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PSEG Looks to Become Active Player in Offshore Wind Development

The energy company is set to acquire a significant interest in 1,100-megawatt wind farm

The wind farm in which PSEG is set to acquire an interest is expected to be commissioned in 2024.

TOM JOHNSON reports for NJ Spotlight – OCTOBER 30, 2019

Public Service Enterprise Group is looking to get back into offshore wind, and will enter into exclusive negotiations with Ørsted to acquire a one-quarter interest in its yet to be built 1,100-megawatt wind farm off Atlantic City.

The $1.6 billion Ocean Wind project is the first offshore wind farm approved in New Jersey. Located 15 miles off Atlantic City, it is projected to supply more than a half-million homes with power. The wind farm is expected to be commissioned in 2024, subject to permitting and other factors.

The two companies’ announcement late in the day was a bit of a surprise, considering PSEG and Ørsted had previously disclosed the former had an option to buy an equity interest in the wind farm project this spring.

In a joint press release, the companies appeared to indicate the process of negotiations might be far along, although an Ørsted spokesman declined to confirm that this was the case.

“Given PSEG’s track record for success and history providing energy solutions for communities across the Mid-Atlantic region, we are thrilled at the prospect of having them join the Ocean Wind project,’’ said Thomas Brostrøm, president of Ørsted North America and CEO of Ørsted U.S. Offshore Wind.

Ørsted has emerged as the biggest force in the nascent offshore wind market in the United States, operating the first offshore wind facility in the country off Block Island in Rhode Island. It also has been awarded commitments to build more than 2,900 MW of capacity in six other projects along the Eastern Seaboard.

“We are pleased about the opportunity to explore a partnership with Ørsted, a world leader in offshore wind development, and help New Jersey achieve its goal of carbon-free generation by 2050,’’ said Ralph LaRossa, president and chief operating officer of PSEG Power, a subsidiary of PSEG.

Offshore wind is a key, if not most crucial component of Gov. Phil Murphy’s goal of converting to a clean energy economy. By 2030, the administration wants to build 3,500 MW of offshore wind off the Jersey coast.

PSEG changes tack

At one time, PSEG appeared poised to be a big player in the offshore wind sector, cementing a partnership more than a decade ago with developer Deepwater Wind, which Ørsted acquired a year ago. When former Gov. Chris Christie’s administration backed away from promoting offshore wind, PSEG seemed to steer away from the sector.

After the Deepwater acquisition, it was disclosed that PSEG had agreed to provide Ørsted with energy management services, which included allowing the Danish developer to lease land for use in its project development. The lease is expected to provide land around PSEG’s three nuclear units in Salem County to assemble the huge turbines for the wind farms.

In a quarterly earnings call this spring, PSEG CEO Ralph Izzo talked more about the company’s interest in building transmission for offshore wind, instead of developing the wind farms offshore. Nevertheless, PSEG, more than any other power company in the state, has embraced the Murphy administration’s goal of transitioning to 100% clean energy by 2050 and has the financial resources to commit to that target.

The announcement also came on a day when Ørsted shares dropped 8% after the company announced long-term production values from its offshore wind farms may have miscalculated how much power they could produce.

“Today’s announcement is unrelated to our announcement updating our long-term financial targets,’’ said Cam Stoker, a spokesman for Ørsted.

PSEG did not respond to calls for comment.

Clean energy advocates were not surprised by the announcement. “This is the epitome of ‘if you can’t beat them, join them,’’’ said Doug O’Malley, director of Environment New Jersey. “This is a sign that offshore wind is no longer a niche market.’’

Paul Patterson, an energy analyst with Glenrock Associates who follows PSEG, however, cautioned PSEG will likely be very conservative in its investment in offshore wind. “It is a lot different kettle of fish than building on land for wind energy,’’ he said.

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Latest California wildfire updates: ‘Largest’ ever evacuation in Sonoma

Editor’s Note: Check back throughout the day as we continue to update this story

Roland Li , Anna Bauman , J.D. Morris and Peter Hartlaub report for the San Francisco Chronicle
Oct. 27, 2019 Updated: Oct. 27, 2019 9:11 a.m.

