Saturday, December 21, 2024

Biden Administration Approves Eleventh U.S. Offshore Wind Project

The Biden administration in its final weeks approved the 11th offshore wind farm project (file photo)

Racing to put the offshore wind industry on a sound footing before the close of the Biden administration, the Department of the Interior today approved what will become the eleventh large-scale offshore wind farm off the coastal United States. The project known as SouthCoast Wind will generate 2.4 GW of offshore wind energy for Massachusetts and Rhode Island. The notice of availability of the Joint Record of Decision comes after Massachusetts issued approvals in October and the two states selected the project for long-term power contracts.

The project which is being developed by OW Ocean Winds, a joint venture partnership between EDP Renewables and ENGIE, won its lease in 2018 and was originally known as Mayflower Wind. The project area covers just over 127,000 acres and will be about 26 nautical miles south of Martha’s Vineyard and 20 nautical miles south of Nantucket, Massachusetts.

The project, as approved, includes the construction of up to 141 wind turbine generators and up to five offshore substation platforms located at a maximum of 143 positions, and up to eight offshore export cables. The Department of Interior highlights however, the approval removes up to six wind turbine positions in the northeastern portion of the Lease Area to reduce potential impacts on foraging habitat and potential displacement of wildlife from the habitat adjacent to Nantucket Shoals.

The Department says it has worked to meet the moment to grow a clean energy economy that is strengthening the nation’s power grid and creating good-paying jobs across construction, manufacturing, shipbuilding, and more. With this approval, it highlights it has now approved more than 19 gigawatts of offshore wind energy.

“When we walked in the door of this administration, there were zero approved, commercial-scale offshore wind projects in federal waters,” said Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland. “Today, I am proud to celebrate our 11th approval… we are addressing the climate crisis, creating jobs, and building an enduring economy that supports all communities.”

The incoming Trump administration has not yet declared its policy on offshore wind, but Donald Trump spoke openly against offshore wind power development during the campaign. His first administration was accused of slow-walking the approval process. The belief however is that the administration will not attempt to revoke approvals issued by its predecessors.

The approval of the new project for Massachusetts and Rhode Island came as Connecticut which had partnered with the states on the last solicitation confirmed today the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) closed its solicitation for offshore wind resources without selecting any bids. The other states selected 2,878 MW of offshore wind projects in early September. Connecticut officials did not announce a specific reason for not proceeding with offshore wind energy but Governor Ned Lamont spoke of the need for affordable energy. He pointed to the ongoing projects including offshore wind while saying it was a “pass for now” on future projects as each state takes its own course in renewable energy.

Connecticut reportedly received four proposals in the joint solicitation. Officials held out the possibility that the state would explore offshore wind energy again in the future.

Genting’s Resorts World Emerges as Buyer of P&O Australia Cruise Ship

The Genting Group is continuing its efforts to re-establish its cruise operations reporting it will add a third cruise ship in March 2025. The company relaunched cruise operations under the Resorts World Cruises banner in 2022 after the bankruptcy of Genting Hong Kong ended its Dream Cruises and Star Cruises in Asia as well as Crystal Cruises in the international market.

The 77,441 gross ton cruise ship to be named Star Scorpio is being acquired from Carnival Corporation’s P&O Australia cruise operation. Carnival announced in 2024 its plans to sunset the famed P&O brand in Australia ending a historic link that dated to the 1800s. P&O provided liner service and transported immigrants from England to Australia and was one of the pioneers in the Australian cruise market.

The cruise ship, which was built in 1997 by Fincantieri as the Dawn Princess for U.S.-based Princess Cruises, has been operating from Australia since 2017 as the Pacific Explorer. As part of the end of the brand in Australia, Carnival reported the ship had been sold, but the buyer had not been identified. The other two larger cruise ships sailing for P&O Australia will be transferred in March 2025 to Carnival Cruise Line.

Resorts World announced today it will relaunch the ship in March 2025 as the third cruise ship in its fleet. Before starting operations it is scheduled for a $50 million renovation and upgrade in Singapore. The plan calls for a unique program that will see the ship based in Singapore, but passengers will also be able to begin their cruises from the other ports which include stops in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam.

The cruise line highlights it will become the first to homeport a cruise ship offering affordable international cruises from Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. The port has emerged in recent years as a stop for cruises, but lines have not been marketing it to travelers as a homeport for embarkation. Resorts World offers a similar option in Singapore and Malaysia with its first cruise ship Genting Dream.

