RESEARCH & MEDIA
Explore in-depth articles, reports, and visual resources that uncover the environmental, economic, social, and technical impacts of offshore wind energy.
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Environmental Impacts
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CCC 2022
Environmental Impacts
Uncover the effects of offshore wind projects on marine life, ecosystems, and the environment at large.
Offshore Wind’s Broad Reach:
NJ Wind Farm Construction Harm: Explores how wind farm construction can harm whales, birds, and other marine life (Patch NJ Report).
Summary: Highlights concerns raised in a federal report about the potential harm to marine life and birds caused by offshore wind farm construction.
Sulphur Hexafluoride Risks: Briefing on the risks of sulfur hexafluoride (SF6), a greenhouse gas with significant global warming potential, used in offshore wind turbine electrical components (Sulphur Hexafluoride Final Briefing).
Summary: Explains the role of SF6 in turbine operations and highlights its significant environmental risks due to its potency as a greenhouse gas.
Marine Life Under Siege: Noise Pollution and Habitat Disruption:
HRG Survey Noise Pollution: Explore the detrimental effects of survey noise on marine biodiversity (Rand Acoustics Letter).
Summary: Highlights how HRG surveys generate disruptive noise pollution in marine ecosystems, which can interfere with marine mammals' communication, navigation, and feeding behaviors, ultimately threatening their survival during critical lifecycle stages.
Porpoise Mortality: Detailed findings on the rise in porpoise deaths due to offshore wind projects (Medium Article).
Summary: Documents a sharp increase in porpoise fatalities linked to offshore wind projects, where turbine-related noise and habitat degradation disrupt their echolocation, leading to increased stress, strandings, and death.
Anchor Scour Damage to Seabed Fauna: Examines damage caused by anchor scour to marine ecosystems through a detailed analysis of offshore wind turbine anchoring impacts. (Science of the Total Environment)
Summary: Details how anchoring systems for offshore wind turbines rip through seabed habitats, annihilating marine fauna and disrupting spawning grounds essential for fish populations, leaving behind a legacy of ecological ruin with no viable recovery in sight.
Population-level consequences of seismic surveys on fish (2019): Literature review assessing the impact of seismic survey air gun noise on fish populations. (Fish and Fisheries)
Summary: Reveals how seismic surveys linked to offshore wind exploration shatter fish populations, disrupting reproduction and survival with relentless acoustic assaults that devastate marine ecosystems.
Underwater power cables make lobsters bad swimmers (2022): Report detailing how electromagnetic fields from offshore wind cables impair lobster mobility. (Phys.org)
Summary: Exposes how offshore wind power cables cripple lobster movement, threatening shellfish populations and coastal fisheries with unseen electromagnetic pollution that undermines marine life.
An overview of fish bioacoustics and the impacts of anthropogenic sound on fishes (2019): Reviews the effects of human-made noise, including from offshore wind, on fish behavior and ecosystems. (Journal of Fish Biology)
Summary: Uncovers how offshore wind noise pollution disrupts fish communication and behavior, endangering populations and unraveling marine food webs with no regulatory recourse.
Offshore Windmills and the effects of electromagnetic fields on fish (2007): Examines how electromagnetic fields from offshore wind infrastructure affect fish physiology and behavior. (AMBIO: A Journal of the Human Environment)
Summary: Details how offshore wind’s electromagnetic fields scramble fish navigation and health, silently wreaking havoc on marine species and fisheries with unchecked technological interference.
Risk formulation for the sonic effects of offshore wind farms on fish in the EU region (2009): Analyzes the sonic impacts of offshore wind farms on fish in European waters. (Marine Pollution Bulletin)
Summary: Highlights how offshore wind noise bombards fish with sonic stress, slashing survival rates and destabilizing aquatic ecosystems across the EU with reckless abandon.
Fatal Skies: Bird Collisions and Habitat Loss from Offshore Wind:
Bird Collision & Displacement: Analysis of bird migration patterns disrupted by offshore turbines (BOEM Report).