The Soda Rock Winery erupts in flame as the Kincade Fire continues to burn in Healdsburg, Calif., on Sunday, October 27, 2019.Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez / The Chronicle

Latest developments on the Kincade Fire and PG&E’s power shut-offs. Complete details on the Kincade Fire are here, and full coverage on the outages is here.

8:59 a.m. Lanes closed on northbound U.S. 101 in Brisbane, avoid area: Two lanes of northbound 101 near Tunnel Avenue remain closed due to a fire near the roadway, according to CHP spokesman Mark Andrews. All northbound lanes were shut down for half an hour shortly after 8 a.m. because of heavy smoke. Southbound lanes were not affected. Traffic is expected to remain slow. San Francisco Department of Emergency Management instructed people to avoid the area.

8:51 a.m. Winds to remain strong through Monday: The National Weather Service released a wind forecast showing winds are expected to remain “very gusty,” especially in the North Bay.

8:43 a.m. Evacuation orders lifted for Oakley fires: Firefighters have stopped forward progress on the Summer Lake and Knightsen Avenue and Delta Road fires in Oakley and are working to contain them, according to Contra Costa County fire officials. Residents who were placed under evacuation earlier Sunday morning were free to return home as of 8:30 a.m.

8:39 a.m. Fire reported near Candlestick Point: The San Francisco Fire Department is responding to a wildland fire near southbound U.S. 101 and Tunnel Avenue, fire officials said. No structures were immediately threatened. Traffic delays are expected.1.00

8:36 a.m. Nearly 1.5 million people in in Bay Area without power: PG&E confirmed it had completed shutoffs for 446,956 homes and businesses in all Bay Area counties (San Francisco was spared). The utility company hopes to begin the power restoration process as early as Monday, a spokesperson said. For full coverage of the outages, click here.

8:35 a.m. Kaiser Permanente Santa Rosa under evacuation: The hospital has safely transferred 110 patients to other Kaiser hospitals in Northern California after being placed under a mandatory evacuation at 4:30 a.m., according to a hospital spokesperson. The hospital had already begun a “controlled transfer” of patients at 10:30 p.m. Saturday as a precautionary measure. Kaiser hospitals in San Rafael and Vallejo have lost power due to the PG&E blackout, but remain fully operational on emergency power.

8:21 a.m. Mines Fire in Alameda County mostly contained: The Mines Fire off Mines Rd and Del Valle Rd southeast of Livermore, is 35 acres and 98% contained, according to Cal Fire.

8:17 a.m. Winds may have peaked: The National Weather Service said that winds will “start to reduce compared to the peak experienced in the last few hours, but remain strong today with a ramp up tonight. Winds will really ease Monday morning and into the afternoon. Smoke that drifts to the Bay Area can add haze and reduce air quality.”

8:02 a.m. Evacuations ordered in East Bay Clayton fire: Evacuations have been ordered for Leon Court, Leon Drive and Leon Way. “Residents should leave immediately,” Contra Costa fire officials said.

7:48 a.m. ‘Largest’ evacuation in memory, 180,000 forced to flee: The Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office says the evacuation orders for 180,000 people affected by the Kincade Fire is the “largest that any of us at the Sheriff’s Office can remember.”

7:42 a.m. Evacuation centers available for those fleeing Kincade fire: People can seek shelter at one of four evacuation centers, according to Cal Fire. They are: Santa Rosa Fairgrounds (1350 Bennett Valley Road), Sonoma Marin Fairgrounds (175 Fairgrounds Road, Petaluma), Santa Rosa Veterans Memorial Building (1351 Maple Avenue) and Petaluma Veterans Center (1094 Petaluma Blvd).

7:40 a.m. Gas stations may be running short: Thousands of cars rolled south down Highway 101 near Santa Rosa early Sunday morning, following widespread evacuation orders. At a Shell station just off Highway 101 and Steele Lane, an employee said the station was nearly out of gas and wouldn’t be getting any more in until while there was still a danger of fire.

