The burgeoning development of offshore wind energy along the East Coast is drawing attention to a growing concern: the potential impact on the livelihoods of commercial fishermen who operate in these waters. The collision between the expanding renewable energy sector and the established fishing industry has ignited a debate over the future of these shared waters.

While not all fishing organizations oppose offshore wind projects, some fishermen, such as Dave Aripotch in Montauk, N.Y., have expressed fears that their industry is at risk. They argue that their concerns have been overshadowed by the rapid push for clean energy solutions.

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A key concern among these fishermen is the impact on their ability to operate within the vicinity of offshore wind turbines. They argue that deploying fishing gear between the turbines — even when they are spaced a mile apart, as seen in the Vineyard Wind project — is unsafe. This concern essentially renders thousands of acres of fishing grounds off-limits.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), which oversees the leases for offshore wind areas, acknowledges that fishermen’s maneuverability among the turbines may vary depending on vessel size, gear and weather conditions. Furthermore, the turbines can disrupt marine radar, a crucial navigation tool, particularly in low-visibility conditions common along the North Atlantic Coast.

The issue of radar interference isn’t limited to the fishing industry alone; it could potentially affect military and search and rescue operations as well.

BOEM has moved forward with the expectation that fishermen will adapt to these challenges, but uncertainty remains, and some fishermen are unwilling to take the risk.

Lawsuits have emerged as a result of these concerns. Seafreeze Ltd., along with Aripotch, the Long Island Commercial Fishing Association and others, filed a lawsuit challenging the Vineyard Wind project’s approval. The Texas Public Policy Foundation is representing them in the lawsuit, emphasizing the potential impact on their livelihoods.

Despite these controversies, offshore wind development continues along the East Coast, with thousands of turbines and miles of cables projected for the future. Developers and government officials acknowledge that there will be economic impacts to the fishing industry.

BOEM declined an interview for this story, but provided a statement which said the agency “will continue to work with Tribes, NOAA Fisheries, industry, state governments, and the fishing community to better understand and address concerns and reduce such impacts.”

When asked for comment on how the project will affect fishing, Vineyard Wind declined an interview, as well.

“We’ve also had many discussions with fisherman going back years, which ultimately lead to a mitigation fund of approximately $40 million dollars that goes to a host of initiatives such as gear or revenue loss and also vessel modernization,” a Vineyard Wind spokesperson said in a statement. “To date, we’ve employed dozens of local fishermen to work on the project at a cost of well over $5 million.”

Lapp, Aripotch and Brady say that money is nowhere near enough to compensate for the effects of such a project.

Nicaragua’s President Daniel Ortega is persecuting members of his own religion. Ortega is Catholic, however it is the official position of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom that Nicaragua’s government “has taken harsher measures against Catholic-affiliated organizations such as shutting down charities and expelling their workers, stripping universities of funding and legal status, shutting down news media, and eliminating non-governmental organizations.” 

Ortega’s actions are being monitored by many groups, including the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission in Congress, co-chaired by Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J. 

“He has so far departed from basic decency,” Smith said in an interview with Straight Arrow News. 

Smith compared Ortega to Chinese President Xi Jingping and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un. 

“There’s just a malevolence there, a hatred of people,” Smith said.  

Ortega’s regime has shut down at least 26 private universities and 54 news outlets. 

In August, a Nicaraguan court ordered Ortega’s government to take control of the Jesuit-run Central American University (CAU). The judges ruled that the school was a center for terrorism. 

Ortega briefly attended CAU before joining the junta. His children also attended the university. 

“Everything is imposed. It’s a perfect dictatorship. It’s a perfect tyranny,” Ortega said of the church in a televised speech. “If they are going to be democratic, let them start with Catholics voting for the pope, for cardinals, for bishops.” 

Ortega also said he doesn’t feel represented in the church as a Catholic and as a Christian. 

On Feb. 10, 2023, Bishop Rolando Alvarez was sentenced to 26 years in prison for criticizing religious freedom conditions in the country. He declined to be exiled to the United States. Smith asked Ortega to let him meet with Bishop Alvarez in person so he can perform a welfare check. 

If the meeting happens, it wouldn’t be Smith’s first time in the country. Smith met with Ortega in 1984 along with other members of Congress including former Reps. Frank Wolf, R-Va., and Tony Hall, D-Ohio. 

The delegation raised human rights concerns, specifically about torture. The group then had a suspicious experience after Ortega served them tea. 

“The three of us that drank it got deathly sick. So I’m sure he drugged it or did something. You know, for two weeks, I was doubled over, as were my colleagues,” Smith said.  

The State Department says the Ortega regime has allowed corruption and impunity to reign. The Biden administration imposed sanctions on the state-owned mining company after it said Ortega stole the 2021 election. But Smith wants more. 