Summary: Details how offshore wind turbines pose significant collision risks to migratory birds, particularly those of high conservation concern. The study highlights habitat fragmentation and displacement that forces birds into less suitable environments, increasing mortality rates.
Seabird Habitat Disruption: Analysis of how offshore wind farms affect seabird populations, leading to habitat loss and increased energy expenditure during migration (Nature Article).
Summary: This study examines how offshore wind farms directly disrupt critical seabird habitats, forcing birds to expend additional energy to avoid turbines, reducing reproductive success, and increasing their vulnerability to predation and starvation.
Collision and displacement vulnerability to offshore wind energy infrastructure among marine birds of the Pacific Outer Continental Shelf: Assesses the vulnerability of Pacific marine birds to offshore wind turbine collisions and habitat displacement. (Journal of Environmental Management)
Summary: Reveals how offshore wind turbines slaughter Pacific marine birds and displace them from vital habitats, decimating populations and leaving coastal ecosystems in peril.
Massive Bird Kill at West Virginia wind farm highlights national issue (2011): Documents significant bird mortality events at a West Virginia wind farm, reflecting broader wind energy risks. (American Bird Conservancy)
Summary: Exposes how wind farms, like those offshore, massacre birds in droves, spotlighting a national crisis of avian deaths ignored by proponents of this flawed technology.
Wind Energy Company pleads guilty to killing 150 eagles (2022): Reports on a wind energy company’s legal admission to killing eagles, tied to turbine operations.
Summary: Unveils the grim reality of offshore wind’s toll, as turbines shred iconic eagles, proving this technology’s green facade hides a bloody trail of wildlife carnage.
Assessing vulnerability of marine bird populations to offshore wind farms (2013): Evaluates factors making marine birds susceptible to offshore wind farm impacts. (Journal of Environmental Management)
Summary: Details how offshore wind farms exploit marine bird vulnerabilities, slashing populations through collisions and habitat loss, with devastating consequences for coastal biodiversity.
Silent Oceans: Whale Deaths Linked to Offshore Wind Farms:
Mortality Reports: Comprehensive findings on whale deaths linked to offshore projects (Whale Mortality Report).
Summary: Highlights alarming whale mortality rates in areas adjacent to offshore wind development. The study correlates increased deaths with underwater noise, vessel collisions, and habitat degradation caused by turbine construction and operation.
Turbine Pollution: Microplastics and Toxic Risks to Marine Ecosystems:
Blade Erosion Pollution: Pollution caused by eroding turbine blades (Erosion Report).
Summary: Examines how turbine blade erosion releases microplastics and chemical pollutants into surrounding waters, accumulating in marine food chains and endangering the health of marine species and coastal communities reliant on fisheries.
Nantucket Turbine Blade Failure: Incident of turbine blade collapse leading to debris on Nantucket beaches (CBS News).
Summary: Reports on the catastrophic turbine blade failure near Nantucket, where broken debris contaminated local beaches and marine habitats, raising questions about the durability and safety of offshore wind technology.
Annual Blade Failures Report: Provides data on offshore wind turbine blade failures worldwide, compiled from industry reports and failure statistics. (Wind Power Monthly)
Summary: Reveals a shocking estimate of 3,800 blade failures annually, exposing the inherent unreliability of offshore wind turbines and the relentless threat of debris pollution that suffocates marine ecosystems and endangers coastal waters.
Ocean Under Stress: Upwelling and Ecosystem Disruption:
Impacts of Floating Offshore Wind on Upwelling: Analyzes how offshore wind farms disrupt ocean upwelling processes critical for marine food chains, based on environmental modeling studies. (2021) (Offshore Wind Cumulative Impacts)
Summary: Exposes how floating turbines sabotage vital ocean upwelling, choking nutrient flows that sustain marine food chains, triggering widespread fish population collapses, and devastating the fragile balance of coastal ecosystems.
Evaluates potential changes in California coastal upwellings from offshore wind energy development (2022): Assesses how offshore wind development alters California’s coastal upwelling, critical for marine productivity. (California Ocean Protection Council)
Summary: Uncovers how offshore wind disrupts California’s coastal upwelling, starving marine ecosystems of nutrients, slashing fish stocks, and threatening coastal livelihoods with ecological collapse.
