There is no evidence that wind development is causing whale deaths in the US. It has become a political issue nevertheless

Ed Crooks
Vice-Chair, Americas, Wood Mackenzie

There is something about whales that stirs powerful emotions. When the screenwriters of the recent film Avatar 2: the Way of Water wanted to show how truly evil the bad guys were, they showed them hunting the alien equivalent of whales on the fictional planet Pandora. Anyone who has ever been up close to a whale will understand how moving it can be to see something so huge and so (typically) placid. So claims that offshore wind development is somehow killing whales have inevitably provoked some strong responses.

Since December 2022, about two dozen large whales have been stranded on the east coast of the US, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The fact that the coast is being opened up for the construction of offshore wind farms has led some politicians and environmental groups to draw a connection. Whales are being used as a justification for halting the industry’s activities, even though there is no solid evidence linking them to the recent spate of strandings.

Wood Mackenzie’s analysts do not expect the worries over whales to delay the growth of US offshore wind production significantly. However, it is clear that the industry has a new challenge that it will need to address, along with other long-standing issues including concerns about the impact on fishing and opposition from wealthy owners of beachfront property. Although the evidence may not support a link to whale deaths, this is a subject on which powerful emotions can be roused, regardless of the facts.

The breadth of concern about the issue was shown this week by a vote in the US House of Representatives. Chris Smith, a Republican congressman from New Jersey, proposed an amendment to his party’s energy legislation, requiring a further review by the Government Accountability Office of environmental assessments for offshore wind. It was backed by 244 votes to 189, with 29 Democrats voting in favour.

Representative Smith said in the House that recent whale and dolphin deaths were “like canaries in coal mines,” bringing “new light and increased scrutiny to the fast tracking of approximately 3,400 offshore wind turbines covering 2.4 million acres by 2030.”

He cited an environmental group called Clean Ocean Action, which has warned that “the ocean and the coast will be vastly transformed and industrialized [by offshore wind development], and the public would likely still be in the dark if it wasn’t for the outrageously grim and tragic record of whale and dolphin deaths.”

It is certainly true that whale deaths appear to have risen sharply. NOAA data for humpback whale strandings on the east coast show 15 so far in 2023, closing in on the 19 recorded for the whole of 2022. For North Atlantic right whales, an endangered species, there have already been two deaths recorded this year, as many as in the whole of 2021.

The big problem for anyone trying to link these deaths to the offshore wind industry is that they predate almost all activity in the US. NOAA dates the “unusual mortality events” for humpback whales back to 2016, and for minke and right whales back to 2017, when there were just five offshore wind turbines operational in US waters.

Critics of the industry face difficulties trying to identify the precise mechanisms by which offshore wind development is supposed to kill whales. Representative Smith cited a scientific paper suggesting that wind turbines can interfere with marine radar, although the study does not mention whales at all, and that cannot yet be an issue off the coast of New Jersey, where no turbines are yet in service.

Other opponents have cited the potential disruption caused by offshore site surveys. It is well established that military sonar used to detect submarines and mines can harm whales and other marine mammals, causing them to become disoriented and vulnerable to attacks and collisions.

However, scientists with the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group, point out that “the sounds produced by offshore wind’s pre-construction surveys are much lower in energy than more powerful industrial sources, and tend to be highly directional.” They conclude it is “very unlikely that they drove the whales off New York and New Jersey to strand.”

NOAA’s verdict is similar. It says: “there is no evidence that noise resulting from wind development-related site characterization surveys could potentially cause mortality of whales, and no specific links between recent large whale mortalities and currently ongoing surveys.”

For opponents of offshore wind, the lack of evidence is no obstacle: the coincidence in timing is enough. As Clean Ocean Action puts it, the recent rise in whale deaths “coincides with an unprecedented number of permits (11) for conducting offshore pre-construction activities for the proposed massive industrial offshore wind power plants.”

The group’s online petition, calling for “a hard stop” on all offshore wind construction activities until they are proved not to affect whales, already has almost 350,000 signatures. That proof will not be easy to come by, given that, as the NRDC scientists admit, “it’s hard to say” what lies behind the recent whale deaths. NOAA gives the classic academics’ answer: “more research is needed”.

The Biden administration has set a demanding goal for offshore wind as part of its wider ambition to decarbonise the US power sector: it hopes to have 30 gigawatts of capacity operational by 2030.

Samantha Woodworth, Wood Mackenzie’s senior research analyst for wind, says she expects the industry to get very close to that objective. The most significant challenges to achieving it are currently shortages in the construction supply chain, rather than anything to do with whales, she adds.

Even so, the industry will need to win the argument over whales if it is to realise its potential for growth. “Everyone loves whales. Killing whales with wind turbines is definitely not the goal,” Woodworth says. “The industry has every incentive to make sure that is not what it is doing.”

In brief

The UK government has launched its latest Energy Security Plan, intended to “scale up affordable, clean, homegrown power and build thriving green industries in Britain”. The plan includes expanded ambitions for Carbon Capture, Use and Storage, a new fund to support port infrastructure for floating offshore wind, a first round of green hydrogen projects with government funding, a new competition to select the best Small Modular Reactor technologies, and reform of the planning process “to enable the building of more energy infrastructure including solar power and offshore wind projects more quickly.”

Ford Motor has signed an agreement with PT Vale Indonesia Tbk and Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt Co develop sustainable nickel production in Indonesia and cut the cost of batteries for electric vehicles. The three companies are developing a US$4.5 billion joint venture plant for nickel products used to make EV batteries. Lisa Drake of Ford said: “This framework gives Ford direct control to source the nickel we need – in one of the industry’s lowest-cost ways – and allows us to ensure the nickel is mined in line with our company’s sustainability targets, setting the right ESG standards as we scale.”

Insure our Future, a global consortium of climate campaign groups, has sent its latest open letter to the chief executives of 30 large insurance companies, urging them to “immediately cease insuring new and expanded coal, oil, and gas projects”. It is also calling on them to cut off all insurance services within two years for any oil, gas and coal company customers that are not “aligned” with a pathway for limiting global warming to 1.5 °C.

The Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market has launched a new global benchmark for “high-integrity carbon credits”, intended to ensure that the credits create real, verifiable climate impact.

Original article   l   KeyFacts Energy Industry Directory: Wood Mackenzie