7:25 a.m. Peak wind gusts hit 93, 87 mph: The National Weather Service released information about peak overnight gusts across the Bay Area. The strongest recorded wind was 93 mph in the Healdsburg Hills north, followed by 87 mph at Mt. Saint Helena.

Read the full story

From the Washington Post

By Derek Hawkins and Kayla Epstein
Oct. 27, 2019, at 9:29 a.m. EDT

Fierce winds and dry air whipped across northern California early Sunday, worsening the wildfires that have raged in the state for days and prompting state officials to issue new mandatory evacuation orders, including for part of the city of Santa Rosa.

In a flurry of early morning alerts, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection and the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office told residents in the northern portion of Santa Rosa, as well as areas southwest and northeast of the city, to evacuate immediately.

The sheriff’s office also issued a dire alert telling residents farther north of Santa Rosa to leave.

“The wind is really starting to pick up, as is the fire activity. If you are still in this mandatory evacuation area you need to leave now while you still can,” the sheriff’s office said.

The new orders dramatically expand the number of residents who will have to flee the growing fires and could further tax emergency workers tasked with helping them seek safety. Roughly 175,000 people live in Santa Rosa, and many of those residents may join the 90,000 people in Sonoma County who were already ordered to leave their homes Saturday night.

A windstorm was expected to pummel the region throughout the morning, creating historic fire weather conditions, according to the National Weather Service.

California forecasters saw the ‘devil wind’ storm coming. It’s the worst-case scenario for wildfires.

A hillside smolders as firefighters light backfires to slow the spread of the Kincade Fire in unincorporated Sonoma County, Calif., near Geyservillle on Saturday. (Noah Berger/AP)

Gusts as high as 80 mph swept through the hills and valleys north of the San Francisco Bay area and could continue until at least the early afternoon. An “extremely critical” fire weather area, the National Weather Service’s highest category, was in effect in several counties north of San Francisco.

Read the full story

Latest California wildfire updates: ‘Largest’ ever evacuation in Sonoma Read More »

After a fatal auto crash, NJ seeks to revoke liquor license at a Trump golf course

Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, N.J., could be affected if anotherTrump golf club in the state loses its liquor license, as N.J. is seeking. (Julio Cortez/AP) — Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, N.J., could be affected if another Trump golf club in the state loses its liquor license, as N.J. is seeking. (Julio Cortez/AP)

David A. Fahrenthold reports for the Washington Post
Oct. 24, 2019, at 3:09 p.m. EDT

The state of New Jersey is seeking to revoke the liquor license for one of President Trump’s golf clubs — a rare and potentially damaging punishment, triggered by a 2015 case in which state officials said the Trump club overserved alcohol to a man who then caused a fatal wreck.

That proposed punishment was laid out in an Oct. 21 letter to the Trump golf course in Colts Neck, N.J. The Washington Post obtained the letter through a public records request.

The office of New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal, which sent the letter, declined to comment about the letter. Grewal was appointed in 2018 by Gov. Phil Murphy (D).

The letter gives few details about the alleged misconduct by Trump’s course. The man who the club is accused of overserving — Andrew G. Halder — caused a wreck that killed his own father and last year pleaded guilty to vehicular homicide.

Trump’s company was given 30 days to challenge the planned revocation. If the state’s Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control does decide to revoke the license, Trump can challenge that decision in court or try to get it reinstated in two years.

The Trump Organization did not respond to a request for comment on Thursday.

If the club’s liquor license is revoked, that would be a blow for the Colts Neck course, near the Jersey Shore. The club could lose significant revenue from the two restaurants and a bar it operates for members, and find it hard to attract banquets or golf tournaments from outsiders.

But for Trump, the potential damage is greater than that.

Under New Jersey law, anyone who has one liquor license revoked must also give up all their other liquor licenses for two years. Trump has two other New Jersey golf clubs, including one in Bedminster that he uses as a summer White House.