Offshore wind farms are projected to impact primary production and bottom water deoxygenation (2022): Uses modeling to predict offshore wind’s effects on ocean productivity and oxygen levels. (Communications Earth & the Environment)
Summary: Reveals how offshore wind farms choke ocean productivity and deplete bottom water oxygen, strangling marine life and turning vibrant seas into dead zones with no reprieve.
Potential environmental effects of deepwater floating offshore wind energy facilities (2021): Reviews studies on the ecological impacts of deepwater floating offshore wind turbines. (Ocean and Coastal Management)
Summary: Exposes how deepwater floating turbines unleash a cascade of environmental ruin, shredding marine habitats and disrupting ocean life with untested technology that defies mitigation.
Projected cross-shore changes in upwelling induced by offshore wind farm development along the California coast (2023): Examines how offshore wind farms alter cross-shore upwelling along California’s coast using numerical models.
Summary: Details how offshore wind farms distort California’s coastal upwelling, slashing nutrient delivery to marine life, crippling fish populations, and destabilizing ecosystems with no regard for the consequences.
Accelerating deployment of offshore wind energy alter wind climate and reduce future power generation potentials (2022): Uses climate models to explore how offshore wind farms change wind patterns and generation capacity. (Nature)
Summary: Shows how offshore wind farms disrupt wind climates, slashing future energy potential and destabilizing atmospheric balance, proving their inefficiency harms more than it helps.
Economic Evaluations
“Wind power receives billions in taxpayer support, yet we see project after project failing.”
Daniel Turner - Power the Future
Economic Evaluations
Assess the true economic impact of offshore wind projects on local communities and energy costs.
The Hidden Costs: Financial Burden of Offshore Wind:
Economic Implications for California: The financial toll of California's wind plans (California Free Beacon).
Summary: Critiques California's offshore wind initiatives, projecting substantial financial burdens on taxpayers without commensurate benefits.
CEC AB525 Adopted Final Report: Details California’s offshore wind energy goals and regulatory framework as outlined by the California Energy Commission under Assembly Bill 525.
Summary: Lays bare California’s reckless offshore wind obsession, unveiling a convoluted regulatory nightmare that burdens taxpayers with exorbitant costs, piling economic hardship onto residents already reeling from inflated energy prices.
Impacts to the Commercial Fishing from OSW in California: A letter from fishing organizations to the California Energy Commission detailing economic and environmental impacts on fishing from offshore wind.
Summary: Slams offshore wind for crushing California’s fishing industry, detailing how it obliterates livelihoods, slashes economic output, and leaves coastal communities reeling from industrial overreach.
Morro Bay 2017 Commercial Fisheries Economic Impact Report: Assesses the economic vitality of Morro Bay’s fishing-related businesses and workforce.
Summary: Exposes how offshore wind threatens Morro Bay’s thriving fishing economy, risking the collapse of a vital marine-dependent community with costly, disruptive industrialization.
Not made in America: Factory shortage stalls offshore wind (2023): Reports on supply chain issues driving up offshore wind costs on the East Coast. (Politico)
Summary: Reveals how offshore wind’s reliance on foreign factories jacks up costs, stalls projects, and burdens taxpayers with an inefficient, import-dependent boondoggle.
Value of Fishing Grounds California North Coast (2023): Evaluates the economic worth of fishing grounds off Northern California. (CA Fisheries Resiliency Association)
Summary: Highlights how offshore wind jeopardizes Northern California’s valuable fishing grounds, slashing economic returns and gutting a critical industry with reckless development.
Big Blow: Offshore wind power’s devastating costs and impacts on North Carolina (2022): Study questioning the economic viability and impacts of offshore wind in North Carolina.
Summary: Tears apart North Carolina’s offshore wind plans, exposing sky-high costs and devastating economic impacts that crush local communities under the weight of government folly.
False economic promise of offshore wind (2024): Investigates the misleading economic claims of offshore wind viability. (Cato Institute)
Summary: Debunks offshore wind’s economic hype, exposing its inflated costs and dismal returns that saddle communities with debt while delivering little beyond broken promises.