“Shut him down.” Smith said. “No economic trade, nothing. How else you reach a guy that is destroying his own people?”

Whales have been washing up lifeless in a startling and now-common sight along the Eastern Seaboard, a cause for concern for local communities. Various residents and conservationists are pointing fingers at offshore wind farm surveys conducted as a precursor to building wind energy facilities in the Atlantic Ocean.

“It’s very moving in a bad way to see that,” said Cindy Zipf, executive director of Clean Ocean Action in Long Branch, New Jersey. “Something that’s so majestic and so beautiful – just kind of lifeless on land.”

Clean Ocean Action is one of several organizations along the Jersey Shore that publicly expressed concern regarding the “scale, scope, and speed” of offshore wind energy development. 

Before constructing offshore wind farms, developers employ geophysical surveys to map the seafloor and geological layers beneath it using sound waves. Concerned communities are becoming more suspicious that geophysical surveys play a role in these whale deaths.

“They’ve been doing all this work,” said Bonnie Brady, executive director of the Long Island Fishing Association. “And about the time that the work started is when the whales started piling up.”

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has classified the humpback whale strandings since 2016 and the minke and North Atlantic right whale strandings since 2017 as “Unusual Mortality Events” (UMEs). This designation highlights the significant and unexpected number of whale strandings, which have happened as survey work picked up in the Atlantic.

Data current as of August 2023.

“In this region, we did call for a pause – a halt – to any activity, so we could determine whether or not the unprecedented amount of pre-construction activity may have had something to do with this incredibly devastating spike in whale and dolphin deaths that occurred,” Zipf said.

While developers have done surveys for more than a decade, several survey projects began in the Northeast around when whale strandings started to climb in 2016.

That year, US Wind performed surveys near Maryland, and DONG Energy –now Orsted – worked off the coast of Massachusetts into the following year. In 2017, Ocean Wind and Deepwater Wind conducted surveys off the coast of New Jersey and New York.

Critics have not alleged that the survey sounds directly kill whales. Instead, they have speculated that the sounds disrupt whale behavior, making them more prone to ship collisions and mortal entanglements. NOAA Fisheries states that “no scientific evidence” supports the claim that noise from offshore wind surveys could potentially cause whale mortality. Instead, the agency attributes the increased whale strandings to climate change.

“Our climate is changing, and one of those key changes is the warming of our oceans,” NOAA Fisheries states on its website. “In response, many marine species are adapting by moving into new areas where conditions are now more favorable.”

NOAA Fisheries explains that whales could be following prey closer to shore, putting them at higher risk of vessel strikes or entanglement, which would make offshore wind projects the solution to the whale problem rather than the cause.

The issue has become overtly partisan in national discourse. Those who Straight Arrow News interviewed have been accused of being pawns for the fossil fuel industry and “right-wing,” regardless of their actual political leanings.

“When people bring that up to me, it just indicates that they’re just unable or unwilling to talk about the substance of the problems,” said Bob Stern, president of Save LBI. “I don’t believe the media has done a good job.”

Stern added that he thinks the press coverage has been lopsided in favor of offshore wind and should more thoroughly evaluate the purpose of these projects.

The final environmental impact statement for Vineyard Wind 1 states that offshore wind projects would have “no collective impact on global warming.” But they “may beneficially contribute to a broader combination of actions.”

Vineyard Wind declined an interview, but when questioned about the multi-billion-dollar project’s lack of impact on global warming, replied: “Once completed, the Vineyard Wind project will show that we can responsibly build clean energy projects that move us forward in the fight against climate change.” 

“I think neither party is really addressing this problem of climate change and sea level rise well,” Stern said. “I think you have a number of people in one party who are denying the problem. And then you have the number of people in the other party, saying they can solve the problem with some wind turbines. Neither is accurate. And neither, frankly, is useful.”

Straight Arrow News spoke with Darlene Ketten, a marine biologist and neuroanatomist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, to learn more about how sound affects whales. Ketten specializes in underwater hearing and mechanisms of hearing loss. 

“There’s no evidence that hearing has had a role in those ship strikes,” Ketten said. “I’m not saying that it didn’t. But to the best of my knowledge, there hasn’t been an extensive examination, or any kind of procedures to determine if the animals that are being hit by ships have hearing deficits.”

According to Ketten, performing a necropsy on a dead whale has many challenges. Not all hearing loss is visible post-mortem; the whale could be too decomposed when it gets to shore, and cutting a whale’s ear out is difficult. In truth, responders aren’t required to collect information on hearing damage.

There is not enough information to evaluate whether hearing loss has played an indirect part in whale deaths. However, the current activity by offshore developers can disturb marine mammals. 

Developers seek incidental harassment authorizations from NOAA to conduct activities that can disturb marine life.

