North American Lobster Industry Confronts 'Ropeless' Traps After Whale Entanglements
An emerging technology to fish for lobsters virtually ropeless to prevent whale entanglements is exciting conservationists, but getting a frigid reception from harvesters worried it will drive them out of business and upend their way of life.Injuries to endangered North Atlantic Right Whales ensnared in fishing gear have fueled a prominent campaign by environmental groups to pressure the industry to adopt on-demand equipment that only suspends ropes in the water briefly before traps are pulled from the water.The Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch…
UMaine Developing Offshore Wind Turbines
Universtiy of Maine's Advanced Structures & Composites Center granted up to $4 million to fund offshore windmill project. Habib Dagher, the director of the Advanced Structures and Composites Center, is busy planning the first phase of a “potential $93.2 million deepwater offshore wind demonstration project by the U.S. Department of Energy. The DOE held a competition to screen proposals for clean energy that would jumpstart wind farms in the United States. Seventy competitors submitted proposals for a chance to receive funding for their development of offshore wind energy.
Test of Floating Wind Turbine at US Site Next Year
A report by Christine Parrish in 'The Free Press informs that' the testing of a floating deep water wind turbine that was scheduled to take place two miles off Monhegan Island this summer has been postponed until 2013, according to Habib Dagher, the director of the University of Maine AEWC Advanced Structures and Composites Center. Dagher is at the forefront of an effort to develop deep water wind farms 20 to 40 miles off the coast in the Gulf of Maine. Dagher said that some permits were still pending for the Monhegan site, but that he expected them to be approved in the next two to three months, which will push the launch date to next summer. The turbine will be deployed at the test site for four months, then removed.
