing will mark the first anniversary of this Field Guide, so stay tuned for some perspective on the last year. I want to thank you all for reading and for staying connected to this discussion of the Anthropocene, and I want to especially thank my paid subscribers for supporting the work. The more of you there are, the more I can devote myself to the writing. It means the world to me.
As always, please remember to scroll past the end of the essay to read this week’s curated Anthropocene news.
Now on to this week’s writing.
Life is everywhere. Perhaps the most profound discovery a biologist could make is to find a place on Earth that does not host some kind of life. Every extreme niche we’ve found – in boiling Yellowstone hot springs, the Earth’s crust, the darkest ocean depths, or even within and beneath the Antarctic ice cap – life exists with a persistence, beauty, and innovation that puts our planet-encircling exploits to shame. Everything, these microbes are saying, is habitat.
And life modifies the planet. (If it hadn’t, complex life would scarcely exist.) The conditions for life as we know it were, and are, created by microbes. This includes the biogeochemical cycles – carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus – that are essential for life on Earth and that underlie key planetary boundaries we’re pushing past today. What we think of as “charismatic” large species, including us, blue whales, redwoods, and Siberian tigers are only temporary ornaments on a planet run for eons by a tapestry of single-celled life so complex that we have scarcely begun to map it. We don’t even understand the complicated roles played by microbes in our mouths. But it’s safe to say that the general role they play, whether in our bodies or in the soil, is to foster a win-win homeostasis that benefits them and their habitat. It’s not pure competition; it’s community created by competition within collaboration. So while life has always modified the planet, it has done so, as I mentioned last week, as a way of serving life.
The Anthropocene, though, is characterized by a blind antagonism to other species and habitats. We have a self-obsessed relationship to place: How can this serve us? What can we extract? How can we alter it to our benefit? Even as our profound advances in science – from the genetic to the Gaian – outline and describe the great wealth of life on Earth, our civilization still reimagines habitat for our purposes at a rate that threatens to erase what we are only now recognizing. If a landscape is lucky, the purpose we give it is aesthetic – a national park, say, or a marine protected area – and we put an imaginary protective line around it which then must be defended from those who disagree with its assignment. Over the last few centuries in particular, no habitat in the good green Earth has been as sacred as the business of civilization. As I write this, forests and other natural communities vital to the bulwark we must build against climate change and biodiversity loss are being mowed down to make stuff we simply do not need. We trade rainforests for burgers, coral reefs for bitcoin, and the polar ice caps for air conditioning.
We give planets their meaning, or so we seem to think, judging by the underlying assumption behind nearly every sci-fi narrative. Never mind the blue-green tapestry behind us; just look at our rocket! We pretend that planets are launch pads for what we imagine has been our unqualified victory over planetary limits, when in fact we’re living on the temporary lucre of an ecological Ponzi scheme. In this light, the obsessive search for “intelligent” life seems little more than an urge to take a galactic selfie.
Our disregard of habitat is of course just as true in the oceans as on the land. And that’s what brings me to this week’s topic, some perspective on the conflict created by siting offshore wind farms in lucrative fishing grounds. It is essentially an argument over which human use should control the territory. It is rarely a debate over what’s best for the habitat and its community of species.
Wind energy developers are looking to profit from the slow civilizational shift to cleaner energy, while the fishing community is looking to defend its longstanding extractive relationship with the sea. The moral ground – not to mention federal investment – is shifting toward the new energy companies, but we cannot forget that intensive fishing is essential to feeding a hungry world with a population increasing by 200,000 every day.
In the push to keep fossil fuels in the ground and stabilize the climate, we need to electrify everything. This in turn requires a massive build-out of clean energy sources and (in the U.S.) a tripling in size of the grid. Wind and solar are the primary energy sources being pursued because their costs per unit of energy have dropped to or even below the costs of fossil-fuel sources. Coal is toast, while solar and wind are hot… but other sources (geothermal, fusion, etc.) may soon be competitive. (The cheapest solution is the one least discussed in our quest for flashy technology: energy efficiency and the retrofitting of buildings. We can, arguably, remodel our way out of much of the climate crisis.)
Why are we going to the trouble of placing wind turbines offshore? The sea is wild, its chemistry is corrosive, and the cost of operations increase radically once you step off the dock. (Just ask a fisherman how much of their earnings go toward boat repair and fuel.) Imagine the difference in cost and difficulty between plugging a land-based turbine into the grid vs. running miles of buried cable from an offshore wind farm to shore. So why bother? Stronger, more reliable winds, for one thing, and the availability of open space close to concentrated coastal populations.