“The degree of disturbance is the question,” Ketten said. “It’s likely that they would leave the area, leaving the area could be an important problem. If they leave the area and it turns out that’s where their major source of food is…then we’ve disturbed their ability to forage to feed. And that can also happen for breeding habitats, etc.”

They wouldn’t apply for incidental harassment authorizations if they didn’t think their work could affect marine life.

Documents for the Atlantic Shores project state that the sounds from survey work have the potential for “Level B harassment.” According to NOAA Fisheries, “Level B harassment includes actions that could disturb, but not injure or kill, a marine mammal by disrupting behavioral patterns, including migration, breathing, nursing, breeding, feeding, or sheltering.” Level B harassment can also include a “temporary hearing threshold shift” (temporary hearing loss).

During construction, the authorizations allow for Level A harassment, which includes permanent hearing threshold shift. More projects are nearing the construction phase. 

During construction, the “pile-driving” phase emits sound. Giant piles are hammered into the ocean floor to secure turbine foundations, producing underwater noise. Because this sound can disrupt marine life, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) requires that developers use various mitigation tactics. For example, observers monitor the areas under construction for the presence of marine mammals.

While BOEM declined a request for an interview, Erica Staaterman, the deputy director of BOEM’s Center for Marine Acoustics, provided a statement.

“We only allow construction to occur during windows of time when key species are least likely to be present in the area, and we require noise abatement methods to be deployed around the foundations to minimize the amount of acoustic energy that is emitted into the water,” Staaterman said.

However, mitigation tactics aren’t perfect. The “bubble curtain” technology developers use to dampen the sounds from pile driving doesn’t work for lower frequencies, which baleen whales can hear. 

Once turbines are installed, they capture and transmit energy from the wind. During multiple decades of a wind farm’s life, the underwater sounds from this phase will be constant.

According to Save LBI’s calculations, the Atlantic Shores project will create noise levels exceeding 130dB in the migration corridor of the endangered North Atlantic right whale, a stark contrast to NOAA’s threshold for behavioral harassment, which is 120dB. Concerns abound that these high sound levels could interfere with whale migration, posing further risks to their survival.

The construction of wind farms continues, and more ocean areas are being leased for future development despite ongoing research efforts funded by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management to investigate the population effects of offshore wind development on North Atlantic right whales.

Critics argue that the rush to build offshore wind farms may disregard the potential consequences for marine life. While there is no proof that offshore wind development has contributed to the whale strandings. The government and the media discredit reasonable concerns from offshore communities about the issue. Stern, Brady, and Zipf remain determined to seek answers.

There are plenty of trade shows out there, but few can compare to the one put on by the Air and Space Forces Association. Held in National Harbor, Maryland, it’s a veritable who’s who of airmen, guardians, general officers and defense industry corporate execs.

The AFA’s Air, Space and Cyber Conference is an annual event, and this year almost 200 vendors packed into the exhibition space. According to Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall, they were all there to help the United States Air Force maintain air dominance over near-peer adversaries. Right now, that’s China.

During his keynote address in front of thousands of airmen and guardians, Kendall said, “China is by far our pacing challenge. As the president indicated, there is no desire to contain or decouple from China. But there is a strong desire to live in a world free of aggression, which all nations can prosper in peace.”

Kendall said after the first Gulf War, China recognized if it wanted to compete with or defeat American military dominance in the Pacific, it needed to modernize its own military forces. So, China shrunk the size of its ground forces and focused on more relevant capabilities like naval and air power. China also created two new military services — the Rocket Force and the Strategic Support Force.

According to Kendall, the Rocket Force is intended to attack America’s high value assets like aircraft carriers, forward airfields, and critical command and control (C2) centers and logistics nodes. The Strategic Support Forces are designed to achieve information dominance in the space and cyber domains, including by attacking the space-based capabilities of the United States.

After 20 years of work, Kendall said China now owns a military force specifically designed to compete with the U.S. in the Pacific.

“War is not inevitable, and our job first and foremost is to deter aggression. History, including some recent history, tells us that deterrence can and sometimes does fail. If our power projection capability and capacity are not adequate to deter Chinese aggression against Taiwan or elsewhere, war could occur. If it does, and we cannot prevail, the results could cast a long shadow,” Kendall said.

When it comes to power projection in the modern world, diversity is key. Not as many people are signing up to be pilots anymore. Furthermore, modern missiles and air defense systems, coupled with the rise of cheap but lethal commercially available drones, are forcing air forces the world over to rethink air combat.

For the USAF, part of the answer is flying highly advanced autonomous vehicles in formation with piloted craft. These loyal robot wingmen will be a part of the U.S. military’s Collaborative Combat Aircraft program, a joint project between the USAF and the U.S. Navy.

However, a fancy new fleet of unmanned craft can’t fix everything. Instead, a more holistic approach may be in order.

