Scientists to Investigate Human Impacts in the Ocean
are being conducted, provides key time-series datasets for analyzing the effect of climate change on open-ocean and deep-sea ecosystems. A wide range of international scientists have been collecting data at this site for decades, and this latest voyage will include participants from Brazil, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, U.K. and U.S
Environmental group files complaint to stop Nord Stream 2 in Finland
said that could cause serious harm to porpoises, seals and birds.A Nord Stream spokeswoman said the project organisation would examine the complaint, but added that it had agreed with Finnish authorities on mitigation measures to reduce the impact on marine life.The proposed pipeline between Russia and Germany, owned by Russian gas export monopoly Gazprom, is set to cross around 375 km of Finland's economic zone through the Baltic Sea.Like Finland, Germany has also approved the pipeline. The project is currently collecting permits from Russia, Sweden and Denmark.Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines
NORBIT Establishes Oceans Business Unit
markets enables us to offer technology, products, solutions and services across the entire ocean space domain,” says Per Jørgen Weisethaunet, chairman and group CEO of NORBIT.NORBIT is an international technology corporation headquartered in Trondheim, Norway, and has operations in Germany, Austria, Hungary, Sweden, Poland, Italy, Iceland, U.K., Brazil, Singapore and U.S.“The creation of NORBIT Oceans gives our customers access to a much more diversified ocean-related technology portfolio. Plus, our global marketing and distribution network allows us to support the same customers
German North Sea Wind Production on the Rise
Offshore wind power plants in Germany's North Sea produced 5.15 percent more electricity from January to June than in the same period in 2017 at 8.17 terawatt hours (TWh), TenneT, the grid operator for the region, said on Thursday.On the day of highest capacity use, TenneT said 4,431 megawatts (MW) were tapped. This is equivalent to four to five big nuclear plants, or 44.4 percent of Germany's existing nuclear reactor total.North Sea wind accounted for 15.1 percent of total German wind production in that period, although that is not a fixed number because it depends on weather patterns.If a
Norway Awards Oil Permits to 11 Firms in Arctic Licensing Round
; Oil and Energy Minister Terje Soeviknes said in a statement.Equinor, formerly known as Statoil, was awarded five licences and will participate as a non-operating participant in a further two.Shell, Aker BP, Lundin, OMV and Spirit Energy, a Norwegian joint venture between Britain's Centrica and Germany's Bayerngas, were also offered operatorships.Licence operators determine exploration programs and sign contracts with suppliers, in coordination with partners.In addition, DEA, Idemitsu, M Vest Energy, VNG and Wintershall were awarded participating interest.Norway's center-right government
Nord Stream 2 Dredging Starting Off German Coast
A consortium of western companies and Russia's Gazprom that is due to build the controversial subsea Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline to Germany said on Tuesday it was starting preparatory work in the Greifswald bay off Germany's Baltic coast."Five dredgers are now working on the trench for the two pipeline strings," the consortium, based in Switzerland's Zug, said in a press release. Nord Stream 2 will consist of two pipelines running in parallel."Preparatory works are in accordance with the Stralsund mining authority's planning approval," it said. The regulatory authority
Subsea’s Future is Blowin’ in the Wind
;rsted (formerly DONG Energy) has roots in the oil and gas industry that go back to the early 1970s. Today, the company is completely focused on clean renewable energy and is the world’s largest offshore wind farm company, with projects in operation or under development in Denmark, the U.K., Germany, the Netherlands, the U.S. and Taiwan. Needless to say, the company has a large number of wind turbines in operation, all of which will require inspection throughout the life of the equipment.David-Lee Jones, Ørsted’s senior technical project lead, said that when conducting wind turbine
Nord Stream 2 Seeks Alternative Route to Avoid Danish Waters
its Baltic coast and its parliament may pass legislation allowing it to veto the Nord Stream 2 pipeline going through Danish territorial waters on security grounds.Russia is keen to press ahead with the Nord Stream 2 pipeline since it has the potential to double its gas exports under the Baltic Sea to Germany, bypassing traditional routes through Ukraine with which it has poor relations.The Danish government has come under fierce lobbying by Russia, EU allies and the United States over the 9.5 billion euro ($10.9 billion) Nord Stream 2 project led by Gazprom and financed by five Western firms. The United
Arkona Offshore Wind Farm Comes Online
in the Arkona wind project represents a milestone in the market of renewable energy and we are proud to participate together with E.ON and the transmission system operator 50Hertz. Arkona is Equinor’s fourth wind farm coming online in Europe since 2012 and supplements the delivery of energy to Germany. It is yet another important contribution to Equinor’s ambitious strategy, where the company is developing from a focused oil and gas company to a broad energy major, building on our extensive offshore experience and more than 40 years as one of the largest energy providers in Europe,&rdquo