Robert Bryce testimony before the House Subcommittee on Energy (2020): Testimony on how renewable policies, including offshore wind, raise costs for consumers.
Summary: Slams offshore wind mandates for hiking energy costs, burdening ratepayers with inefficient schemes that enrich corporations while impoverishing everyday Americans.
Offshore Wind Energy (OSW): Cost and Economic Impacts – Part 1 (2024): Examines the high costs and economic inefficiencies of offshore wind energy. (California Globe)
Summary: Exposes offshore wind as a costly fiasco, draining public funds with minimal output, proving it’s an economic disaster that punishes taxpayers for corporate gain.
Economic Fallout: Offshore Wind's Toll on Tourism and Fisheries:
Tourism Losses: Offshore wind’s impact on coastal tourism (NJ Tourism Report).
Summary: Explores significant declines in coastal tourism in New Jersey as visitors avoid areas near industrialized wind farms. The study highlights potential long-term damage to local economies reliant on beachgoers, recreational fishers, and hospitality industries.
Breaking Wind - Robert Bryce: Critically examines offshore wind’s impact on energy reliability and economics through a detailed critique by energy journalist Robert Bryce.
Summary: Dismantles the fantasy of offshore wind as a practical energy solution, spotlighting its outrageous costs, inconsistent power delivery, and crippling economic fallout that threatens the livelihoods of coastal communities.
Potential economic losses of reduced tourism attributed to proposed wind turbines in Long Beach Island, New Jersey (2024): Analyzes the financial hit to tourism from proposed offshore wind turbines in Ocean County, NJ.
Summary: Details how offshore wind turbines threaten Long Beach Island’s tourism economy, driving away visitors and plunging local businesses into financial ruin with no recovery in sight.
Corporate Influence and Profit Motives:
Golden State Wind: Covers offshore wind project developments specific to California, detailing plans for the Golden State Wind initiative.
Summary: Showcases California’s misguided offshore wind gamble, exposing plans that endanger marine life and coastal livelihoods with reckless ambition, heedless of the irreversible damage left in their wake.
Blackstone's $3B Investment in Offshore Wind: Details Blackstone’s multi-billion-dollar investment into offshore wind infrastructure, outlining financial commitments to renewable projects.
Summary: Exposes how corporate behemoths like Blackstone dump billions into offshore wind, chasing profits while leaving oceans and communities to bear the crushing burden of environmental ruin and economic displacement.
BP & Equinor Offshore Wind Partnership: Details a major offshore wind partnership between oil giants BP and Equinor, focusing on their U.S. renewable energy strategy.
Summary: Highlights the cynical pivot of oil titans BP and Equinor to offshore wind, accelerating ecological devastation under a green facade while pocketing profits at the expense of vulnerable marine ecosystems.
Community & Social Implications
“Industrial activity and development of ports can result in significant environmental burdens for communities living near the ports, including air, water, noise and light pollution (EPA, 2021). This not only affects residents but also workers and visitors who might recreate near port areas.”
CCC 2022
Community & Social Implications
Explore testimonials and media highlighting the human side of offshore wind development.
Winds of Change: - A personal perspective of Morro Bay commercial fishermen on the real-life impacts of offshore wind development
Summary: A local fisherman’s testimony on the adverse effects of offshore wind development on their livelihood and community.
Wind industry money behind media misinformation about whale deaths (2023): Investigates how wind industry funding distorts media narratives about whale deaths linked to offshore wind.
Summary: Unveils how offshore wind cash silences truth about whale deaths, manipulating media to bury the industry’s role in marine devastation and mislead coastal communities.
Through the Lens: Documenting Offshore Wind's Real-World Impacts:
Waterfront Infrastructure Report: Discusses port modifications needed for offshore wind expansion, assessing infrastructure demands along California’s Central Coast. (2022)
Summary: Reveals how offshore wind forces costly, disruptive port upgrades, displacing fishing communities and small businesses while saddling locals with the bill for industrial sprawl that prioritizes corporate greed over community survival.