“Over the last few years, you have heard various pithy statements from your senior leaders,” Kendall said during his keynote address. “Accelerate, change or lose. Integrated by design. Competitive endurance. What got us here won’t get us there. One team, one fight. Change is hard; losing is unacceptable.

“You’ve heard these various mantras from leaders in the department, and you might think it’s difficult to make out what they all mean, and how they all relate. They all mean the same thing. We’re all talking about the fact that the Air and Space Forces must change, or we could fail to prevent and might even lose a war. Not the kinds of war we fought or have been fighting for the last 30 years. But a war between modern great powers with enormous costs and consequences for the U.S. and its partners, and for the world. We cannot let that happen.”

Lt. Gen. Jim Slife is the deputy chief of staff for Operations for the U.S. Air Force. He said in the last 50 years, the strategic environment for the U.S. shifted four times.

The first two were after Vietnam War, and at the end of the Cold War and Desert Storm time periods, when the era of persistent deployments started.

“Prior to Desert Storm, the Air Force was not really persistently deployed anywhere,” Slife said. “After Desert Storm, we get into air policing, no fly zone enforcement, periodic precision munitions strikes in places like Iraq, and Bosnia and so forth.”

The next two major shifts happened after 9/11, when the U.S. first started to invest heavily in unmanned technology like predator drones. According to Slife, the current shift will set the stage for the foreseeable future.

“In many ways, since the end of Desert Storm, we have optimized for efficiency. And I think the Secretary has come to the conclusion — rightly so in my estimation — that we need to perhaps sacrifice a little on the efficiency front to make sure that we are as effective a force as we can be for the strategic environment that we find ourselves in,” Slife said. “You know, to be able to deter, we have to be credible. So, there’s things that we can do from an organization and training perspective to complement the work of the operational imperatives.”

Secretary Kendall assigned teams to examine those operational imperatives, which include how the Air and Space Forces are organized, the processes used to acquire new equipment, how each force creates and measures readiness, and the support systems in place for mobilizing units. Recruiting and retention is the fifth operational imperative to be examined. During a roundtable with media, Kendall said he’s not worried about recruiting to the Air and Space Forces.

“I think [the Air Force] put a lot less resources into recruiting than the other services do. And with a relatively modest increase in resources, I think we could do much better,” Kendall said.

When it comes to deploying, Kendall said the Air Force needs to make massive changes. In early September, Kendall created three new air task forces which will be the basis for a pilot program testing new methods of deployment.

“It’s about deliberately building a team that has combat power, embedded combat support, combat service support forces all packaged together in a light footprint, deployable unit,” Slife said.

This deep-dive review of the Air and Space Forces is going to move quickly. Kendall said he wants each of the five teams to report back to him in January 2024 with their findings. From there, Kendall said he’ll move quickly to implement the recommendations. The reason for the speed? Once again, China.

“The intelligence couldn’t be clearer. Whatever its actual intentions may be, I could not say, but China is preparing for a war, and specifically for a war with the United States,” Kendall explained. “Again, war is not inevitable, and no one can predict when or if it will occur. Our job is to deter that war and to be ready to win if it occurs. Being prepared for war means ensuring that our competitive advantages are continuously and consciously strengthened and maintained.”

Congress has until the end of September to fund the government. With about a week to spare, here are the options: Meet the deadline, pass a stopgap bill, or shut down. But when budget showdowns reach shutdowns, there is a significant taxpayer cost. Here are five times politicians shut down the government in this week’s Five For Friday:

#5: 1986

President Ronald Reagan was in the White House for eight government shutdowns. But the October 1986 shutdown will go down as one of the shortest in history. Democrats, which held a majority in the House of Representatives, were holding out for a vote on welfare expansion, but Republicans in the Senate didn’t budge. Roughly 500,000 federal workers were furloughed for about four hours, which ended up costing $61 million in lost work. 

#4: 1981

Prior to 1981, failing to fund the government wouldn’t stop agencies from operating. So, this is the first government shutdown in the current sense of the term. President Reagan demanded $8.4 billion in spending cuts and promised to veto any bill that didn’t meet at least half of that threshold. House Democrats fell $2 billion short of Reagan’s target. As a result, 241,000 federal employees were shut down from working for two days and it cost U.S. taxpayers $80-$90 million.

#3: 1995-1996

Back-to-back shutdowns stretched from 1995 into 1996, with President Bill Clinton facing off with a Republican-controlled House and Senate. Clinton refused to sign any spending bill with “sharp hikes in Medicare premiums.” And an apparent snub of then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA) on Air Force One didn’t help the situation. The initial five-day shutdown resulted in a 30-day continuing resolution, but the two sides failed to come to terms at the end of the 30 days, and the government shut down again. In the end, 284,000 employees were furloughed for a total of 26 days, and it cost taxpayers $1.4 billion.