Even a slightly stronger average wind can bring huge returns on investment. Wind turbines in a 15-mph wind will generate twice as much energy as turbines in a 12-mph wind. Reliable winds mean reliable pay-offs. And given that half the U.S. population lives in coastal areas, which generally lack the space on land for utility-scale wind power projects, placing them just offshore makes perfect sense. There’s the added bonus of allowing us to continue using far too much energy to do far too little of value without seeing where our power comes from. Out of sight, out of mind, right?
Almost. First, there are the coastal communities who can see these turbines, and here in the U.S. at the dawn of large-scale offshore wind power development, they generally do not like what they see. So far these tend to be wealthy Northeast communities who pay taxes on the view, and who seem to forget that they are in the 1% of the world’s population in terms of generating the most greenhouse gases. It appears to be a classic case of NIMBYism (Not In My BackYard), in which residents know a public good is being created but don’t want to have to look at it.
As a personal note, though, I will say that having lived in small towns near the sea all my life, I can empathize with the frustration over a permanent loss of an unbroken horizon. When you look out to sea, you expect the visual equivalent of silence and calm, not the constant whup-whup-whup of turning blades. That said, given that much of the world’s poor live near other infrastructure that we all rely on – landfills, highways, mines, coal- or gas-fired power plants, nuclear plants, chemical manufacturers, wastewater treatment facilities, industrial parks – it’s just fine that white folks on the coast take a hit for the team.
The primary objection, though, is from those who work on the water rather than merely enjoy it. And they have a point. Wherever turbines are placed will be off-limits to commercial fishing. The combined area of turbine arrays up and down the coast, once this energy boom takes off, could mean the loss of thousands of square miles of fishing grounds. There are also safety concerns for fishing boats in the vicinity, and it’s unclear what impact the wind farms might have on populations of commercial species, both fish and shellfish.
That lack of clarity in how wind energy will impact fisheries was laid out in Fisheries Impacts from Offshore Wind Energy Development, a substantial 2015 report from the Commercial Fisheries Research Foundation (CFRF), in partnership with the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) and the Cornell Cooperative Extension Marine Program. The major findings include
Site-specific data for proposed wind energy areas is lacking, “resulting in uncertainty and speculation.”
There will be impacts, “but the types of impacts and their significance are uncertain.”
Years of baseline research and monitoring are needed before turbines arrive “to evaluate impacts and determine mitigation measures.”
Measuring impacts from wind energy areas on fishing grounds may be hard to separate from ongoing impacts from “climate change, ecosystem dynamics, fishing pressure, and natural interannual variability.”
The scientific literature from the impacts of existing offshore wind projects in Europe is too thin to offer much guidance.
That was 2015, so some baseline studies in Northeast and mid-Atlantic waters – the areas most likely to see large-scale wind development soon – are underway. A good 2021 Guardian article lays out the fishing community’s fears, the spotty efforts by industry to allay them or compromise on placement, and the still-early effort by scientists to provide a foundation for understanding what might actually occur. BOEM is the federal agency overseeing the development of offshore wind and the science that will precede and accompany it. (BOEM also oversees all offshore leasing for oil and gas development as well as mineral extraction, so their mission is a classic Anthropocene push-pull contradiction.)
The 2015 report lists about 35 fish and invertebrate species which might be impacted at these Atlantic sites, from American lobster to quahogs to yellowtail flounder. To gauge the complexity of the assessment scientists need to make, multiply those species in their larval, juvenile, and adult stages by the wide range of possible impacts on habitat from turbine construction and operation,
such as loss of hard bottom and sand wave habitats due to sedimentation and scouring; addition of high-relief habitat around turbines; redistribution or displacement of important spawning, nursery, and foraging habitats; the creation of micro habitats from shading effects; and introduction of novel electromagnetic fields…
Then add in possible changes to ocean circulation (at the surface and along the seafloor), upwelling, and “sedimentation processes that influence species assemblage structure and trophic interactions,” all of which may impact the drift of larvae and the overall productivity of the ecosystem. Add also that the noise and vibration from construction and operation of the turbines might increase mortality for some species and drive away others.
