A new report from the National Academy of Sciences says it’s difficult to quantify the environmental impact of wind energy projects southwest of Nantucket Island, given the dynamic nature of the ocean and other impacts such as climate change. .
The report coincidentally came out the same week that the first turbine was installed by Vineyard Wind Co., 15 miles southwest of Nantucket Island, which now looms on the horizon from the island’s south shore. I can see it.
Eileen Hoffman, a professor and chair of the department, said, “The available research on the impacts and effects of wind power on local ecosystems does not indicate whether wind turbines will impact specific parts of the Nantucket Reef ecosystem. “It’s not enough to say with complete confidence.” She received her PhD in Marine and Earth Sciences from Old Dominion University.
“Research and monitoring will be essential as these projects move forward on Nantucket Reef and other areas around the world.”
The report, entitled “Potential Hydrodynamic Impacts of Offshore Wind Energy on the Regional Ecology of the Nantucket Reef: A Wind-to-Whale Assessment,” It is recommended that ocean structure be monitored.
“Turbines do generate wakes both underwater and in the air. And what we know from Europe and the North Sea is that local primary productivity is actually increasing. “Mixing is not a bad thing,” said study co-author Douglas Novacek, a professor of marine science at Duke University.
“But the changes caused by climate change are large-scale, large, dynamic, and dramatic. That means you’re much less likely to hear a pin drop in a noisy room. In this example, the drop of a pin It’s not a perfect analogy because we don’t know how much noise there will be, but from a physics perspective of what’s happening with climate change, there’s a lot of noise in the system. ”
The report released Friday focused on wakes created by wind turbines and how they affect the small crustaceans that whales feed on. The paper did not take a position on recent whale deaths that wind energy opponents have linked to offshore construction, but Novacek offered his personal opinion on the matter.
“I want to say with confidence that the sound sources[the wind farms]are using are not disorienting enough to cause whales to fall onto the beach,” he said.
Novacek has been researching ocean energy development and its interaction with whales for 20 years, and has long studied that the sound emitted from offshore oil and gas drilling is exponentially worse than the sound required to install wind turbines. He said it was relatively large.
“The electricity[powering wind farms to build]is negligible compared to oil and gas. If you were sitting 100 meters away from it in the water, you would certainly hear it, but it would cause no harm. The extent of injury from those things is very small. In the 20+ years I’ve been doing this activity, there’s absolutely no evidence that these activities contribute to mortality. .”
Vineyard Wind is one of many large-scale commercial offshore wind farms planned off the East Coast and in the Gulf of Mexico, as the Biden administration makes offshore wind and clean energy a key tenet of climate action. It is one. This is a split business between Avangrid and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners.
This report was sponsored by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM). The National Academy of Sciences is a nonprofit institution that provides private, independent analysis to inform public policy decisions related to science. They operate under his 1863 Congressional Charter for the National Academy of Sciences, signed by President Lincoln.