#2: 2018-2019

President Donald Trump was in the White House for the longest shutdown in U.S. history. Trump demanded $5 billion in funding for a wall at the southern border, and Congress wouldn’t pony up. A 35-day shutdown spanning 2018-2019 ensued, with 800,000 federal employees furloughed. The Congressional Budget Office said it cost the U.S. economy $11 billion.

It also resulted in some iconic moments. With White House chefs furloughed, President Trump served Clemson’s National Championship football team a fast-food feast. The government eventually reopened when the new Congress took over at the start of the year, and Democrats passed a spending bill without funding for the wall.

#1: 2013

President Barack Obama’s signature healthcare legislation was at the center of the 16-day shutdown of 2013. Some conservatives in Congress refused to sign on to a funding bill that didn’t delay or defund the Affordable Care Act, which created the stalemate. Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-TX) reading of Green Eggs and Ham on the Senate floor was part of the proceedings. Eventually, Republican House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) passed a funding bill that left Obamacare intact. Around 850,000 federal employees were furloughed, and S&P says the shutdown cost the U.S. $24 billion. 

The U.S. is barreling toward a government shutdown. Congress has so far failed to agree on spending legislation to fund the government starting Oct. 1. But didn’t the U.S. just deal with a spending crisis a few months back?

Government shutdowns and debt ceiling debacles are often conflated. Here are the differences between a government shutdown and a debt default.

Government Shutdown

Congress is supposed to pass spending legislation to fund government operations every fiscal year, which starts on Oct. 1.

If Congress fails to pass these bills, agencies won’t have enough money to keep the lights on and end up shutting down to save resources.

Most of the time, that means non-essential employees go home furloughed and government work doesn’t get done until a deal is reached. Often, essential employees like military personnel are required to work without pay.

When a deal is reached, employees receive back pay, but the taxpayers foot the bill for lost productivity.

Government shutdowns are usually highly political. In 2013, the government shutdown because conservatives wanted to defund or delay then-President Obama’s Affordable Care Act. In 2018, it was a spat over then-President Trump’s $5 billion funding request for a border wall.

Debt Default

A debt default would be catastrophic for the U.S. economy. Congress sets a hard limit on how much the U.S. can borrow to pay its bills, commonly referred to as the debt ceiling.

When the Treasury Department reaches that ceiling, if Congress doesn’t raise it higher, the U.S. is unable to do things like send out Social Security checks or make payments on its debt, jeopardizing its global reputation.

In June, the U.S. narrowly avoided its first debt default by suspending the $31.4 trillion borrowing limit until January 2025, after the election.

Even though the U.S. avoided a default, Fitch Ratings cut the U.S. credit rating by one notch in response.

“In Fitch’s view, there has been a steady deterioration in standards of governance over the last 20 years, including on fiscal and debt matters,” the agency said when announcing the rating cut. “The repeated debt-limit political standoffs and last-minute resolutions have eroded confidence in fiscal management.”

Geologists believe they have uncovered the world’s largest lithium deposit within an ancient supervolcano straddling the Nevada-Oregon border. Up to 40 million metric tons of the precious metal — worth about $1.5 trillion — have been identified throughout a 28-mile-long stretch of the McDermitt Caldera.

To put this discovery into perspective, if those estimates hold true, it could account for nearly half of the world’s total known lithium reserves, and would nearly double the lithium reserves found in Bolivia’s salt flats, which previously held the record for the world’s largest deposit.

“If you believe their back-of-the-envelope estimation, this is a very, very significant deposit of lithium,” said Anouk Borst, a geologist at KU Leuven University. “It could change the dynamics of lithium globally, in terms of price, security of supply and geopolitics.”

This find comes at a time of surging demand for lithium, driven by its use in a wide range of applications, from smartphones and laptops to hybrids and electric vehicles. The price of lithium has increased more than tenfold since 2020, making it the most expensive battery metal globally.

Often referred to as “white gold,” experts predict that by 2050, the demand for lithium will reach over 10 times more than current annual production levels. The continually increasing need for more lithium globally has even led some analysts to predict that the world could be facing a shortage of the metal by as early as 2025.

“We do fundamentally believe in a shortage for the lithium industry. We forecast supply growth of course, but demand is set to grow at a much faster pace,” said Corinne Blanchard, Deutsche Bank’s director of lithium and clean tech equity research. 

This deposit in the United States could bring a sharp economic boost for a nation which has had a limited domestic supply of lithium to date. A 2022 report by the U.S. Geological Survey revealed that the nation’s only lithium production came from a single operation in Nevada. As a result, American imports of lithium-ion batteries increased by 99% from 2021, with nearly 70% of these imports originating from China in 2022.

“China just put out its next five-year plan,” Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said. “They want to be the go-to place for the guts of the batteries, yet we have these minerals in the United States. We have not taken advantage of them, to mine them.”