Read the full story

Related news stories:
N.J. seeks to revoke liquor license at Trump’s golf club (Star-Ledger)
Trump Golf Club Could Lose Liquor License (Associated Press)

After a fatal auto crash, NJ seeks to revoke liquor license at a Trump golf course Read More »

Winds up to 70 mph spread wildfires in California’s Sonoma region. Many evacuated. Parts of state in the dark

Flames approaching rolling hills of grapevines in Sonoma County, which is the heart of California’s world-famous wine country (Getty photo)

The Kincade fire spread to about 1,000 acres by 11pm Wednesday night, according to dispatch reports
As of Thursday morning, Cal Fire reported that the blaze near Geyserville has grown to about 10,000 acres
Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office confirmed that residents had to flee their homes overnight due to the blaze
National Weather Service (NWS) says winds have been blowing at speeds up to 70mph in the Sonoma area
Meanwhile, portions of Northern California remain in the dark after Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) cut power
More than 500K residents are in dark in bid to prevent fires from sparking during dry and windy conditions

By VALERIE EDWARDS FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
UPDATED: 09:47 EDT, 24 October 2019

Hundreds of California residents have been forced to evacuate after a wind-driven wildfire spread overnight as 500,000 people are left without power in the Golden State’s second planned blackout in two weeks.

The National Weather Service (NWS) says winds around the highest areas of Sonoma County have been blowing at speeds up to 70mph, and elsewhere in the region there are winds between 30mph and 50mph.

According to dispatch reports, the Kincade fire spread to about 1,000 acres by 11 pm Wednesday night.

As of Thursday morning, Cal Fire, the state firefighting agency, says the blaze near Geyserville has grown to 10,000 acres and has no containment.

The Sonoma County sheriff’s office confirmed that residents had to flee their homes overnight due to the blaze.

Hundreds of California residents have been forced to evacuate after a wind-driven wildfire spread overnight. Embers fly from a tree as the Kincade Fire burns near Geyserville, California, on Thursday

Click for more detail, dramatic photos, and maps of affected areas.

Kincade Fire in Sonoma County now at 10,000 acres

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Winds up to 70 mph spread wildfires in California’s Sonoma region. Many evacuated. Parts of state in the dark Read More »

Coastal development continues to rise along with ocean encroachment. Why?

Bill Cobau, retired college professor, lives in Charleston, South Carolina’s Harleston’s Village which has seen multiples floods in the past five years due to ocean encroachment. One ruined his floor yet a neighbor’s home recently sold for $1million.

Patrik Jonsson reports for the Christian Science Monitory

As she recalls the flood waters rising once again last month around her Charleston, South Carolina, home, Elizabeth Cooper says she can still hear her mom’s voice on the phone from Iowa.

The home here in Harleston Village – a kind of Colonial-era suburb of mansions and leaning freedmen’s shacks – has seen a slow-motion catastrophe unfold, with six floods in as many years from rain events and hurricanes.

“My mom told me on the phone, ‘Come back to Iowa, we’ll have a beach here soon!’ Ha-ha, right?” says Ms. Cooper, who gave no thoughts to flooding when she bought her house 35 years ago.

To be sure, she says, property values are holding steady for the moment, given the charm of the neighborhood and magnetic pull of the ocean lapping against the city’s world-class waterfront.

But because comedy hints at truth, mom’s joke hit a nerve.

In some ways, the roughly one-foot rise of the Charleston high tide over the past century symbolizes a slow-rolling, real estate emergency that extends far beyond South Carolina.

Yet land-use practices aren’t catching up. Here and in other communities along America’s southeastern coast, the dominant pattern remains coastal development and the rebuilding of damaged dwellings, not an orderly retreat from rising sea levels.

The trend is fueled by age-old human affinity for “blue spaces,” and by government policies that experts say amount to subsidies for risky residences.

“Coastal … real estate development is continuing to be faster than inland, which means we are continuing to put ourselves at risk,” says Susan Wachter, a real estate professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School.

About 49 million U.S. homes are within a few hundred feet of a rising coastline. Many houses near the beach are still appreciating faster than ones further inland, despite the prospect of wetter, slower-moving storms and higher water levels, which climate scientists associate with warming oceans. Places like Hilton Head Island could lose nearly half of its livable land in the next 80 years.