And finally, factor in the reality that this assessment is happening at a time of another profound change in the ocean driven by climate change, which is having its own disparate set of impacts on the full array of fish, shellfish, plankton, and other microorganisms.
It’s possible that this enormously complicated set of equations around offshore wind power will settle out with a minimum of impacts for the majority of species. But we simply don’t know for sure, and the consequences for a sector of the fishing industry if even a single key species – clams off the New Jersey coast, say – loses essential nursery habitat it could be disastrous. And the analysis can’t be confined to a species-by-species assessment. These are habitats. These are ecosystems built on relationships between predator and prey and along the entire food chain, and there apparently isn’t a lot of site-specific ecosystem-scale structural knowledge for these proposed wind energy areas.
The scale of the transformation being proposed, if you’re looking at it from the point of view of the fishing community, the ecosystem, or the scientists desperate to assess it, is enormous.
My father had a long and storied career in fisheries science, as I described a year ago in my first Field Guide post. His specialty was stock assessment, the quantifying of commercial fish populations in the North Atlantic based on sophisticated analysis of scant data. I could never wrap my head around how such a complete and accurate synopsis of the presence of a species traveling widely through the wine-dark sea could be created with statistical math and an endless flow of research papers, meetings in smoky conference rooms, and after-hours debates among colleagues at the bar. (As an English major, though, all math seemed like magic to me.) But that was the job, and he did it well. Still, I wonder what he’d think of the quality of the science here and in Europe as this new energy boom gets ahead of the research.
Given that Europe and the UK together have nearly 5500 offshore turbines in service, you’d think that there would be a wealth of long-term data for American researchers and fishermen to turn to for a vision of the transformation that awaits us here, where so far fewer than ten have been put into service (five in RI waters, two research turbines off VA, and a single scaled-down experimental floating turbine here in Maine waters). According to the 2015 CFRF report, scientists familiar with the European science
conveyed disappointment about the way impact assessment procedures were carried out, particularly in regards to baseline information gathering, the relative lack of standard research protocols, and the scarcity of published studies and data.
What do we know from other offshore wind development? Anecdotally, at least, I can say that there are reports from Europe suggesting that impacts from construction (e.g. noise and sedimentation) decrease or disappear over time. Effects from electromagnetic fields seem to be minimal. One Dutch study found that dolphin populations increased over time, presumably because of an increase in prey due to the “reef effect” of invertebrate populations thriving on the turbines’ substructure. Creating a reef where one didn’t exist is a benefit, hypothetically, but again we have to remember that this is a major disturbance of natural habitat. A change in habitat changes the ecosystem, which impacts which species thrive, which in turn impacts the fisheries dependent on those species. Building all of these artificial reefs may turn out to be akin to well-meaning attempts to introduce a “beneficial” invasive species. Or it may not.
I haven’t mentioned impacts above the water, particularly where proposed wind farms will stand in the migratory flyway of birds traveling their ancient paths up and down the coast. Bats, to a lesser degree, are a concern as well. This debate has its optimists. There is some indication of certain species (e.g. gulls, cormorants) flocking to offshore wind sites because of the reef effect. (Sport fishermen, with fishing rods rather than trawling nets, may do well to follow the gulls and dolphins to find the fish they want near the turbines.)
A frequently cited 2009 paper, “Contextualizing avian mortality: a preliminary appraisal of bird and bat fatalities from wind, fossil-fuel, and nuclear electricity,” suggested that fossil-fueled electricity killed millions of birds compared with mere thousands killed by solar and wind power. But no one who cites the study seems to know that the “millions” were calculated on the assumption of future mortality due to fossil-fuel-induced climate change. It’s a mess, unfortunately, and should be ignored. As with ocean species, we can say that there will be impacts on birds and bats, but we’re not sure to what extent, or how much they can be mitigated with best practices still being developed.
Mitigation strategies are key here. That’s what the baseline studies are about, and that’s what the more responsible of the wind energy developers are working toward when they have substantial meetings with the fishing community to find compromise both can live with. Some mitigation tactics include innovating reduction in noise from construction and turbine operation, shifting locations away from the most valuable fisheries or primary migration routes, leaving an opening for fishing vessels to transit through the farm (rather than burn more gas to go around), and burying the transmission cables deep enough to ensure both safe trawling and a reduction in disruptive electromagnetic fields. Perhaps the most important tactic will be waiting for the science to catch up with each particular site’s realities, because any construction without that full assessment will inevitably lead to more harm and more conflict. This may be difficult, though, as we’re on the starting line of the big race to build this new industry.
