DSD to Pay $2.5 Mln for Illegal Oil Discharging
The Norwegian shipping company DSD Shipping (DSD) was sentenced to pay a total corporate penalty of $2.5 million as a result of its convictions in Mobile, Alabama, for obstructing justice, violating the Act to Prevent Pollution from Ships (APPS), tampering with witnesses and conspiring to commit these offenses. The company was ordered to pay $500,000 of the penalty to the Dauphin Island Sea Lab Foundation to fund marine research and enhance coastal habitats in the Gulf of Mexico and Mobile Bay. In addition, DSD was placed on a three year term of probation and was ordered to implement an environmental compliance plan to ensure the company’s vessels obeyed domestic and international environmental regulations in the future. The sentence was announced by Assistant Attorney General John C.
Risk of Hurricanes to Offshore Wind Turbines Quantified
In a research paper recently published in the proceedings of the US National Academy of Sciences measures to improve design of wind turbine installations were recommended by the authors in the following abstract of their research. The U.S. Department of Energy has estimated that if the United States is to generate 20% of its electricity from wind, over 50 GW will be required from shallow offshore turbines. Hurricanes are a potential risk to these turbines. Turbine tower buckling has been observed in typhoons, but no offshore wind turbines have yet been built in the United States. We present a probabilistic model to estimate the number of turbines that would be destroyed by hurricanes in an offshore wind farm.
Abu Dhabi, Bahrain Navy Contract
Abu Dhabi Ship Building has been awarded a contract to build four landing craft for the Bahrain Naval Forces. The multi-million dollar contract was won in the face of competition from international shipyards. This is the second Bahraini order for Abu Dhabi Ship Building (ADSB), the only dedicated naval shipbuilding and repair facility in the Arabian Gulf. The new contract, awarded by the Kingdom of Bahrain Defense Force, is for the construction of two 42-metre steel landing craft and two 16-metre landing craft made of composite materials.