Policy & Regulation
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CCC 2022
Policy & Regulation
Dive into the rules, frameworks, and compliance issues surrounding offshore wind energy.
Broken Rules: Regulatory Failures in Offshore Wind Permitting:
Incidental Harassment Authorization: Analysis of permitting processes and legal compliance (NOAA Report).
Summary: Highlights gaps in regulatory enforcement, particularly regarding incidental harassment of marine species during wind farm construction.
BOEM NY Bight PEIS Report: BOEM’s assessment of offshore wind development’s impact in the NY Bight region, evaluating environmental and regulatory implications.
Summary: Uncovers a sham regulatory process in the NY Bight, where environmental devastation is glossed over and rubber-stamped, abandoning marine life and coastal residents to the unchecked ravages of offshore wind expansion.
CEC Report - Offshore Wind Energy Development Off the California Coast: Report from the California Energy Commission on the feasibility and impacts of offshore wind energy development.
Summary: Exposes California’s flawed push for offshore wind, revealing a regulatory framework that ignores ecological harm and economic burdens, steamrolling communities with unchecked ambition.
CA State Lands Commission – Alternative Port Assessment to Support Offshore Wind: Assesses alternative port options to support offshore wind along California’s coast.
Summary: Highlights how offshore wind’s port demands disrupt coastal infrastructure, forcing costly upgrades that displace local industries and burden taxpayers with no regard for community impact.
California Coastal Commission Consistency Determination for BOEM (2022): Reviews BOEM’s offshore wind leasing consistency with California coastal policies.
Summary: Reveals a rubber-stamp approval process for offshore wind leases, sidelining coastal protections and paving the way for ecological ruin with flimsy regulatory oversight.
BOEM Draft Environmental Assessment: Commercial Wind Lease, Grant Issuance, and Site Assessment Activities on the Pacific Outer Continental Shelf, Morro Bay Wind Energy Area, California: BOEM’s draft assessment of environmental impacts from wind leasing in Morro Bay. (2022)
Summary: Uncovers BOEM’s weak assessment of Morro Bay wind leases, glossing over marine devastation and pushing flawed permits that endanger ecosystems with regulatory negligence.
Ocean Wind 1 Offshore Wind Farm Draft Environmental Impact Statement by BOEM June (2022): Draft EIS assessing impacts of the Ocean Wind 1 project off New Jersey.
Summary: Exposes the Ocean Wind 1 project’s sham EIS, downplaying ecological harm and railroading communities with a regulatory green light for offshore wind destruction.
California Coastal Act: Text of the 1976 California Coastal Act, aimed at protecting marine environments.
Summary: Highlights how offshore wind flouts the Coastal Act’s marine protections, trampling regulations meant to safeguard ecosystems with industrial sprawl and regulatory loopholes.
Central Coast Emerging Industries Waterfront Siting and Infrastructure Study – REACH 2022: Analyzes infrastructure options for offshore wind development on California’s Central Coast (REACH Study).
Summary: Reveals how offshore wind’s waterfront demands disrupt Central Coast communities, pushing costly industrial sprawl that displaces locals and prioritizes profit over sustainable coastal integrity.
Offshore Wind projects, from pre-construction surveying through to facility operation, are fraught with a plethora of destructive environmental issues and have the potential to kill and harm countless marine species, and migrating and soaring marine birds.
Technical Challenges
“Wind turbines do not actually operate at 100% efficiency. They operate at 35% to 45% efficiency. However due to the intermittency and variation of the wind the actual output is much worse. The effect of the enhanced fluctuations is dramatic. The capacity factor, the ratio of actual delivered power for offshore wind is 20-40%.”
Robert Sidenberg - The Morro Bay Wind Farm and Demise of Port San Luis
Technical Challenges
Delve into the engineering hurdles of offshore wind projects.
Engineering Challenges: Risks of Floating Turbine Technology:
Potential Impacts of Floating Wind Turbine Technology: Discusses potential environmental risks associated with floating offshore wind turbines, focusing on marine species and habitats.