“Star Scorpio’s dual homeport in Singapore with different countries in Asia will offer Indonesians, Thais, Malaysians, and Vietnamese round-trip cruises from their ports during their peak holiday periods without the need to fly to another country,” said Michael Goh, President of Resorts World Cruises. “For Vietnam, Star Scorpio will be the first cruise ship to homeport in Ho Chi Minh City, allowing Vietnamese to enjoy affordable cruises to Singapore and Melaka.”

This winter season, Resorts World has also expanded its cruise offering to Dubai for the first time. Its second ship, Resorts World One commenced her first sailing from the UAE on November 1, 2024, and is sailing from the Port Rashid Cruise Terminal 2 in Dubai three times a week to the Gulf destinations. In April 2025, the cruise ship will return to Taiwan for another season of cruising.

Genting Malaysia owns the rights to the Resorts World brand. It operates eight resort casinos around the world, including in Malaysia, the Bahamas, the U.S., and the UK as well as casinos in the UK. Resorts World has over 46 properties in eight countries and now three cruise ships.

Salvage Efforts Refloat Canada's Beloved Storybook Tugboat Theodore TOO

Theodore TOO tug submerged — "I had a mishap," Theodore TOO wrote on social media. "I am resting on my belly." (Canadian TV on YouTube)

A team of salvage experts that included divers and even the Canadian Coast Guard rushed this week to the rescue of an iconic tugboat after the little vessel suddenly took on water and partially submerged at the Ontario Shipyard in Port Weller. Used to promote the maritime industry and water conservation, the little vessel won the hearts of Canadians as a replica of a famous TV storybook character.

The tugboat named Theodore TOO developed a loyal following so much so that Nova Scotia’s premier weighed in on social media after the news of the vessel sinking. Built in 2000 in Nova Scotia, the 65-foot (20-meter) vessel is a replica of Theodore Tugboat the title character of an animated children’s TV show that ran from 1993 to 2001. The show was aired by the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) in the United States and appeared in more than 80 countries around the world.

The tugboat is iconic owing to its unique hull and wheelhouse which are made entirely of wood, with a fiberglass hat and smokestack. A replica of the character, it has a “face” on the wheelhouse, with large hydraulic eyes that however are no longer operational.

Theodore TOO back on an even keel on Friday (Theodore TOO's social media)

“I don’t want to alarm you, but I had a mishap yesterday and took on some water while floating alongside a dock in the Ontario Shipyard in Port Weller,” they wrote on the official social media account of the tug on Wednesday. “I am resting safely on my belly in the mud,” they wrote, but a day later updated it to say, “Wow! After an eventful couple of days, I’m so happy to let you know I’m back afloat!”

Blair McKeil, the owner of Theodore TOO and head of the Canadian investment firm Breakwater Financial said that although the cause of the partial sinking has not been established, a team of salvors worked diligently and quickly to safely right the tugboat and refloat it with utmost care.

“People across the country hold this little tugboat dear, and we will do everything possible to keep everyone informed of our progress. Rest assured, measures have been taken to mitigate any potential environmental impact,” said McKeil.

For two decades, the tugboat that was owned by Canadian sightseeing company Ambassatours Gray Line made over 50 city tours in Halifax and was a local tourist attraction. In July 2020, the company put the tugboat up for sale citing the effects of COVID-19 on local tourism, decline in bookings for harbor cruises, and high maintenance costs. The listed price of the vessel was C$495,000. There was an uproar over the possible loss of the iconic vessel.

In 2021, McKeil purchased Theodore TOO to serve as an ambassador for the Maritimes and a champion of Canada's marine industry. The tugboat’s mission includes raising awareness about the diverse, inclusive employment opportunities that drive Canada's marine sector, advocating for clean water strategies, and focusing on the restoration and protection of the country's waterways and the Great Lakes.

Since his purchase and relocated it to Ontario, Theodore TOO has visited more than 20 ports along the St. Lawrence River, Lake Ontario, Lake Erie, and in the U.S. brightening the faces of local communities. Its home is currently the Port of Hamilton on Lake Ontario, McKeil said there is more to do to save the little boat he said it would be back in top shape soon.

