Public support for offshore wind energy slipping in New Jersey

The latest Monmouth University poll shows a drastic decrease in support although a majority still supports it

The EEW American Offshore Structures manufacturing plant in Paulsboro is the first monopile fabrication facility in the U.S., where the monopile windmills for Ocean Wind 1 are being welded, sandblasted, and painted. – RICH HUNDLEY III/NJ GOVERNOR’S OFFICE

By Matthew Fazelpoor, NJBIZ

Although a majority of New Jerseyans support the development of offshore wind, that endorsement has fallen dramatically, according to a new poll released Tuesday by the Monmouth University Polling Institute.

The survey found that just over half of residents (54%) are in favor of developing wind farms off the state’s coast versus 40% who oppose them.

That’s a stark plunge in support from a 2019 Monmouth poll on this topic when favorability stood at 76% with just 15% opposed. From 2008 to 2011, that support was more than 80%.

“There was a time when wind energy was not really a political issue,” said Patrick Murray, director of the independent Monmouth University Polling Institute. “It consistently received widespread bipartisan support for more than a decade. That is no longer the case.”

Of course, the issue has become a hot-button and polarizing one with a number of community activists, local stakeholders, and a group of Republican lawmakers vehemently opposing offshore wind development – buoyed by a rash of whale and dolphin deaths as well as expressed concerns about tourism, sightlines, noise and more – that has led to calls for a pause in action until more is studied.

On July 6 at the EEW American Offshore Structures Paulsboro Marine Terminal, Gov. Phil Murphy signed three bills into law to promote a comprehensive vision for a 21st-century New Jersey economy, including legislation making major investments in the offshore wind and film industries and legislation promoting urban and residential development.
Gov. Phil Murphy and other prominent backers have pointed to offshore wind’s potential clean energy and economic benefits. – RICH HUNDLEY III/NJ GOVERNOR’S OFFICE

As NJBIZ has reported, despite those calls for a moratorium, things have been moving full speed ahead on the state’s three approved offshore wind farm projects as well as with the solicitation of future projects.

Gov. Phil Murphy and other prominent backers have pointed to offshore wind’s potential clean energy and economic benefits, in addition to federal agencies and experts finding no evidence linking the early phases of industry work (which currently includes ocean floor mapping using sonar technology) to adverse outcomes, as reasons not to pause.

The issue, though, is bubbling at the local levels up and down the Jersey Shore and will be at the center of this fall’s legislative elections.

Read the full story here

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Wyoming History: Sundance Had First Portable Nuclear Reactor In The United States

Aerial photograph of the first U.S. portable nuclear reactor facility near Sundance in the 1960s.
Aerial photograph of the first U.S. portable nuclear reactor facility near Sundance in the 1960s. (Courtesy Crook County Museum)

Editor’s note: Here’s an intereting story from a newspapaer with a most intereting name for we East Coast folk. Expect to see more of their stories here in the future.

By Kevin Killough, Cowboy State Daily

A small modular reactor demonstration project in Kemmerer has people in Wyoming excited for a nuclear future, but the Cowboy State has a little-known nuclear past. 

Wyoming was home to the first portable land-based nuclear power plant in the United States from 1962-1968, which was transported by air and built near Sundance. It provided 1.25 megawatts of power for three large radar domes at the now-defunct Sundance Air Force Station, which helped keep America safe from Communism. 

“It was during the Cold War, so they watched for missiles,” Rocky Courchaine, director of the Crook County Museum, told Cowboy State Daily.

The museum maintains an exhibit on the historic site of the first experimental nuclear reactor in the U.S.

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The reactor, known as PM-1, was part of the Army Nuclear Power Program. The idea was to have small reactors that could be deployed at remote sites that needed heat and electricity. 

The program developed a number of different small reactor designs, which were deployed at various remote locations, including Antarctica and Alaska. 

The location of the Wyoming reactor is remote today, but in 1962 when the reactor went online, it was largely wilderness. 

And in the early 1960s, “portable” wasn’t exactly a briefcase or backpack.

The reactor was assembled from 16 packages the size of shipping containers. They weighed about 30,000 pounds each. 

These containers were flown in by C-130 aircraft to Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota. From there, they were trucked to the Sundance Air Force Station about 10 miles north of Sundance on Warren Peak. 

The station was part of the Air Defense Command and fed radar data to the Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota. 

It was the era of the Cold War, and America was watching the Soviets closely. 

The radar installation on Warren Peak provided data that could be analyzed to determine if missiles were heading for America, or if detected planes were friendly or commies. 