“There is over $1 trillion worth of infrastructure within 700 feet of the coast,” says A.R. Siders, a Harvard University social scientist who studies relocation as a solution to climate change. “Even if one-tenth of those people needed to relocate, we are talking about orders of magnitude we have never [seen] before.”

Fast-growing coastal communities

Myrtle Beach, Charleston, Beaufort, and Hilton Head are some of the fastest-growing cities in the region – and also the most vulnerable. The Lowcountry Hazards Center at the College of Charleston says that in 50 years the city will see 15% of properties affected by flooding each year, compared to 1% today.

Yet Charleston County allowed the building of 761 new homes in vulnerable areas over the past decade. A push to annex low-lying marsh islands like Paradise Island and Cat Island may further add to the region’s development – and tax base.

“In terms of price in South Carolina, the economy is doing very well – so is Georgia and North Carolina – and you have a lot of retirees moving into that area,” says Michael Ferlez, an analyst with Moody’s Analytics. “There’s a limited housing stock, construction hasn’t kept pace with it, and it’s also more affordable than a lot of major sort of retiree havens in Florida and the Gulf area. There may not be a lot of room – right now they are building on tiny little bits of land.”

Some signs already point to economic challenges ahead. Plenty of properties are declining in value. In fact, South Carolina is the only state on the Atlantic Seaboard to not show some recent contraction in coastal real estate values. In the 17 coastal states between Maine and Texas, nearly $16 billion has been shaved off land-value appreciation since 2005 by floods and looming sea level rise, according to estimates by First Street Foundation in New York.

Even here in Charleston County, which stretches from the 18th-century downtown to sleepy marsh islands and beach towns, homeowners have lost $266 million in potential value gains.

A question for government

This presents an increasingly urgent conundrum for some 130 million Americans – up 10 million from 2010 – who live in coastal counties, off the beach, behind a levee, or up a creek.

Buyers are becoming more finicky. Just a few miles from Charleston’s hot real estate market, Seabrook Island has seen anemic, 1% year-over-year appreciation. Call it climate gentrification: Better protected – or higher elevation – homes are gaining value while flood-prone homes are selling at discounts that can reach 15% or more.

“The majority of people’s retirement savings is the equity in their house, and if you think about the timeline of [sea level rise] and people’s savings, those things are converging,” says Ryan Lewis, a finance professor at the University of Colorado and co-author of a 2019 study, “Disaster on the Horizon: The price effect of sea-level rise.”

Read the full story

Coastal development continues to rise along with ocean encroachment. Why? Read More »

EPA sued by Alaska Natives and fishermen or reversing Pebble Mine decision

Lakes fan out beneath the wing of a float plane as it flies above tundra in July near the site of Pebble Mine in Alaska. — A floatplane flies over the tundra in July near the site of Pebble Mine, a proposed open-pit copper and gold mine in southwest Alaska.(Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)

By RICHARD READ, LA Time Seattle Bureau Chief
OCT. 8, 2019 4:12 PM

SEATTLE —Trump administration officials broke the law when they reversed course and gave a green light to a proposed copper and gold mine near Alaska’s Bristol Bay, mining opponents said in a lawsuit filed Tuesday.

Alaska Native, commercial fishing and economic development organizations said the Environmental Protection Agency’s decision July 30 to step aside and let the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers determine whether to permit the Pebble Mine was “arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion” and illegal.

The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Anchorage is the latest challenge to the project that the EPA’s Seattle branch criticized in written comments July 1 before abruptly reversing course, withdrawing the agency’s option to block the proposed open-pit copper and gold mine. Last year, then-EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt decided to preserve the agency’s veto option over the Army Corps permitting process, saying that mining in Bristol Bay’s headwaters could risk harming the world’s largest sockeye salmon fishery.

Representatives of the groups that filed the suit said at a news conference Tuesday in Anchorage that the Trump administration’s reversal ignored years of EPA research and public comments.

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“The politicians jumped in and changed the rules at the last minute,” said commercial fisherman Robin Samuelsen Jr., board chairman of the Bristol Bay Economic Development Corp., one of the plaintiffs.

