Below find details about the Maine offshore windpower initiative from 2005 to the present: government documents, simulations, audio recordings of Maine's legislature, offshore wind industry fishermen and public; scientific/technical reports, birder concerns and more, relating to the proposal to set up floating windmills off Monhegan, Maine.
Agency and NGO Background Documents
* Letters, memos, reports that the Maine Bureau of Parks and Lands produced & received in 2009 & 2010 while selecting & approving the Monhegan offshore windpower site. 359 pages
Audio recordings. MP3s.
Maine Fishermens Forums Ocean windpower talks
Other recordings of importance
LEGISLATURE
March 11,18,23,24 2010 Legislative hearing & 3 worksessions on Maine offshore wind law,
February 16, 2010 Audio of DeepCwind presentation to Monhegan Islanders on 2/16/10
July 11, 2013 Webinar "Making History with Volturnus" (wmv)
June 26, 2012 Statoil info meeting, Rockland, Maine: six interviews
(Including Jake Ward of DeepCwind)
June 16, 2012 MPBN interviews Habib Dagher and John Ferland
November 29, 2009 Maine Offshore Energy '09
June 15-18, 2009 Energy Ocean 2009
SITING, SCENIC IMPACTS & SIMULATIONS
Dr. Habib Dagher of UMaine has repeatedly stated the importance of siting ocean windmills sufficiently offshore that they are over the horizon from the mainland. Listen to two excerpted quotes and then the full recordings.
* August 11, 2011 Listen to Dr Dagher answer a question about siting the windmills 20 or more miles offshore. Island Institute presentation at Strand Theater, Rockland.
* May 20, 2010 Listen to Dr. Dagher's 45 minute talk at the Rockport Opera House calling for them to be 20 to 50 miles offshore. 45 minutes.
SIMULATIONS
* Simulated windfarms off southern New England coast at various distances Cape wind project)
* Simulation of Volturnus floating windturbines' likely impact on Maine lobster larvae (1 min long) Aqua Ventus floating windturbines location off off Monhegan will create a large windshadow and ocean current-slowing zone, where induced upwelling and downwelling waters in the energy footprint of the turbines may divert downeast lobster larvae-bearing coastal current away from the midcoast. See Jumars 2010 report, below, for details
EFFECTS ON BIRDS
SCIENCE.
University of Maine's "research cluster" of faculty scientists reviewing or taking part in the offshore wind process.
April 20, 2012 New ocean windfarm fishery impact study: drop in local species; increases in exotics. The effect of floating wind on the plankton and other sealife that relies on surface water currents.
* 2010 Report. Dr. Peter Jumars, Director of the UMaine School of Marine Sciences. Read Page 13 of his report "Anticipated Environmental Effects of Offshore Windpower Development in the Gulf of Maine". Dr. Jumars cites Norwegian govt scientist Göran Broström's report "On the influence of large wind farms on the upper ocean circulation." (Norwegian Meteorological Institute, 2008) .Göran Broström wrote that the ocean windfarms reduce wind energy striking the waters surrounding the turbine "sufficiently enough that the local ecosystem will most likely be strongly influenced by the presence of a wind farm". Dr Jumars wrote: "This effect could be important offshore because deep waters of the Gulf of Maine stratify in summer. Would it be bad or good?"
* May 1, 2012 Study of the nature of the "Gigawatt wakes" that windturbines create behind them. Viewed from an efficiency point of view but useful to ecological point of view also.
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