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Posts Tagged ‘MMS’

Excerpts from FRANK HARTZELL’s article in the Mendocino Beacon, June 4, 2009
Ocean Power Technologies’ subsidiary California Wave Energy Partners in it’s “wave energy project proposed off Cape Mendocino has surrendered its Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) preliminary permit, making two major companies that have abandoned the area in the past two weeks.
The moves come at [...]

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MARK CLAYTON, The Christian Science Monitor, April 24, 2009
Three miles off the craggy, wave-crashing coastline near Humboldt Bay, California, deep ocean swells roll through a swath of ocean that is soon to be the site of the nation’s first major wave energy project.

Like other renewable energy technology, ocean energy generated by waves, tidal currents or steady offshore [...]

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MendoCoastCurrent, April 23, 2009
In Octoberr 2008 Grays Harbor Ocean Energy applied for seven Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) preliminary permits for projects located in the Atlantic Ocean about 12 to 25 miles offshore off the coasts of New York, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island, and in the Pacific Ocean about 5 to 30 miles off the coasts [...]

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H. JOSEF HEBERT, AP/StarTribune, April 22, 2009

Washington D.C. — The Interior Department issued long-awaited regulations on April 22, 2009 governing offshore renewable energy projects that would tap wind, ocean currents and waves to produce electricity.
The framework establishes how leases will be issued and sets in place revenue sharing with nearby coastal states that will receive 27.5% [...]

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COLIN SULLIVAN, The New York Times, April 14, 2009
Palo Alto — Technology for tapping ocean waves, tides and rivers for electricity is far from commercial viability and lagging well behind wind, solar and other fledgling power sectors, a panel of experts said last week during a forum here on climate change and marine ecosystems.
While the [...]

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Cherry Creek News Staff, March 17, 2009
WASHINGTON, DC – In a joint statement issued today Secretary of the Interior (DOI), Ken Salazar and Acting Chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Jon Wellinghoff announced that the two agencies have confirmed their intent to work together to facilitate the permitting of renewable energy in offshore [...]

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EVAN LEHMANN, The New York Times, March 17, 2009
The oceans might not be big enough for sharp-elbowed renewable energy developers. Aspiring power producers are claiming sweeping stretches of sea along the East Coast, sometimes overlapping each other and igniting modern-day allegations of “claim jumping.”
Open water miles from shore is the newest frontier for prospectors, as [...]

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H. JOSEF HEBERT, The Associated Press, March 16, 2009
While the Obama administration has touted offshore renewable energy development, a turf fight between two federal agencies has stymied the government’s ability to issue rules needed to approve wind energy projects off America’s coasts.
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said Monday the infighting has got to stop.
“It will be resolved,” Salazar said [...]

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MendoCoastCurrent, March 11, 2009
Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar announced today that he has just signed his first order establishing renewable energy generation as the top priority of the Department of the Interior. Following President Obama’s lead in steering the United States into this new energy path, he said this agenda would create jobs and grow [...]

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MendoCoastCurrent, February 14, 2009
Acting Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Chairman Jon Wellinghoff recently published Facilitating Hydrokinetic Energy Development Through Regulatory Innovation. 
Consider it required reading as a backgrounder on US wave energy policy development, FERC’s position on the MMS in renewables and FERC’s perceived role as a government agency in renewable energy, specifically marine energy, development.
Missing from this key [...]

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Washington Post Editorial, February 12, 2009
Interior Secretary Salazar Keeps his Options Open on Offshore Drilling 
Here’s the ultimate midnight regulation: On the very last day of the Bush administration, the Interior Department proposed a new five-year plan for oil and gas leasing on the outer continental shelf. All hearings and other meetings on the scope of [...]

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DANIEL B. WOOD, The Christian Science Monitor, February 11, 2009
Less than a month into his administration, President Obama is making good on campaign promises to move toward a comprehensive approach to US energy and to broaden environmental protections. The administration has moved over the past few weeks to undo many of Bush’s last-minute drilling and [...]

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Publisher’s Note:  Feb 09, 2009 – Not only has Finavera surrendered their Makah Bay license noted below, they also announced surrendering the Humboldt County, California Preliminary Permit to explore wave energy:
“Finavera Renewables has filed applications to surrender its Federal Energy Regulatory Commission license for the Makah Bay Wave Energy Pilot Project in Washington and the [...]

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SUSAN CHAMBERS, The World, February 3, 2009
Coos Bay — The announcement came as a surprise to everyone.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s Thursday order issuing a preliminary permit for a 200- to 400-buoy wave energy project off of Newport shocked Ocean Power Technologies leaders as well as the public.
“It’s a project, a site that is not [...]

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STEPHEN POWER, The Wall Street Journal, January 28, 2009
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar indicated Tuesday that the Obama Administration could be open to expanded offshore drilling and is considering doing away with a controversial program that allows oil companies to pay in kind for oil and natural gas taken from public lands.
Salazar inherited a Bush Administration [...]