An EPA spokeswoman declined to comment. The lawsuit names as defendants the EPA, its general counsel, Matthew Leopold, and agency Seattle Administrator Chris Hladick.

Mike Heatwole, a spokesman for the mining company, Pebble Ltd. Partnership, said that decisions on a “proposed determination,” as the EPA’s veto option is called, are “clearly within the discretion” of the agency administrator.

The suit argues that the agency changed course without good reason or explanation required by law, and asks that a judge nullify the move.|
_______________________________________________________________________________

EPA sued by Alaska Natives and fishermen or reversing Pebble Mine decision Read More »

NJ Transit’s self-driving shuttle could revolutionize transportation in NJ

By Michael Hill, NJTV News Correspondent | October 8, 2019, 5PM EST

Solutions engineer Aaron Foster offered a show-and-tell tour of Navya’s autonomous Michigan-made electric, self-driving vehicle to vendors at 2019’s NJ Council on Special Transportation Expo. With top speeds of 15 miles an hour and a maximum of 15 passengers, the shuttle is already earning positive feedback from test subjects, according to Foster.

“When they get a chance to ride, they say it’s like something at Disney World. It’s just so smooth,” he said.

If funding comes through for a pilot program, there’s a plan to test in New Jersey. For two years, Rutgers and NJ Transit will put three of the vehicles on the road at Fort Monmouth, not on regular streets around New Jersey. They plan to test them, vet them and see how well they perform.

Expo-goers posted one-word descriptions of it: “dangerous,” “innovative,” “futuristic.”

“I think it’s revolutionary,” said Total Transportation Corp’s corporate safety director Brandon Fox. “I think it would help our transportation needs very much with potential driver shortages.”

But, no steering wheel? No driver?

“I think it would be difficult for the consumer to swallow, but I think after the testing and proven testing, I think they would be able to trust the system and have it work in their best interest,” said Fox.

Jack Dean, program director of research and community services at NJ Transit, was left with a few questions about the vehicle.

“How is it controlled? How does it drive?” asked Dean. “And I think that’s the first important thing: safety. Is it safe to ride in? Is it safe to drive near? Is it safe to ride a bicycle around it? And so I think it really needs to prove itself, first and foremost, that it’s a safe technology, and build trust with the communities.”

Among the answers sought in the federally-funded research: How would the shuttle perform in New Jersey’s four-season weather?

“We’re using satellites as our main sensor system for finding ourselves. We’re not using cameras to look at lane lines. That can get covered up with snow or look for stop signs that can get knocked over,” said Foster. “So we wanted it to be as accurate and repeatable as possible. The fact that the LiDAR sensors are monitoring 360 degrees around the vehicle, sending out beams of light tens of thousands of times per second, they have a much better understanding of the environment than any human could. Even a team of humans wouldn’t be able to operate this safely.”

Foster says artificial intelligence makes autonomous vehicles safer because they react faster than humans, whose errors account for 93% of highway traffic deaths, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

“We have some emergency stop buttons just in case anyone feels unsafe on the vehicle,” said Foster.

The autonomous shuttle is for short hauls on a campus, in a city, and around town – not the highway. NJ Transit envisions it as multi-use, including for seniors and those with disabilities, once it’s equipped for accessibility. The transit agency says after two years of testing, it will offer transportation companies the research results so they can decide whether to steer their fleet toward shuttles without steering wheels. __________________________________________________________________________________
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It broke the first time but ocean cleanup device now successfully collecting plastic

Floating boom finally retains debris from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, creator says

Daniel Boffey in Brussels reports for the Guardian

Waste collected in the boom — The boom skims up waste ranging in size from a discarded net and a car wheel to tiny chips of plastic. AP photo

A huge floating device designed by Dutch scientists to clean up an island of rubbish in the Pacific Ocean that is three times the size of France has successfully picked up plastic from the high seas for the first time.

Boyan Slat, the creator of the Ocean Cleanup project, tweeted that the 600 metre-long (2,000ft) free-floating boom had captured and retained debris from what is known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

Alongside a picture of the collected rubbish, which includes a car wheel, Slat wrote: “Our ocean cleanup system is now finally catching plastic, from one-ton ghost nets to tiny microplastics! Also, anyone missing a wheel?”