MultiBeam EchoSounder Enables First-of-its-kind Research
lead seafloor methane hydrate deposits to dissociate, which would result in a greater volume of methane released in the ocean, and potentially reaching the atmosphere, and therefore causing a high risk for humanity.Scholars at the MARUM Center for Marine Environmental Sciences, University of Bremen, Germany, and the University of Washington in Seattle are working on a project initiated in 2017 called M3, funded by the German Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) that monitors the natural release of methane at the Southern Hydrate Ridge (SHR) off the coast of Oregon State.This real-time monitoring
Environmentalists File Second Complaint to Block Nord Stream 2
Environmental campaign group ClientEarth has filed a complaint with a court in Sweden to block the construction through Swedish waters of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline intended to transport Russian gas to Germany, it said on Wednesday.Sweden approved the pipeline in June, but ClientEarth's complaint argues that the Swedish Ministry of Enterprise and Innovation failed to consider the impact the project would have on wildlife in the Baltic Sea.The work involves detonating World War Two bombs on the sea floor along the project's 510 km route in Sweden and ClientEarth said that could cause
Looking to the Future of Satellite-derived Bathymetry
More than 45 delegates from more than 15 countries around the world gathered in Germany for the first international Satellite-Derived Bathymetry Day (SDB Day) organized by EOMAP on June 6-7 to anticipate what’s to come for SDB technology in the next years and revealed future opportunities for providers and users.EOMAP CEO, Dr. Thomas Heege, commented, “The support for the SDB Day was fantastic. All relevant institutions – hydrographic offices, marine industry, service providers and research institutes – picked up on the themes of capabilities, data integration, requirements and
Shell Ocean Discovery XPrize Field Pared to 9
dive into Round 2, we are looking forward to testing the finalists’ technologies in a rigorous real-world world situation that will demonstrate their ability to rapidly map the ocean floor at 4,000 meter depths,” said Dr. Virmani. The final nine teams include: ARGGONAUTS (Germany) Led by Gunnar Brink, the team is creating two swarms: one swarm in the deep-sea and one on the ocean surface. Five or more intelligent deep-sea robot drones will be accompanied and supported by the same number of autonomous catamarans for geo-referencing, retrieval and transport.
Top Five Trends in Offshore Wind
to the central scenario, or by as much as 99 GW in the high scenario. The majority of offshore wind installations will occur in the North Sea, with almost 48 GW installed by 2030 in the central scenario. In the Baltic Sea, where 1.5 GW of offshore wind is online today, projects in Poland, Estonia, Germany, Denmark and Sweden could add 9 GW installed by 2030. In the Atlantic Sea, where there is almost no capacity today, close to 8 GW could be reached thanks to installations in France, the U.K. and, on a smaller scale, Portugal. The U.K. will also install the majority of the capacity in the Irish Sea
Switch from Leaded Petrol has Reduced Ocean Pollution
waters of European shelf seas compared to measurements undertaken two to three decades ago, following the phase-out of leaded petrol in Europe over the same time period.This finding is the result of an international collaboration by researchers from the National Oceanography Centre (NOC), GEOMAR (Germany), the Universities of Edinburgh, Southampton, Plymouth (UK) and Bretagne Occidentale (France), NIOZ (Netherlands) and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (USA).Stricter environmental regulations have reduced lead emissions into the environment, and leaded petrol has now been almost entirely phased
Taiwan: The Next Battleground for Offshore Wind
energy in a region prone to earthquakes.For developers in Europe, where expanding offshore wind projects particularly in the North Sea has driven down costs, Taiwan is seen as a route into Asian markets, such as Japan and South Korea, where the technology is still barely used.Denmark's Orsted and Germany's wpd were Monday's biggest winners, securing contracts to install 900 MW and 1 GW of capacity, respectively."We see Taiwan as a stepping stone into Asia-Pacific," said Matthias Bausenwein, the regional general manager for Orsted, the world's largest owner of offshore wind
New Species Found in the North Sea
Experts from the Alfred Wegener Institute and the Universities of Oldenburg and Potsdam, Germany have confirmed the existence of a new cryptic amphipod species in the North Sea.For the first time for the description of a new species, they used a level of mitogenomic information, which was normally applied in other areas of genetics. The discovery of Epimeria frankei was now published in the journal Scientific Reports. In the future, this level of molecular information could revolutionize biodiversity research.Reports of "new species" in the North Sea, usually relate to animals or algae that