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Let Your Voice Be Heard by March 23, 2009
by MendoCoastCurrent and pointarenabasin
Beginning January 22, 2009 and ending on March 23, 2009, a 60-day Public Comment Period opened regarding new offshore oil and gas exploration and drilling in the pristine waters off northern California.
And while this is a multi-step process and before things are cast in stone, NOW [...]

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JANE KAY, San Francisco Chronicle, January 17, 2009
The U.S. Interior Department, acting in President Bush’s final days in office, proposed on Friday opening up 130 million acres off of California’s coast to drilling for oil and natural gas, including areas off Humboldt and Mendocino counties and from San Luis Obispo south to San Diego.
After a [...]

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MICHAEL FALCONE, The New York Times, January 16, 2009
On January 15, 2009, Senator Ken Salazar pledged to “clean up the mess” at the Interior Department if he is confirmed as the next chief of the department, which has been plagued by ethics scandals.
Mr. Salazar, Democrat of Colorado, also said he shared President Obama’s commitment to ending the country’s [...]

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FRANK HARTZELL’s article with MendoCoastCurrent edits, January 15, 2009
After nearly two years of local pleas for specifics on the WaveConnect project, PG&E representatives surprised Fort Bragg and Mendocino County representatives with many new details.
Those included the promise by PG&E that all environmental studies would be public, not private information. In the recent past, PG&E had [...]

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MendoCoastCurrent, January 8, 2009
Key President-elect Barack Obama renewable energy quotes from his January 8, 2009 speech to the U.S. Congress and citizens, on his top economic priorities as he takes office.
“. . .the first question that each of us asks isn’t ‘what’s good for me?’ but ‘what’s good for the country my children will inherit?”
On [...]

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DAVID EHRLICH, Earth2Tech/GigaOm, December 23, 2008
Ocean energy could have a big part to play under President-elect Barack Obama’s environmentally friendly administration, but a coalition that’s pushing for more wave and tidal power says change is needed to expand the number of projects in the U.S. Right now, there are only a handful of ocean energy projects [...]

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JANE KAY, The San Francisco Chronicle, December 29, 2008
The federal government is taking steps that may open California’s fabled coast to oil drilling in as few as three years, an action that could place dozens of platforms off the Sonoma, Mendocino and Humboldt coasts, and raises the specter of spills, air pollution and increased ship [...]

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Excerpts from article by FRANK HARTZELL, The Mendocino Beacon, December 24, 2008
On January 13, 2009, from 5-7p.m. at Fort Bragg Town Hall, a “top official from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) will appear to explain the agency’s strategy on developing what it calls “hydrokinetic” power as an alterative energy source.
Ann F. Miles, FERC’s director [...]

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JOHN DRISCOLL, The Times-Standard, December 15, 2008
A white paper commissioned by the state of California says that tapping the ocean for power should be done carefully.
The report for the California Energy Commission and the Ocean Protection Council looked at the possible socio-economic and environmental effects of the infant industry, including what it might mean for [...]

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TED NESI, Providence Business News, December 5, 2008
The list of suitors lining up to develop renewable energy projects off Rhode Island’s coastal waters is getting longer.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has begun reviewing a permit application from Grays Harbor Ocean Energy Co., a year-old company based in Seattle, to build 100 large towers that [...]

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MendoCoastCurrent, November 17, 2008
Announcements and short biographies of Obama’s Team Leads that oversee renewable energy policy development and associated agencies.
Energy and Natural Resources Team Lead
David J. Hayes is a member of the Obama-Biden Transition Project’s Agency Review Working Group responsible for the energy and natural resources agencies. He is former Global Chair of the Environment, [...]

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Keith Johnson, Environmental Capital in WSJ, September 15, 2008
Most of the renewable-energy business is busy fretting about the extension of federal tax credits, which expire at the end of this year. But the real story, it seems, is how clean energy’s biggest historical handicap is coming to be seen as one of its biggest selling [...]

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ISABEL ORDONEZ, Dow Jones News Service, October 6, 2008
Surfers aren’t the only ones itching to jump in the water and catch some big waves.
Dozens of companies, from oil giant Chevron Corp. to smaller firms like Ocean Power Technologies Inc., have invested in or are evaluating the potential of technology designed to harness electrical energy from [...]

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MendoCoastCurrent, October 16, 2008
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) claimed that it has jurisdiction over hydroelectric projects located on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS), pointing to laws that define its role.
FERC addressed the jurisdictional question, raised by the U.S. Department of the Interior, Mineral Management Service (MMS), in the context of a rehearing order on [...]

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MendoCoastCurrent, September 9, 2008
Saying the nation’s energy situation has dramatically changed in the past year, Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne today jumpstarted the development of a new oil and natural gas leasing program for the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf.  The action could give the next administration a two-year head start in expanding energy production [...]