About 600,000 to 800,000 metric tonnes of fishing gear is abandoned or lost at sea each year. Another 8m tonnes of plastic waste flows in from beaches.

Ocean currents have brought a vast patch of such detritus together halfway between Hawaii and California, where it is kept in rough formation by an ocean gyre, a whirlpool of currents. It is the largest accumulation of plastic in the world’s oceans.

Crew members sort through plastic onboard a support vessel in the Pacific. AP photo

The vast cleaning system is designed to not only collect discarded fishing nets and large visible plastic objects, but also microplastics.

The plastic barrier floating on the surface of the sea has a three metre-deep (10ft) screen below it, which is intended to trap some of the 1.8tn pieces of plastic without disturbing the marine life below.

The device is fitted with transmitters and sensors so it can communicate its position via satellites to a vessel that will collect the gathered rubbish every few months.

Slat told a press conference in Rotterdam that the problem he was seeking to solve was the vast expense that would come with using a trawler to collect plastics.

He said: “We are now catching plastics … After beginning this journey seven years ago, this first year of testing in the unforgivable environment of the high seas strongly indicates that our vision is attainable and that the beginning of our mission to rid the ocean of plastic garbage, which has accumulated for decades, is within our sights.

“We now have a self-contained system in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch that is using the natural forces of the ocean to passively catch and concentrate plastics … This now gives us sufficient confidence in the general concept to keep going on this project.”

The plastic gathered so far will be brought to shore in December for recycling. The project believes there may be a premium market for items that have been made using plastic reclaimed from the ocean.

“I think in a few years’ time when we have the full-scale fleet out there, I think it should be possible to cover the operational cost of the cleanup operation using the plastic harvested,” Slat said.

The plan is to now scale up the device and make it more durable so it can retain plastic for up to a year or possibly longer before collection is necessary.

The Ocean Cleanup project’s system retains plastic in front of an extended cork line. Photograph: AP

During a previous four-month trial the boom broke apart and no plastic was collected. Since then, changes have been made to the design including the addition of a “parachute anchor” to slow down the device’s movement in the ocean, allowing for faster-moving plastic debris to float into the system.

The latest trial began in June when the system was launched into the sea from Vancouver. The project was started in 2013 and its design has undergone several major revisions. It is hoped the final design will be able to clean up half of the debris in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

• This article was amended on 4 October 2019 to clarify system location details.

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Just months after contentious approval, nuclear subsidies under review by New Jersey utility regulators

In April, Board of Public Utilities awarded $300 million in annual surcharges on utility customers’ bills to aid three PSEG plants; officials are taking a fresh look at the subsidies

salem nuclear power plant — Salem nuclear power plant

TOM JOHNSON reports for NJ Spotlight – September 5, 2019

Less than half a year after the state awarded lucrative ratepayer subsidies to keep three nuclear power plants from closing, regulatory officials are beginning to explore whether the subsidies should be extended, or perhaps reduced.

In April, the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities approved roughly $300 million in new annual surcharges on utility customers’ bills to prevent Public Service Enterprise Group from prematurely retiring the Salem I and II units and Hope Creek nuclear plants on Artificial Island in South Jersey.

The decision has had huge implications for New Jersey’s long-term energy policy. Controversy over the subsidies led the Legislature to approve the incentives only after approval was tied to a companion bill promoting clean-energy initiatives, including measures to boost energy efficiency, offshore wind, and solar. All of this was done before the administration of Gov. Phil Murphy adopted a new energy master plan, laying out a blueprint to achieve ambitious clean-energy and climate goals.

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PSEG argued the plants, providing 90 percent of the state’s carbon-free electricity, would be shuttered within three years unless it received the financial incentives because of a steep drop in energy prices. The company yesterday, along with a handful of consultants, claimed at a BPU hearing in New Brunswick that the financial challenges facing the units are even bigger now than last spring when the initial subsidies were awarded.