One fascinating innovation, floating turbines, will become essential for this industry as it forced into deeper water. (One player in the field, Aqua Ventus, is here in Maine, and has one experimental small-scale offshore turbine working less than 20 miles from where I live.) Europe is leading the way. If successful, floating turbines change the equation in interesting ways. In Europe, developers are already running out of room in shallower waters, and they’re meeting greater resistance to expansion of wind energy from fishing interests. Floating turbines will be necessary for development off the U.S. west coast because of its deeper waters, and they may well be advantageous for east coast impact reduction. There’s no construction noise, because there’s no hard base pounded into the seafloor. The turbines are towed out to sea, positioned, and tethered to massive anchors. Thus there’s no reef effect and far less physical impact on habitat. The threat to seabirds and migratory land birds is reduced the farther from shore these are placed. Only the impact of turbine noise remains.
Moreover, the primary impact on fisheries could be reduced as well, if placed far off from busy and valuable shallower waters. Any active fishing grounds, though, deep or shallow, remain off-limits; you can’t go anywhere near these floating wind farms with a trawler or anything else that might catch on the anchor lines.
Which brings me to my final question. Will these large-scale offshore wind energy developments evolve into de facto Marine Protected Areas? The BOEM is assuming they will and is looking into it, and studies in the North Sea in areas now closed to the ravages of bottom trawlers show that after several years the benthic community on the seafloor is recovering and creating benefits up the food chain. One small study of fixed offshore turbines suggests that long-term benefits may accrue because of the reef effect around turbine bases.
MPAs are at the heart of ocean conservation efforts. Study after study has found MPA benefits across the board for both ocean ecosystems and local fisheries. These conservation sites, carefully chosen, become nursery sites that protect ecosystem foundations and from which healthy adult populations of fish move outward into the adjacent areas which are being fished.
Like everything else with offshore wind, benefits to the array of local species will depend on the site. Developers are trying (or should be trying) to avoid conflict with the fishing community by shifting offshore wind sites away from the best fishing grounds. This may mean that areas prohibited from fishing might not be the best choice for a productive protected zone. Still, though, if by 2030 or so there are thousands of square miles off the U.S. coast without intense fishing pressure, there may well be benefits for the ocean and the adjacent fisheries. This is a hard argument to make, though, without good data, and considering that human population and its hunger for fish will only increase as these de facto protected zones put additional pressure on an industry that struggles with other restrictions and costs.
In lieu of a definitive answer, I’m going to close with an optimism that our massive ramping up of offshore wind energy will help with the transition away from fossil fuels, begin to flatten the climate change curve, create large-scale meaningful ocean conservation areas, and benefit (in the long-term) the fisheries that we all depend on. I’m not particularly prone to optimism amid the conflicting pressures of the Anthropocene, but without solid data telling me that this new human appropriation of vital ocean habitat will have dire consequences, I’m going to stick with it. Perhaps the net effect of offshore wind, then, will be life working in service of life.
Thanks for sticking with me.
In curated Anthropocene news:
From the brilliant Amory Lovins, here’s an optimistic reality check about the future of mining for the metals and minerals the energy revolution requires. I was wrong, apparently, in my essay that worried about all the harm that seems likely. Read his explanation to find out why. I hope he’s right.
A GQ article by Emily Atkin (of the climate newsletter Heated) and Caitlin Looby on the incredibly stark difference in planetary consequences between limiting global warming to 1.5°F and letting it go only half a degree more to 2.0°F.
“I let a baby bird nest in my hair for 84 days…” The quote is a bit misleading, but it is a sweet story of care and mutual benefit. Here’s her book on the story.
Here’s a good analysis from The Atlantic of the reasons for the zeroing out of U.S. population growth, though the author doesn’t think the phenomenon is a positive one, nor does he once mention what this might mean for the environment. It’s an abstract economic analysis, which is redundant, and symptomatic of the larger inability among wonks to discuss population in ordinary human and environmental terms.
Last week I noted here that microplastics are in our blood. And now for the first time microplastics have been found embedded deep in the lung tissue of living humans.
Great column as usual, deep research and fluid interpretation of complex issue. Thank you!
A nice summing up of the issues surrounding offshore wind. I did catch the Patrick O'Brian reference, thanks for that.