Summary: Warns of the reckless deployment of floating turbines, an unproven technology that threatens to shred marine habitats, destabilize ecosystems, and wreak havoc on ocean life with no safeguards against its destructive fallout.
HVDC Cooling Systems White Paper: (2022) Explores how high-voltage direct current (HVDC) systems used in offshore wind affect marine ecosystems through technical analysis. (BOEM)
Summary: Exposes how HVDC cooling systems spew heat and toxic pollutants into fragile ocean waters, roasting marine life and amplifying ecological destruction under the false banner of clean energy.
Material and Resource Concerns:
Mines, Minerals & Green Energy Reality Check: (2020) Examines the environmental toll of rare earth mineral extraction for wind energy, detailing mining impacts for turbine production. (Manhattan Institute)
Summary: Lifts the curtain on offshore wind’s dirty secret, revealing how rare earth mining for turbines devastates landscapes, poisons water supplies, and fuels an environmental disaster that dwarfs any supposed benefits.
Rare Earth Elements & Offshore Wind: (2023) Discusses the sourcing challenges and sustainability concerns of rare earth elements used in wind turbines, based on a Columbia University analysis. (Columbia Climate School)
Summary: Slams the unsustainable plunder of rare earths for offshore wind, spotlighting the ecological wreckage and exploitation of vulnerable regions that shatter the myth of this technology as a green solution.
Videos & Documentaries
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CCC 2022
Videos & Documentaries
A curated collection of impactful visual resources highlighting the environmental and social implications of offshore wind energy projects.
Impact at a Glance: Infographics on Offshore Wind Harms:
Environmental Impacts of Offshore Wind: (2024) This infographic by Seas At Risk illustrates the various environmental effects of offshore wind energy throughout its lifecycle, detailing impacts from construction to decommissioning (Seas At Risk).
Summary: Exposes the relentless environmental toll of offshore wind across its lifecycle, revealing how it scars marine habitats, disrupts wildlife, and pollutes oceans, undermining any claim to sustainability with a trail of ecological destruction.
Offshore Wind Energy Overview: Presented by the Netherlands Enterprise Agency, this infographic provides insights into the effects of large offshore wind farm projects, summarizing their scale and consequences (RVO.nl).
Summary: Lays out the sprawling havoc wrought by massive offshore wind farms, spotlighting their role in decimating marine ecosystems and burdening coastal regions with costly, inefficient energy schemes that deliver more harm than benefit.
Captured Reality: Documentaries Exposing Offshore Wind Impacts:
Blown Away: The People vs. Wind Power – A Tucker Carlson Originals Film
An investigative documentary examining the human, environmental, and political consequences of offshore wind development.Summary: Explores how offshore wind projects are impacting marine life, displacing coastal communities, and raising questions about environmental justice and energy policy. Through interviews with fishermen, scientists, and residents, the film exposes the overlooked costs of offshore wind and the influence of powerful industry interests behind it.
Block Island Wind Farm - Offshore Wind Documentary: This film provides an in-depth look at the Block Island Wind Farm, chronicling its development and operational impacts off Rhode Island’s coast (Block Island Wind Farm Documentary).
Summary: Unveils the harsh reality of the Block Island Wind Farm, exposing how its towering turbines disrupt marine ecosystems and local fishing grounds, serving as a grim warning of offshore wind’s unchecked toll on coastal life.
Planet Wind Documentary: Features insights from over twenty offshore wind experts, offering a global perspective on the technology’s deployment and effects (Tethys).
Summary: Exposes the hollow promises of offshore wind through expert testimony, detailing its rampant ecological damage and economic folly, painting a damning picture of a technology that sacrifices oceans for corporate gain. (Positive view of OSW)
Winds of Change: - A personal perspective of Morro Bay commercial fishermen on the real-life impacts of offshore wind development
Summary: A local fisherman’s testimony on the adverse effects of offshore wind development on their livelihood and community.
Offshore Wind has proven to be inefficient in output, expensive to operate and has needed subsidization to continue long-term energy production all over the world. The cost of onshore infrastructure, in and of itself, renders the project absurdly costly, and the industrialization of our ports will damage our current local economies irreparably.