Joseph Accardo, vice president of regulatory affairs and deputy general counsel of PSEG, said the plants should retain the subsidies at the same level, given the state of energy markets, which have seen prices paid to power suppliers continue to drop.

Under pressure from natural gas

Cheap natural gas has flooded the market, analysts said, increasing uncertainty about the economic viability of the nuclear units. Nuclear energy provides about 40 percent of New Jersey’s electricity, about the same as gas-fired power plants provide.

Without carbon-free power from the three nuclear units, New Jersey will never achieve the Murphy administration’s goals of 100 percent clean energy by 2050, according to Ed Salmon, chair of the New Jersey Energy Coalition and a former president of the BPU.

Those subsidies, dubbed zero-emission credits (ZECs), are scheduled to end in May 2022, but the proceeding initiated yesterday is designed to determine not only whether to extend them, but also whether to reduce what ratepayers pay.

In approving the subsidies last April, at least two of the five BPU commissioners expressed concerns at the price set by legislators in a law authorizing the program. The law allows the agency to reduce the subsidies once they expire; the current subsidies last only three years. The BPU cannot increase the incentives, according to the law.

Only the New Jersey Division of Rate Counsel questioned whether the subsidies need to continue, and at the same level during the initial stakeholder meeting in New Brunswick. The Rate Counsel had opposed the initial granting of the subsidies and appealed the issue in court.

An argument for reducing the subsidies

“Ratepayers are not an endless source of capital,’’ said Brian Lipman, a litigator in the Rate Counsel’s office. “ZEC subsidies are going to have a major impact on ratepayers.’’

He suggested the board explore reducing the size of the zero-emission credits, based on actions at other levels that could increase prices consumer pay for both energy and ensuring there is enough capacity to keep the lights on.

But others defended the subsidies, arguing they are far less than what customers in New York and Illinois are paying to avert the early closing of nuclear power plants in their states.

“Without these ZECs, these plants face uncertain economic conditions in a market flooded by fracked natural gas,’’ said John Kotek, a vice president of the Nuclear Energy Institute.

Frank Huntowski of the Northbridge Group agreed. The financial conditions of the three nuclear power plants in New Jersey and other units in the PJM Interconnection do not merit a reduction in the ZECs, he said. (PJM operates the power grid stretching from the Eastern Seaboard to Illinois, serving more than 55 million customers.)

No one at the hearing raised the issue of just how long the New Jersey plants will continue receiving the financial incentives. At the time BPU awarded the ZECs, it generally was assumed the subsidies would continue for up to 10 years.

However, in modeling done by BPU staff and consultants on a new draft energy master plan, projections seem to indicate the plants will remain open until 2050 — well beyond the expiration of their licenses, which begin to end in 2036, and then later in the next decade.

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Everybody wants to know:
How can I handle my food waste???

At the NJ Composting Council Organics Waste Management Summit we’re excited to share case studies and experiences from companies addressing the challenge that’s on every resident, business and municipalities mind: How can I handle my food waste?

Just last week Governor Murphy issued a conditional veto on a food waste billed aimed at large generators. While we hope an improved bill will pass soon, all stakeholders must be ready.

Strategies must be in place to capitalize on this opportunity for economic growth, job growth and reduction in environmental harm from not just large generators but at a local lev! With that in mind we’re delighted to host the Curbside and Community Organics Pickup/Drop Off panel.

Speaking on this panel will be:

Eileen Banyra, founder of Community Compost Co., is a city planner turned soil farmer. CCC collects and processes food scraps from Northern NJ, selling the compost to a diverse set of customers including Whole Foods.

Greg McCarron, Vice President of SCS Engineers. SCS has extensive experience designing facilities of all sizes, including decentralized composting facilities designed to handle community-wide and town-wide food scraps and organic materials, and can provide solutions to your community’s needs for organics management.

Brett Hoyt, VP of Sales and Marketing for Sustainable Generation. Their Gore Cover, ASP bunker systems are only the final step in the communities he’s seen establish food waste programs and will share those case studies. Get your tickets to the Organics Summit today!
Know a municipality that needs a PO order? please contact us immediately. Copyright © 2019 NJ Composting Council, All rights reserved.

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