CDC Investigates Offshore Wind in the US

The CDC is investigating offshore wind farms and Virginia Wind has
paused blade installations, while the rest of the world installs
and benefits from offshore wind. Sign up now for Uptime Tech News,
our weekly email update on all things wind technology. This episode
is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about
Weather Guard's StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS
retrofit. Follow the show
on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Linkedin and visit
Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary Barnes'
YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the
show? Email us! There's trouble brewing off America's Atlantic
coast. But it's not coming from beneath the waves. A few weeks ago,
HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES SECRETARY ROBERT F. KENNEDY JUNIOR issued
unusual marching orders. He directed the CENTERS FOR DISEASE
CONTROL to investigate offshore wind farms. The reason? Alleged
threats to whales and fishing businesses. The investigation would
focus on electromagnetic frequencies from undersea cables. Wind
proponents say these frequencies are harmless. But KENNEDY had his
concerns. KENNEDY met personally with National Institute for
Occupational Safety and Health director JOHN HOWARD. He
provided a list of specific experts to contact. The mission:
complete the investigation within two months. Now, you might wonder
why a health secretary would suddenly become concerned about wind
turbines. KENNEDY, once a prominent environmental lawyer, fought
for years against a wind project off the coast of MASSACHUSETTS.
That project just happened to be
near the Kenendy family's compound. During the
twenty twenty-four presidential campaign, he called offshore
wind quote "a catastrophe." If you haven’t heard,
the US administration has halted billions
of dollars worth of offshore wind
projects.  But here's what the administration didn't mention.
Wildlife veterinarian JENNIFER BLOODGOOD performs whale necropsies
for NEW YORK STATE and CORNELL WILDLIFE HEALTH LAB. In her
experience, about half the humpback whales in good enough condition
to examine show signs of vessel strikes or human interaction. The
minke whales? They're dying from a common infection called brucella
[brew-SELL-uh]. "There is currently no evidence that wind energy is
influencing whale strandings," BLOODGOOD reports. Three active
mortality events are happening for whales in the Atlantic. But
these events involve clusters of deaths that experts consider
unusual for reasons that have nothing to do with turbines. The
scientific consensus is clear: no evidence links wind farms to
whale deaths. BLOODGOOD has even examined dolphin ear bones under
microscopes and CT scans, looking for trauma from surveying sound
waves. She found nothing. "When a whale strands, there's a huge
effort that goes into responding and figuring out why it died," she
explains. "Many people's job is to go out and figure out
what's happening." While AMERICA retreats from offshore wind, CHINA
is doubling down. The nation aims to add at least one hundred
twenty gigawatts of new wind power capacity annually from
twenty twenty-six to twenty thirty. That's more than twice
AMERICA's goal from twenty twenty. CHINA's total installed
wind power capacity targets one point three terawatts by twenty
thirty and at least two terawatts by twenty thirty-five. At
DOMINION ENERGY's Virginia wind project, there's a different kind
of delay. The CHARYBDIS [kuh-RIB-dis], a massive
twenty-three-thousand-ton ship that took five years and seven
hundred million dollars to build, sits at the PORTSMOUTH MARINE
TERMINAL. It can't begin installing turbine blades yet. Quality
assurance items need addressing. The one hundred seventy-six
turbine project off the coast of VIRGINIA BEACH would
power six hundred sixty thousand homes. Its cost has risen to
eleven point two billion dollars, up from nine point eight billion,
partly due to tariffs. So while AMERICA investigates phantom
threats, the CHARYBDIS waits at the dock. CHINA races ahead with
ambitious targets. And whales continue dying from boat strikes and
fishing gear entanglement, just as they have for decades.
The US administration canceled funding for two programs
that used aerial surveys and underwater listening devices to track
whale populations. The very programs that could definitively show
what's really happening to these magnificent creatures.