Climate Change, Offshore Wind, And Fish-Stealing Sharks

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The great state of Louisiana is emerging as a microcosm of the Age of Climate Change in all of its weirdness. Sharks in the Gulf of Mexico are now learning how to swipe fish right off the fishing lines of commercial fishers, for example. In the meantime, businesses in the deep red state are poised to help decarbonize the nation’s economy, by transitioning themselves into a home-grown offshore wind industry.

What’s Up With Fish-Stealing Sharks?

Before getting to that offshore wind industry, let’s take a look at the fish-stealing sharks of Louisiana, where the climate change connection is heaving into view. National Geographic explored the topic as part of its SharkFest 2024 lineup, featuring the episode “Shark Beach with Anthony Mackie: Gulf Coast.”

“Fishermen’s livelihoods, locals’ safety, and the future of regional shark conservation are all on the line,” Nat Geo recounts.

Shark expert Yannis Papastamatiou is featured in the project, and he kindly spent some time on the phone with me to explain what’s going on. The short version is that the fish-stealing phenomenon is making it more difficult to make the case for shark conservation.

“With Shark Beach, we’re really trying to raise a particular issue of sharks biting the fish that humans catch. It creates animosity and economic impacts,” he explained.

Working out a solution has become an urgent priority for shark conservationists. “Whether you like sharks or not, healthy oceans should have shark populations,” Papastamatiou emphasizes. “They are important predators and play an important role.”

Adding to the pressure is an increase in the number of shark bites reported globally. Although shark bites are vanishingly rare, more incidents have caught the media radar in recent years. Papastamatiou notes that is mainly due to the fact that the human population is increasing, and more people are going to the beach.

In addition, climate change is leading to shifts in the habitats of the aquatic species that sharks normally prey upon, so more sharks are popping up in areas where they once rarely if ever appeared.

“The waters are warming and the distribution of sharks is changing, for example tiger sharks on the East Coast of the northern US,” Papastamatiou notes.

You can say that again. State and local officials in New York recently ramped up their use of drones to track sharks in local waters, a measure that came in handy when two sharks were spotted swimming at local beaches earlier this week.

Climate Change & The US Offshore Wind Industry

Assuming the energy transition keeps gathering steam, somewhere off in the future global temperatures will stop increasing at a catastrophe-inducing rate and go back to something more conducive to supporting carbon based life forms. When that happens, aquatic life — including sharks and their prey — will settle into more predictable habits, hopefully setting the stage for friendly, more sustainable relationships with humans.

That’s going to take some doing. The energy transition needs to pick up the pace. According to the US Environmental Protection Agency, total greenhouse gas emissions in the US were just 3% lower in 2022 than in 1990. That seems like a pretty weak performance, though EPA also notes that the trend looks more vigorous compared to 2007, when emissions reached a peak of 15.2% percent above 1990 levels.

The prospects for accelerating the energy transition also look a little brighter when attention turns to per capita greenhouse gas emissions. Last year, the World Resources Institute ran the numbers and came up with a 19% cut in per capita greenhouse gas emissions for the US since 1990. WRI further notes that the drop in both total and per capita emissions is a recent phenomenon, suggesting that the renewable energy and energy efficiency industries are having an impact as they scale up.

Into this picture steps the US offshore wind industry, which so far has been sitting on the sidelines of the energy transition despite the nation’s long, wind-rich coasts. However, the tide is finally turning (see more offshore wind background here).

Louisiana Can So Help Lead The Offshore Wind Revolution

If you’re wondering what kind of role a state like Louisiana can play in the US offshore wind industry, that’s a good question. Aside from the difficulty in overcoming partisan political barriers, Louisiana and the rest of the Gulf states are hampered by the less-than-optimal wind resources that characterize the Gulf of Mexico coastline.

However, the state already has a robust offshore footprint in the oil and gas business, and those stakeholders have begun applying their skillsets and resources to the offshore wind industry elsewhere around the US. Several Louisiana firms, for example, can take credit for the construction of the nation’s first commercial offshore wind farm, commissioned off the coast of Rhode Island in 2016.

In addition, the US Department of Energy analyzed wind resources in the Gulf of Mexico back in 2020, and concluded a business case could be made for constructing home-state offshore wind farms off the Louisiana coast. Former Governor John Bel Edwards, a Democrat, somehow managed to overcome the political headwinds and set the wheels in motion for Louisiana to nail down the rights to a federal offshore wind lease area last year.

Although Edwards’s term in office ended in January this year, Louisiana also has contracts for two new wind farms in state waters in its pocket. In addition, the state has an opportunity to jump on another federal offshore lease opportunity, newly announced by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management on March 20. That lease auction will take place later this year.

As if on cue, a new offshore wind report under the umbrella of Pew Charitable Trusts and other partners was released on April 24. It makes the case for transitioning existing businesses in Louisiana to the offshore wind industry. The shift would benefit the nation’s economy with more than $100 billion in private investment alongside almost 50,000 new jobs, with most of the gains accruing to Louisiana.

Next Steps For The Louisiana Offshore Wind Industry: We Got Your Jones Act Covered

Among the key roles that Louisiana has and will have in the US offshore wind industry is the supply of domestically manufactured Service Operations Vessels. SOVs are specially designed to streamline offshore tasks. Having a fleet of wind industry-dedicated SOVs in hand would help accelerate the construction timeline for offshore wind farms and cut costs.

Domestically manufactured, owned, and crewed wind farm SOVs are important because they comply with the Jones Act, a key provision in US maritime law aimed at ensuring a loyal fleet of commercial vessels in time of war. Offshore wind developers have managed to work around the absence of Jones-compliant SOVs in the US, and they will find the going easier in the coming years.

The US ship-building industry has stirred out of its SOV slumber, one example being the Louisiana firm Edison Chouest Offhore. In May, the firm announced that it has formally christened the new ECO Edison SOV, calling it the “first-ever American-built, owned, and crewed offshore wind service operations vessel.”

When last heard from, the new ship was already scheduled for work on three different offshore wind projects around the US, so stay tuned for more on that.

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Photo (cropped): Climate change, fish-stealing sharks, and a new offshore wind industry are some of the 21st century challenges and opportunities faced by Anthony Mackie’s home state of Louisiana.