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Excerpts from FRANK HARTZELL’s article at the Mendocino Beacon, September 4, 2008
PG&E decided last week not to be the national test case for the Minerals Management Service’s wave energy program.
Just two weeks earlier, the utility officially filed paperwork to pursue those same far offshore wave energy leases. None of the filings have yet been provided [...]

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MendoCoastCurent, August 12, 2008
Last Friday the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) released its latest denial for a rehearing on the Mendocino Wave Energy project on the Northern California coast.
The denied Petitioners include Fishermen Interested in Safe Hydrokinetics (FISH) with Attorney Elizabeth Mitchell, Mendocino County, Fort Bragg, Lincoln County in Oregon and others representing concerned citizens, [...]

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MADDALENA JACKSON with MendoCoastCurrent edit, The Sacramento Bee, August 11, 2008
Oil companies, some politicians and commuters paying $4 for a gallon of gas might look at California’s coast and think of crude oil pooled below the sea floor.
California’s North Coast, however, holds promise of another energy bounty.
In less time than it would take to fire [...]

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Platts/McGraw-Hill, August 2008
Ocean Power Technologies (OPT) is looking to generate power from Scottish waters as well. Nasdaq-listed OPT reported July 28 that it had signed a berth agreement with the European Marine Energy Center (EMEC) in Orkney, Scotland. OPT can, under the berth agreement, deploy and operate its unit as well as hook [...]

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GreenCarCongress.com, July 26, 2008
The US Minerals Management Service (MMS) is proceeding with the consultation and analyses necessary to move toward the issuance of limited leases under its interim policy for authorizing alternative energy data collection and technology testing activities on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS).
MMS announced its interim policy in November 2007 to jumpstart basic [...]

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JOHN DRISCOLL, The Times-Standard, July 24, 2008
The Pacific Gas and Electric Co. has cleared another hurdle toward developing wave energy projects off the Humboldt and Mendocino county coasts.
Recently the U.S. Minerals Management Service announced that it would go forward with analyzing limited leases for alternative energy projects on the outer continental shelf. It follows a [...]

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EnergyCurrent.com, July 30, 2008
U.S. Secretary of the Interior Dick Kempthorne has started the development of a new oil and natural gas leasing program for the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf. The action could give the next administration a head start in expanding energy production from federal offshore jurisdictions, including some areas where a congressional moratorium has [...]

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DAVID R. BAKER, The San Francisco Chronicle, July 31, 2008
The U.S. Interior Department ratcheted up the pressure on Congress Wednesday to open more of the country’s coastline to offshore oil drilling, a move petroleum companies have sought for decades.
Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne said his department will lay the groundwork for selling undersea oil-drilling leases on [...]

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MendoCoastCurrent, July 9, 2008
ACT NOW! – ‘MMS Rulemaking’ Public Review & Comments Accepted Thru September 8, 2008
The U.S. Department of the Interior’s Minerals Management Service (MMS) has published a proposed rule in the Federal Register that will regulate alternative energy production activities and alternate uses of existing facilities on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS). The [...]

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MendoCoastCurrent, July 8, 2008

Act Now! Related ‘MMS Rulemaking’ Public Review & Comments Accepted Thru September 8, 2008
WASHINGTON, DC – The Minerals Management Service (MMS) announced today that it is proceeding with the consultation and analyses necessary to move toward the issuance of limited leases under its interim policy for authorizing alternative energy data collection [...]

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DAVID R. BAKER, Village Green/SFGate.com, July 23, 2008
Drilling for undersea oil along the east and west coasts has quickly turned into one of America’s loudest political fights, as anyone reading the comments on SFGate can attest. But it’s not the Bush administration’s only plan for offshore energy.
For the past few years, the administration has been [...]

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Publishers Note: In early August 2008, FERC Denied Rehearing the Mendocino Coast related to the following post. This is one in a series of actions that Federal Government has taken to obstruct community involvement and begin the necessary dialog on environmental concerns.
MendoCoastCurrent, July 21, 2008
An alliance of Northern California coast commercial and recreational [...]

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Minerals Management Service, April 17, 2008
Issues Notice to Determine Competitive Interest in Nominated Areas
WASHINGTON — The Department of the Interior’s Minerals Management Service today designated five areas on the Outer Continental Shelf as priority areas for alternative energy research in federal waters.
The five areas are offshore New Jersey, Delaware, Georgia, Florida and California. The agency [...]

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MMS nominated both Humboldt and Mendocino lease areas last Friday. See following for full details, emphasis added.
Federal Register: April 18, 2008 (Volume 73, Number 76)
———————————————————————–
DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
Minerals Management Service – Docket No. MMS-2008-OMM-0020
Notice of Nominations Received and Proposed Limited Alternative Energy Leases on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) and Initiation of Coordination and [...]

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Note: This is an older article from 2007 yet still very current in its coverage of environmental and permitting concerns related to Wave Energy and Tidal Energy projects.

MICHAEL LUFKIN & LAURA FANDINO, Marten Law Group, July 11, 2007

The adoption of renewable energy portfolio standards promises to push forward investment in the development of wave and [...]

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