“The lack of a substantial lithium battery supply chain in the United States and the lack of secure access to energy materials pose serious threats to U.S. national and economic security,” said a report by Li-Bridge, a public-private initiative which receives funding from the U.S. Department of Energy to work towards accelerating the development of a robust supply chain for lithium-based batteries.

News of this discovery is expected to stimulate domestic lithium production, reducing the United States’ dependence on foreign suppliers. Plans are already underway to commence mining in the McDermitt Caldera by 2026, with operations expected to continue for the next 40 years once the mine is operational. Project stakeholders anticipate an annual lithium yield of 40,000 tons.

However, while building up a domestic supply of lithium holds substantial geopolitical benefits and would represent a crucial contribution to the Biden administration’s electric vehicle goals, mining the resource comes with environmental concerns.

Scientists estimate that for every ton of lithium mined, approximately 15 tons of CO2 emissions are generated. If the mine meets its annual production targets, it could potentially contribute an additional 600,000 tons of CO2 emissions into the atmosphere each year.

“Our new clean-energy demands could be creating greater harm, even though its intention is to do good,” said Aimee Boulanger, executive director for the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance.

The location of the proposed mining site has also added further complexity to the project. The land is considered sacred by local Native American tribes, and tribal leaders are voicing opposition. The People of Red Mountain — a Native American advocacy group — labeled the mining efforts of lithium as a form of “green colonialism.”

“Lithium mines and this whole push for renewable energy — the agenda of the Green New Deal — is what I like to call green colonialism,″ said Daranda Hinkey, a member of the Fort McDermitt Paiute and Shoshone Tribe and a leader within the People of Red Mountain group. “It’s going to directly affect my people, my culture, my religion, my tradition, my children and children after that.’’

Meanwhile, the United States has been intensifying efforts to boost electric vehicle battery manufacturing, an industry heavily reliant on lithium. Investments in the sector have more than quadrupled from 2021, underscoring the nation’s need for more lithium as the White House pushes to put more electric vehicles on the road.

United Auto Workers are striking against Detroit’s Big Three automakers at the same time for the first time. The impact could be financially devastating. Economists estimate 10 days on the picket lines against General Motors, Ford and Fiat Chrysler-parent Stellantis could cost the U.S. economy $5.6 billion and push Michigan into a recession.

Strikes can financially strap companies, workers and the overall economy. Here are some of the costliest strikes in history in this week’s Five For Friday:

5: UPS, 1997

In 1997, the U.S. shipping landscape had one major player. UPS delivered around 80% of ground packages throughout the country. So when 185,000 UPS workers went on strike for 15 days over pensions, wages and part-time status, it cost the company roughly $800 million. USPS and FedEx had limited market share at the time and it was impossible to fill the void.

Since then, e-commerce has exploded with the likes of Amazon, shipping anything and everything to your home. When UPS workers contemplated another strike this summer, economists estimated that a 10-day strike would cost the U.S. economy $7.1 billion.

4: MLB, 1994-95

Professional baseball is no stranger to labor disputes, and MLB’s season-ending strike of 1994 cost owners around $580 million, while players lost $230 million in salaries. It also spelled the end for the short-lived Baseball Network, which lost $595 million in revenue after the cancellation of nearly 950 regular season games, along with the playoffs and World Series.

The fight over a salary cap in baseball — which never came to fruition — took a toll on goodwill with fans. It took more than a decade for per-game attendance to return to pre-strike levels.

3: Southern California Supermarkets, 2003-2004

In the fall of 2003, 70,000 supermarket workers in southern California went on strike against four major chains in the region. The United Food and Commercial Workers Union claimed Albertsons, Vons, Pavilions and Ralph’s were trying to reduce benefits to compete with Walmart.

The strike lasted four months and cost the chains between $1.5 billion to $2 billion. The dispute left the striking workers without $300 million in wages. The two sides eventually came to terms, but Ralph’s had to part with an additional $70 million in penalties for illegally re-hiring locked-out workers under fake names.

2: General Motors, 2019

The last time UAW went on strike was a 40-day walkout against General Motors in 2019. That’s when 48,000 workers hit the picket line for job security and better wages. The automaker said it cost the company $3.6 billion in earnings for the year. Many suppliers down the line also lost revenue and the price of steel fell considerably due to a lack of production with 34 plants at a standstill.

1: Hollywood Writers and Actors

Most production in Hollywood is currently shut down with writers and actors on strike since May and July, respectively. Both are concerned about being replaced by artificial intelligence and compensation for streaming rights.

Analysts say the strike could cost the economy more than $5 billion or $150 million per week. Television and films are a $134 billion industry in the U.S. so the costs keep piling up with no end to the strike in sight.