Tough Regulations for Ships as EU Moves to Contain Plastic Pellet Pollution

plastic pellets nurdles — Plastic pellets (nurdles) are a major source of pollution in the oceans and shorelines (Greenpeace photo)

Europe is taking measures to tackle the challenges of plastic pellet pollution with the drafting of regulations that specifically set tough obligations for ocean-going vessels. The targeting of maritime transport is due to the fact that the sector accounts for around 38 percent of all pellets transported in the European Union (EU), with cases of pollution by seagoing vessels remaining high.

The European Council contends that plastic pellet losses to the environment are the third largest source of all unintentional microplastic releases, with 50,000 to 180,000 tonnes of pellets accidentally released into the environment annually. A huge amount is released during loading or unloading operations or due to leaky containers, with the impacts being detrimental to marine life, human health, and the environment said the EC members.

Research has shown that pellets comprise about 70 percent of the plastic eaten by seabirds, with small plastic particles being found in the stomachs of 63 of the world’s approximately 250 species of seabirds.

It has also been established that by weight, plastic pellets are the second largest direct source of microplastic marine pollution with billions of individual pellets entering the ocean every year.?This is due to both small and large-scale losses and spillages occurring on land and sea during all stages of the supply chain, especially while they are in transit.

The rising hazard of pellet pollution has prompted the EU to toughen regulations with the aim of preventing and reducing the unintentional release of plastic pellets into the environment during production, transport, and processing. The sponsors assert that draft regulations could reduce plastic losses to the environment by up to 74 percent.

Among the latest high-profile cases is the Maersk-chartered containership Toconao which lost containers overboard a year ago off the northern coast of Spain. Six containers fell from the Liberian-flagged boxship, with one containing at least 25,000 kilograms of white plastic pellets that washed ashore on Spanish beaches igniting an environmental and political storm. Similarly, the plastics also known as nurdles were a major source of pollution when the X-Press Pearl burnt and sank off Sri Lanka in 2021.

The new regulations specifically introduce strict obligations for sea-going vessels. To tackle plastic pellet pollution by maritime transport, the EU is laying down requirements for both EU and non-EU carriers. This includes carriers ensuring that pellets are packed in good quality packaging that is strong enough to withstand shocks and prevent any loss, providing information on containers containing pellets to the relevant authorities and agencies, and ensuring their staff are well-trained.

Operators and masters of sea-going vessels will also be required to ensure that containers containing plastic pellets are stowed under deck wherever reasonably practicable, or inboard in sheltered areas of exposed decks. In both cases, such containers must be secured to minimize hazards to the marine environment without impairing safety.

The regulations also set out measures for prevention, containment, and clean-up as well as the equipment that carriers are required to have on board when transporting pellets. When adopted into law, the maritime industry will have a one-year grace period to comply.

Commercial tea bags release millions of microplastics when in use

Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona

Plastic waste pollution represents a critical environmental challenge with increasing implications for the well-being and health of future generations. Food packaging is a major source of micro and nanoplastic (MNPLs) contamination and inhalation and ingestion is the main route of human exposure.

A study by the Mutagenesis Group of the UAB Department of Genetics and Microbiology has successfully obtained and characterised micro and nanoplastics derived from several types of commercially available tea bags. The UAB researchers observed that when these tea bags are used to prepare an infusion, huge amounts of nano-sized particles and nanofilamentous structures are released, which is an important source of exposure to MNPLs.

The tea bags used for the research were made from the polymers nylon-6, polypropylene and cellulose. The study shows that, when brewing tea, polypropylene releases approximately 1.2 billion particles per milliliter, with an average size of 136.7 nanometres; cellulose releases about 135 million particles per milliliter, with an average size of 244 nanometres; while nylon-6 releases 8.18 million particles per milliliter, with an average size of 138.4 nanometres.

To characterise the different types of particles present in the infusion, a set of advanced analytical techniques such as scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), infrared spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR), dynamic light scattering (DLS), laser Doppler velocimetry (LDV), and nanoparticle tracking analysis (NTA) were used. “We have managed to innovatively characterise these pollutants with a set of cutting-edge techniques, which is a very important tool to advance research on their possible impacts on human health,” remarks UAB researcher Alba Garcia.

Interactions with human cells observed for the first time

The particles were stained and exposed for the first time to different types of human intestinal cells to assess their interaction and possible cellular internalisation. The biological interaction experiments showed that mucus-producing intestinal cells had the highest uptake of micro and nanoplastics, with the particles even entering the cell nucleus that houses the genetic material. The result suggests a key role for intestinal mucus in the uptake of these pollutant particles and underscores the need for further research into the effects that chronic exposure can have on human health.

