Environmental impact assessment begins for South Africa's first offshore wind farm

Daniel Puchert

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Plans for South Africa's first wind farm at sea

South Africa could get its first offshore wind farm along the coast of Richards Bay in KwaZulu-Natal in the next few years.

The developers of the Gagasi Offshore Wind Farm recently began the environmental impact assessment (EIA) portion of their project.
 
Isn't there a negative impact on aquatic life around these fails?
Which is why they have to do an Environmental Assessment Impact, to figure out if there will be a negative impact. I mean, that is said in the 2nd sentence in the article...

RIP to the dolphins
I can't imagine dolphins could jump 270m out of the water to get caught in the blades.

I really hope this gets the go-ahead, just as the ultimate F U to Gweezy and his corrupt Karpowerships.
 
Which is why they have to do an Environmental Assessment Impact, to figure out if there will be a negative impact. I mean, that is said in the 2nd sentence in the article...


I can't imagine dolphins could jump 270m out of the water to get caught in the blades.

I really hope this gets the go-ahead, just as the ultimate F U to Gweezy and his corrupt Karpowerships.
It's whales, but there is some correlation

 
It's whales, but there is some correlation

The correlation in this report is only for the vessels used to build the wind turbines, not the turbines themselves. And I can absolutely believe that the sonar used for ocean floor mapping and the pile driving would cause problems/deaths, not to mention just having more big boats splashing about would lead to an increase of not only whales deaths, but other marine life too.

But it is a temporary increase.

Once the construction and mapping is over, I would expect to deaths to go back down to their previous levels.

With that said, these are floating farms. They will be built on land, and then towed to the location and tethered to the sea bed. So the construction boats won't be a problem. I'm not sure how invasive the tethering process would be and if it requires sonar scans, but I would imagine it has to be less than building a fixed structure.
 
The correlation in this report is only for the vessels used to build the wind turbines, not the turbines themselves. And I can absolutely believe that the sonar used for ocean floor mapping and the pile driving would cause problems/deaths, not to mention just having more big boats splashing about would lead to an increase of not only whales deaths, but other marine life too.

But it is a temporary increase.

Once the construction and mapping is over, I would expect to deaths to go back down to their previous levels.

With that said, these are floating farms. They will be built on land, and then towed to the location and tethered to the sea bed. So the construction boats won't be a problem. I'm not sure how invasive the tethering process would be and if it requires sonar scans, but I would imagine it has to be less than building a fixed structure.
What does the sonar mapping do that is harmful?
 
What does the sonar mapping do that is harmful?
I'm neither a sonar expert, or a whale expert, but since the sonar sends out "pings", and whales communicate over vast distances using whale "pings", a whale could get confused by the ping and find itself getting too close to something it shouldn't (boats, rocks etc)
 
we pump raw sewerage in our dams and rivers AND seas and now we are doing an environmental impact study on a fcking wind farm. priorities.
 
Question: Do offshore wind farms harm whales?
Answer: Inconclusive

What a whale biologist has to say -

Offshore wind isn’t the most serious threat to whales, but it does pose potential risks. The biggest, to Baumgartner, is increased ship traffic associated with the wind farms, which could lead to ship strikes. A second concern is noise.

Whales rely on sound to communicate and navigate in areas where it’s difficult to see more than 20 feet (6 meters). “If you want to know where the sea floor is, where your friends are, any number of things about the environment, whereas we rely on our eyes, whales are relying just as much on their ears,” said Baumgartner. Noise can interfere with that use of sound, and—just as with people—very loud noise can injure their hearing.

That’s a problem during wind farm installation, when massive monopiles are pounded into the ocean floor to create the base of a wind turbine. “That piledriving can be very, very, very loud,” said Baumgartner. Piledriving when whales are nearby would cause catastrophic hearing damage. So, it’s essential that this stage of the process only happens when whales are not in the vicinity.

Baumgartner cited one final concern with the wind farms: food. Wind mixes the upper surface of the ocean. “Mixing is quite important for the algae in the ocean, because that mixing tends to draw nutrients from below the surface ocean into the surface ocean, into where the light is and where the phytoplankton are,” he explained. Copepods feed on the phytoplankton and are, in turn, a favorite food of right whales.

Turbines remove energy from the wind, converting it into electricity, which reduces the amount of wind available to mix water. That could have an impact on all levels of the food chain. At the same time, the monopiles that hold up the turbines can create mixing on their own, just as rocks create turbulence in a stream. This could counteract the loss of mixing by wind. The extent of their impact on the coastal food chain remains an unanswered question.

But Baumgartner is optimistic. “I’m a little skeptical that this is going to be a major problem for whales, given that yes, there are going to be a lot of turbines out there. But given the spacing—the large area over which they are distributed—I’m not convinced that this is going to be a major problem for algae and copepods and right whales.”

TL;DR - The construction/installation process of offshore wind farms can increase the risks of ship strikes and the noise generated during the embedding of the turbine pylons can damage the whales hearing and/or disorientate. The operational phase of the wind farms may further alter the local ecosystem, specifically the food chain, however more studies are required.
 
Question: Do offshore wind farms harm whales?
Answer: Inconclusive

What a whale biologist has to say -





TL;DR - The construction/installation process of offshore wind farms can increase the risks of ship strikes and the noise generated during the embedding of the turbine pylons can damage the whales hearing and/or disorientate. The operational phase of the wind farms may further alter the local ecosystem, specifically the food chain, however more studies are required.
Yeah, but this is a floating wind farm, so most of that is not really applicable
 
Yeah, but this is a floating wind farm, so most of that is not really applicable

Not at the same intensity, but all three concerns would be present.
  • Increased ship traffic as the turbines are moved into position.
  • Floating wind farms are still tethered to the seabed, so something will be driven into the seabed.
  • The turbines themselves affecting/altering the wind in the area and potentially the food chain.
 
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