We’ve seen a number of high profile strikes in the history of Tinsel town. Check out this Five For Friday on it.

The impact of man-made noises in the ocean — such as those from oil drilling and wind farm construction — on marine mammals has long been a subject of scientific inquiry. Researchers in Norway embarked on a study utilizing captured Minke whales to delve into this issue, but the project has encountered controversy, with animal advocates accusing the researchers of cruelty after a whale died in their care earlier this year.

“We have warned that these cruel and pointless experiments would lead to whales being killed,” said Danny Groves, head of communications with Whale and Dolphin Conservation. “No whales should have to face being bundled into a cage and have electrodes implanted under his or her skin. These experiments should be halted permanently.” 

Initiated in 2021, this study has been funded by the United States Navy, various U.S. government agencies, energy companies and other sources, with the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment running the experiments. The aim of their research has been to gather a better understanding of the extent to which anthropogenic sounds affect marine mammals residing in the surrounding waters.

“What they’re doing is they’re herding them into like giant fish pens in the Norwegian fjords, then they’re catching them and putting them in a sling, and then putting electrodes under their skin and blasting them with sound and then seeing what happens,” said Meghan Lapp, a fisheries liaison for Seafreeze Ltd.

Researchers have attempted to temporarily herd the whales within a natural body of water barricaded by nets, after which “auditory evoked potential” testing is performed on the animals, provided they are not displaying overt signs of distress.

The hearing tests involve placing electrodes on the whale to measure brain waves for up to six hours to determine how the animal might react to active naval sonar noise from the renewable energy sector and seismic exploration conducted by the oil and gas industry. Blood samples have also been taken from the whales while they are in the aquatic pen as part of a test for stress markers.

The National Marine Mammal Foundation — which has also been involved with the experiments — said this research sought to obtain “fundamental information necessary to establish scientifically based regulatory guidelines to better mitigate ocean noise exposure for baleen whales.”

“This has been a long-standing issue, this lack of information on how sensitive the hearing of these large whales is,” said the project’s principal investigator, Dorian Houser of the National Marine Mammal Foundation. “We’re trying to get the first measurements to empirically show what they hear and how sensitive to sound they are.”

A group of marine mammal scientists emphasized the need for the data this study has endeavored to collect in a letter of support to the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation, explaining that “the current project is groundbreaking in nature and will provide opportunities to study aspects of these animals’ biology that have not yet been explored.”

According to the Animal Welfare Institute, the U.S. government has contributed $3.7 million to fund this research, but after three years of operation, the project has yet to produce substantial data.

“They haven’t been able to actually do the study because the whales are freaking out about being in a harness and you know, being tortured,” said Cindy Zipf, executive director of Clean Ocean Action.

“The first year they didn’t catch any [whales]. And then the second year, they caught one of them, they got it up in the sling, and the whale was in extreme distress,” Lapp said. “So, they couldn’t do any experiments.”

“Researchers have now failed for three years to get any data, subjected several whales to the stress of being herded into a large net enclosure, and now caused the death of a whale,” said the Animal Welfare Institute, which also called on Norwegian and American authorities to “immediately and permanently shut down this project.”

Those involved with the project have explained that the whale death occurred after the animal became trapped under a barrier net and ultimately drowned due to damage to the testing facility caused by severe weather.

The incident has further prompted calls from animal rights groups for the study to be halted, as the project has been put on hold indefinitely while the incident is reviewed and the site repaired. Further tests had been due to continue through summer 2024.

“That we have now lost a minke whale before this year’s experiments have begun, due to damage caused by severe weather to the testing facility, is the worst thing that could happen,” said Petter H. Kvadsheim, the study’s chief researcher and a principal scientist with the Norwegian Defense Research Establishment. “Our aim is to protect Minke whales and other baleens, and to protect them from harmful human-made noise.”

Critics of the research project have urged Norwegian and U.S. agencies to revoke permits and funding, asserting that the study was inherently risky from its inception.

Kate O’Connell, a marine wildlife consultant for the Animal Welfare Institute believes this “experiment has been an accident waiting to happen from the start, and a gross misuse of U.S. taxpayer dollars.”

Some of those opposed to the project allege that Norway, one of just three nations which still permits whaling for profit, was deliberately chosen as the research location to bypass safeguards under the U.S. Marine Mammal Protection Act that might have prohibited certain practices.

“We continue to maintain that, if applied here, the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) would not permit such takes, and that the U.S. government should not be supporting research activities that so clearly undermine the spirit and intent of this law,” a group of marine mammal experts wrote in a letter to officials within the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and U.S. Navy. “Norway, a country that still engages in commercial whaling, does not have an MMPA equivalent. So, despite the fact that Norway’s Food Safety Authority has issued a permit for this project, it is clear that the project will not be conducted utilizing the same standards that would be required under an MMPA permit.”

