#offshore-wind

#offshore-wind

The unassuming delta smelt, Trump said rather uncharitably, is an essentially worthless fish which had been lavished with water flows that should instead go to nearby farmers or help fight the devastating wildfires that were raging hundreds of miles south in Los Angeles. On his first day in office, Trump issued an eye-catching executive order titled Putting people over fish that demanded water be diverted from the smelt's habitat and towards needy people.

The complaint Dominion filed Tuesday alleges that a stop work order that the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) issued Monday is unlawful, "arbitrary and capricious," and "infringes upon constitutional principles that limit actions by the Executive Branch." Dominion wants a federal court to prevent BOEM from enforcing the stop work order. "Virginia needs every electron we can get as our demand for electricity doubles."

The Interior Department did not detail the security concerns in blocking the five projects on Monday. In a letter to project developers, Interior's Bureau of Ocean Energy Management set a 90-day period - and possibly longer - "to determine whether the national security threats posed by this project can be adequately mitigated." The other projects are the Vineyard Wind project under construction in Massachusetts, Revolution Wind in Rhode Island and Connecticut and two projects in New York: Sunrise Wind and Empire Wind.

Offshore wind farms may do more than boost renewable energy: they might support marine ecosystems, too. That's the takeaway of a new study conducted in China. The researchers found that wind turbines provided support for colonies of oysters and barnacles and that fish species and biomass were more abundant near the turbines than they were in an area without the machines.

Trump officials have been especially aggressive in targeting offshore wind projects, including ones already approved or even under construction. Driving the news: Judge Patti Saris, of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, ruled Monday that Trump's Jan. 20 order is "arbitrary and capricious" under administrative law. The ruling came in a case brought by New York and other states, and the nonprofit Alliance For Clean Energy New York.

Politics Labour says Reform UK won't save 500m by closing office buildings because government ending those contracts anyway John Major says many traditional Tory supporters now 'politically homeless' because of party's lurch to right Highland council complains about impact of plan to put asylum seekers in barracks in centre of Inverness Plans to house UK asylum seekers in barracks are costly and complicated, experts say

The government said its plan is consistent with a broad offshore wind review Trump ordered just hours after his January inauguration. It's also aligned with an ongoing Interior Department assessment of the extent to which past offshore wind project approvals comply with a decades-old federal law that requires energy projects on coastal federal waters balance a dozen different needs, including protecting the environment and national security, as well as preventing interference with use of the high seas.

The scale of the intervention is remarkable a total of nine already permitted offshore wind projects that were set to provide electricity to nearly 5m households and create around 9,000 jobs in the US are under investigation or have already been paused by the Trump administration. Trump has barred any new solar and wind projects from federal land and waters, eliminated incentives for clean energy and, almost uniquely for a US president, called for an entire industry to be stopped in its tracks.

From behind a veil of pea soup-thick fog emerged hundreds of white and green fiberglass and Styrofoam pieces, some as small as a fingernail, some as large as a truck hood. By the following morning, the tide had carried the debris about 12 nautical miles and scattered it across Nantucket Island's beaches. Residents woke to a shoreline covered in trash, fiberglass shards mixed in with seaweed and shells, waves thrusting flotsam onto the sand.

The UK is making a concerted effort to attract global green investors by offering funding and infrastructure improvements in key renewable energy sectors.