Read the full story here

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Ugh! Another dead whale washes ashore. This one in New York

Officials are at beach just west of the Atlantic Beach...
Officials are at beach just west of the Atlantic Beach Bridge Friday securing a dead whale that washed up from East Rockaway Inlet. Credit: Jim Staubitser


By John Asbury, Newsday

Marine biologists and New York City parks officials are working to secure a dead humpback whale that washed ashore near Rockaway Inlet, west of Atlantic Beach.

The 30-foot whale was reported Friday afternoon and parks officials were working with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to secure the remains and prepare it for a necropsy, said Robert DiGiovanni, chief scientist for the Atlantic Marine Conservation Society. 

Crews were guarding the whale’s carcass on shore and protecting the area from beachgoers approaching it in the surf, DiGiovanni said. 

A necropsy is planned on the whale Saturday to determine a cause of death. Officials did not know immediately when the whale died.

It is the third whale that has washed up near Long Island beaches this month and the 17th whale in the New York-New Jersey region.

That marks a record number of dead whales this year appearing on beaches in the region. Experts say a larger number of whales are coming closer to shore to feed and arriving earlier in the winter and spring, officials said. 

Officials said one of the main causes of these whale deaths has been trauma consistent with boat strikes,

It is the ninth humpback whale discovered off Long Island, in addition to three minke whales that died from a suspected biological condition.

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NJIT Researchers Harvesting the Toxic Blooms of Summer

By Tracey Regan, New Jersey Institute of Technology

Amid summer’s cornucopia, there is one proliferation that is universally dreaded: the toxic algae blooms that float on lakes and streams, killing fish, gobbling oxygen from the water and chasing away swimmers. Composed of tiny organisms such as single-cell phytoplankton, macroalgae and cyanobacteria, the phosphorescent blue-green clusters are impossible to miss, but difficult to capture.

“Compared to weeds and other aquatic plants, microalgae are tiny – between 1 and 10 micrometers in width – and so there is no easy way to remove them mechanically,” explains Wen Zhang, director of NJIT’s Sustainable Environmental Nanotechnology and Nanointerfaces Laboratory, who is working with a team of biologists, engineers and entrepreneurs on a new plan of attack. 

Last summer, the team launched a custom-designed boat on New Jersey’s Deal Lake that scooped up algae-laden water for treatment on board. Central to the technology is a device that injects nano- and microbubbles of air into the lake, lifting algae from as deep as four feet to the surface for collection by skimmers.

Related news:
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Researchers have discovered that tiny bubbles have a host of useful properties. Suspended in liquids, they have a high degree of stability against dissolution and collapse. Their high surface area and their random movements allow them to move materials around, including nutrients to enhance plant growth, ozone used in bacteria disinfection and oxygen needed to aerate hypoxic environments.

“Bubbles that are 100-500 micrometers in diameter rise quickly to the surface, and because they’re negatively charged and adhesive, lift the clinging algae,” Zhang said. “We’re also hoping to use this technology to raise dissolved oxygen levels. We’ve found that even finer bubbles, between 100-300 nanometers in diameter, stay suspended in the water much longer, where they slowly collapse and dissolve, boosting oxygen levels for up to five days. This is much better than standard aeration. They also remediate anaerobic processes that produce smelly odors and blackish water.” 

Zhang’s team, which is funded by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, is working with the Meadowlands Research and Restoration Institute (MRRI) and BRISEA Inc., an environmental and energy services company, to demonstrate their prototype’s effectiveness in clearing algae. They are also developing a long-term strategy to monitor other water quality parameters, such as dissolved oxygen and turbidity, on state lakes.

Read the full story here

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Murphy makes it official: Central Jersey is a thing

A new law says the region will include Hunterdon, Mercer, Middlesex, and Somerset Counties “at minimum”

A new law signed by Gov. Phil Murphy designates Central Jersey as a region on all New Jersey tourism maps.
A new law signed by Gov. Phil Murphy designates Central Jersey as a region on all New Jersey tourism maps.Steve Madden


By Beatrice Forman, Philadelphia Inquirer

It’s been settled: Central Jersey does exist — at least according to New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy.

Murphy just signed a bill that will require the Division of Travel and Tourism to redraw its tourism maps to include that mythical land that is Central Jersey. The region will include Hunterdon, Mercer, Middlesex, and Somerset Counties “at minimum,” according to the Governor’s Office.

Other promotional materials, such as the VisitNJ.org website, will also have to include references to the now very real region.

In other words, the bill isn’t about settling a debate as old as pork roll vs. Taylor ham, but rather boosting the economy.

» MORE: Central Jersey gets official recognition (NJ Spolight Video)

“Tourism is a vital part of our state’s economy and many of our communities rely upon visitors to support local small businesses,” said New Jersey Secretary of State Tahesha Way. “This legislation is an investment in the future of Central Jersey communities and will strengthen the region’s ability to draw new and returning guests.”

Read the full story

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