Despite the controversy surrounding the study’s methods, the data it aimed to collect is highly valuable to the scientific community. Understanding how sound affects marine mammals is crucial for experts seeking to develop measures to protect whales from the growing presence of human-generated noise in the oceans.

“They’re doing this to try to get hearing data on low frequency baleen whales because they have none,” said Lapp. “And those are the whales that are washing up dead on the East Coast since December.”

Concerns have grown regarding the potential impact of offshore wind projects on whales, particularly along the U.S. east coast, where a spike in whale deaths has raised questions. Both government agencies and renewable energy providers have acknowledged that the noise generated during the construction and operation of these turbines may negatively affect whales, although they maintain that any detrimental effects will be minimal. Still, some experts argue that further research is necessary to fully understand the implications.

As the United States aims to embrace the next generation of renewable energy, advanced technology takes center stage in propelling ambitious projects forward. Orion, a new vessel originating from Belgium that was christened last year, has been dispatched to the U.S. shores with the task of constructing a wind farm situated 35 miles off the coast of mainland Massachusetts.

Devised by the offshore energy and marine infrastructure contractor DEME Group, Orion features a 5,000-ton crane, boasts nearly 60,000 horsepower and possesses the capability to transport payloads weighing up to 30,000 tons. Launched into operation in June near Martha’s Vineyard, this specialized floating installation vessel stands as a crucial contributor to the Biden administration’s push for green energy initiatives.

“This is about building a new energy infrastructure in the United States that doesn’t rely on the burning of carbon. And that, you know, can help us address the climate emergency,” Bill White, president at DEME Group, told Straight Arrow News. “Without vessels like the Orion, we wouldn’t really be able to build offshore wind.”

The vessel, measuring over 700 feet in length, is poised to construct 62 turbine foundations for an expansive 800-megawatt wind farm that will span approximately 160,000 acres of open ocean. Dubbed Vineyard Wind 1, it will be the first commercial-scale offshore wind farm in the country and is projected to provide electricity to over 400,000 residences and businesses within the state. The wind farm’s completion is also anticipated to reduce costs for Massachusetts ratepayers by an estimated $1.4 billion over 20 years.

“Here in Massachusetts…they’re procuring more offshore wind. Their next solicitation is going to be…somewhere around 2.4 to 2.8 gigawatts, which is 20,000 megawatts of power. And to put that into context, that’s about 25 percent of all the electricity that the state of Massachusetts needs,” White said.

Environmental experts anticipate that once operational, this $4 billion wind farm could reduce carbon emissions by a total exceeding 1.6 million tons annually, akin to removing around 325,000 gas-powered vehicles from roadways. As Orion works to install this renewable energy project to make that emissions reduction a reality, it will also be utilizing environmentally friendly technology during the construction process. The vessel operates on alternative cleaner marine fuels, bolstered by a waste heat recovery system that transforms exhaust gases into electrical energy. Additionally, a cold recovery system harnesses liquefied natural gas evaporation to provide air conditioning to the crew quarters on Orion.

“This vessel heralds a new era in the offshore energy industry,” said Luc Vandenbulcke, DEME Group’s Chief Executive Officer. “The combination of unique technology, load capacity and superior lifting heights will enable Orion to play an important role in helping the industry successfully navigate the energy transition.”

Installing these turbines requires environmental considerations to minimize the sound from construction and its impact on local marine ecosystems. To mitigate underwater noise during the building of this wind farm and its potential effect on nearby aquatic life, bubble curtains—comprising of large perforated hoses that form a ring around the installation site—are being deployed as noise-absorbing shields. These bubble curtains are created by releasing compressed air through the holes in the hoses, with an aim of dampening the reverberations from heavy machinery work.

“It’s a device that literally creates a cone around the work area and funnels. A very strong current bubbles up which acts to kind of minimize and allows it to kind of dampen the sound,” White explained.

Diverse marine species, including whales, fish and sea turtles, inhabit the region where these wind turbine foundations are taking shape, prompting efforts by DEME Group to minimize disruption. The company has said it will “always aim to mitigate the impact on the local environment” while installing a wind farm.

“DEME is supporting the effort in order to make sure that we’re not having any negative impacts to the marine mammals in the vicinity of the project,” White said. “In partnership with environmental constituencies and [non-governmental organizations], and scientists from around the world, who have basically designed what they believe will be the best ways to mitigate impacts.”

Following its work in Martha’s Vineyard, the Orion vessel’s next destination within the U.S. will be Virginia, where it will be responsible for installing 176 wind turbine foundations for a Dominion Energy-backed project. To ensure the safety of endangered North Atlantic right whales, the construction timeline for these turbines has been scheduled from 2024 to 2025, specifically within a spring-to-fall window that avoids overlapping with the whales’ migration season.