“It is critical to develop standardised test methods to assess MNPLs contamination released from plastic food contact materials and to formulate regulatory policies to effectively mitigate and minimise this contamination. As the use of plastic in food packaging continues to increase, it is vital to address MNPLs contamination to ensure food safety and protect public health”, researchers add.

The study was developed under the framework of the European project PlasticHeal (https://www.plasticheal.eu/en), coordinated by, Alba Hernández lecturer in the Department of Genetics and Microbiology at the UAB. Researchers from the UAB Mutagenesis Group Alba García-Rodríguez, Ricard Marcos and Gooya Banaei, first author of the research article, were also involved in the study, with the collaboration of researchers from the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research in Leipzig, Germany.

Journal

Chemosphere

DOI

10.1016/j.chemosphere.2024.143736

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Teabag-derived micro/nanoplastics (true-to-life MNPLs) as a surrogate for real-life exposure scenarios

Heterogeneity in host populations drives the evolution of more virulent pathogens

The Graduate University for Advanced Studies, SOKENDAI

(Figure 1) Contrast between idealized homogeneous and realistic heterogeneous metapopulations Caption — image:
Contrast between idealized homogeneous and realistic heterogeneous metapopulations
view more
Credit: ©SOKENDAI, AIST, OIST

The evolution of pathogens has received attention in a wide range of scientific fields, such as epidemiology, demography, and evolutionary ecology. Understanding pathogen evolution is particularly urgent for rapidly evolving pathogens, such as SARS-CoV-2, which has spread globally since 2019. Classical evolutionary theory states that virulence evolves to maximize a pathogen’s basic reproduction ratio, i.e., the average number of secondary infections caused by one infected host. This approach provides insights into how pathogen virulence evolves under tradeoffs with other epidemiological parameters such as the rates of infection and recovery. Over time, the classical theory has been extended to a variety of ecological and epidemiological contexts.

Despite these advancements, most models continue to assume homogeneous host populations, thereby neglecting the impacts of all environmental heterogeneity. In reality, however, ecosystems often represent interconnected local populations that experience different local conditions, as described by ecological metapopulation theory (Figure 1). Moreover, the movement patterns of host individuals connecting these local populations also tend to be heterogeneous, and such imbalances in movement among local populations creates a “source-sink” structure, with some populations (sources) creating a net outflow and other populations (sinks) receiving a net inflow. To address this gap, we have developed an evo-eco-epidemiological metapopulation model to investigate how heterogeneity in local environments and movement networks influences the evolution of pathogen virulence and infectivity, providing new insights into the evolution of pathogens in diverse ecological contexts.

Our analyses reveal that pathogen virulence consistently increases in metapopulations with heterogeneous local conditions. Even with modest heterogeneities (10% variation) in host movement rates, birth rates, carrying capacities, or immunity-loss rates, the evolved virulence is, on average, 20% higher—and up to 40% higher—compared to homogeneous metapopulations (Figure 2).

Why does environmental heterogeneity drive the evolution of higher pathogen virulence and infectiousness? Through perturbation-expansion methods and evolutionary dynamical analysis, we have uncovered the underlying general mechanism. Heterogeneity creates variation across local populations in the availability of uninfected hosts, which serve as resources for pathogens in their quest to infect new hosts, and it is ultimately this variation that promotes the evolution of more virulent pathogens. For instance, in local populations with higher carrying capacity, host density is elevated, creating a “richer” environment that favors aggressive pathogens. These pathogens cause more severe symptoms, are more highly infectious, and exploit their hosts more rapidly. In contrast, in local populations with lower carrying capacity, host density is diminished, which is limiting the availability of uninfected hosts. Here, milder pathogens are favored evolutionarily, as they can better persist under such resource-scarce conditions.

However, these opposing local evolutionary trends do not balance out in the evolution of pathogens across a metapopulation. Pathogens in resource-rich populations produce more infections and contribute more significantly to the gene pool of the metapopulation, and thus have higher evolutionary importance. This results in an evolutionary bias toward higher virulence, as the selection for aggressive pathogens outweighs the selection for milder ones. Consequently, environmental heterogeneity consistently drives the evolution of higher pathogen virulence across metapopulations (Figure 3).

This study establishes a foundation for understanding pathogen evolution in heterogeneous metapopulations, paving the way for various extensions, such as continuously spatially structured host populations, distributed public-health interventions, and diverse pathogen-transmission modes, including zoonoses and vector-borne infections.