'DEEPWATER MOBILE OIL RIGS IN THE EXCLUSIVE ECONOMIC ZONE
AND THE UNCERTAINTY OF COASTAL STATE JURISDICTION'
This research article does a great job explaining to US 99% of WE THE PEOPLE the attack of such multi-national presence on our US sovereignty unfolds in US Federal courts vs global corporate tribunal courts. BUSH/JINDAL just as today's O'MALLEY/HOGAN are deliberately using their states to create PRECEDENCE for the use of global tribunal courts over our SOVEREIGN US FEDERAL COURTS. We watched as BP took their case to global court while US citizens had absolutely no voice -----were taken yet again of tens of billions of dollars in cleanup---and that $20 billion settlement as with the same $20 billion settlement for trillions of dollars in subprime mortgage loan frauds----went right back to that foreign global energy corporation ---BP.
There is NO UNCERTAINTY-------all this is an illegal attack on our US sovereignty pushed by CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA now Trump working for OLD WORLD KINGS AND KINGS global banking 1%.
We are being told the US no longer has the engineering companies to build wind farms----to build bridge tunnels----to drill off coast for oil ------this means we are on par with AFRICA and all other third world nations unable to perform basic industrial activities.
DEEPWATER MOBILE OIL RIGS IN THE EXCLUSIVE ECONOMIC ZONE
AND THE UNCERTAINTY OF COASTAL STATE JURISDICTION
Rebecca K. Richards*
I.
INTRODUCTION
The involvement of a deep water mobile oil rig in the April 2010 BP oil spill
disaster in the United States exclusive economic zone ("EEZ") in the Gulf
of Mexico forcefully demonstrated the potential that deep water mobile
oil rigs have to cause catastrophic harm to the coastal state in ways
not presented by fixed oil rigs operating in shallow water.'
Though coastal states have this great risk of catastrophic harm, their plenary
jurisdiction over deep water mobile oil rigs is currently uncertain.
The vagueness of coastal state jurisdictional authority over these rigs
unacceptably increases the risk of accidents, as seen with the BP Deepwater
Horizon spill. In the event of an accident, the coastal state bears both the brunt of the harm and the majority of the clean-up responsibility; however, under current practice, it does not have the plenary authority to completely regulate the drilling and production operations that occur above the waterline on deep water mobile oil rigs operating in the EEZ.
This note argues that coastal state jurisdiction over deep water mobile oil
rigs must become more certain. As oil rigs operate farther from the coastal state into deeper water, the potential for catastrophic harm increases because of the high oil flow rates, the large amount of oil, and the spill's distance from the coastline.' This incongruity exists, in part, because international law
fails to clearly define and categorize deep water mobile oil rigs in a way that
assures coastal states complete jurisdiction.
For example, BP's leased oil rig, the Deepwater Horizon, was operating in
the U.S. EEZ, but was registered in the Marshall Islands and treated as a
vessel, subject to the Islands' exclusive jurisdiction.
______________________________________________
The article we shared of MARYLAND'S offshore wind farm tied to nothing but criminal global banking 1% and foreign corporations asks why would Maryland build such complex structures offshore already knowing it will be a financial albatross and useless in GREEN ENERGY when they had plenty of land to build ordinary wind platforms. The answer is the GOAL-----the intent is to usurp our US sovereignty in territorial waters and continental shelf and open the excuse to bring global mercenary security and policing that 99% of US citizens in states all along US coastline will have absolutely no control and will be drained personally and as taxpayers in efforts to attain common utilities and food.
'The vagueness of coastal state jurisdictional authority over these rigs unacceptably increases the risk of accidents,as seen with the BP Deepwater Horizon spill'.
THIS IS THE COLONIAL EAST INDIA CORPORATION MEETS THE BRITISH/FRENCH ROYAL NAVIES ON STEROIDS.
What we already know is below-----these offshore platforms---whether oil, natural gas, massive solar or wind platforms, or global seafood farming platforms all have a goal of claiming SOVEREIGN RIGHTS separate from those whose coastlines they are allowed to build.
So, China as a sovereign nation is very forcefully protecting its EEZ 200 MILES and it is using the installation of OIL RIG SOVEREIGNTY to invade the sovereignty of neighboring nations very mad about this. Why do US 99% WE THE PEOPLE simply sit back and allow for what a VIETNAM fights?
WE KEEP THINKING CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA ARE AMERICAN WHEN THEY HAVE ALWAYS PLEDGED TO SERVE OLD WORLD MERCHANTS OF VENICE GLOBAL 1%.
1 Year Later: Reflections on China's Oil Rig 'Sovereignty-Making' in the South China Sea
What is the long-term significance of China’s decision to move an oil rig into Vietnam’s exclusive economic zone in May 2014?
By Ankit Panda
May 12, 2015
One year ago, China’s state-owned China National Offshore Oil Company (CNOOC) moved an exploratory oil rig, Haiyang Shiyou 981 (HD-981), worth an estimated $1 billion, into waters within Vietnam’s exclusive economic zone. The incident sparked a major bilateral crisis between the two countries—both of whom claim the disputed Paracel Islands. In hindsight, the event marked the start of China’s attempts to change the status quo in the South China Sea by committing its civilian and non-military assets to disputed areas.
The timeline of the HD-981 stand-off was recently featured in the U.S. Department of Defense’s 2015 report on China’s military. On May 3, 2014, Hainan province’s Maritime Safety Administration declared that the oil rig would begin drilling operations off the disputed Paracel Islands, ending in August that year. The next day, Vietnam’s government protested the Chinese announcement. China declared a 3 nautical mile security radius around the oil rig, far exceeding the 500 meter safety zone state parties to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea are entitled to under that treaty.
Beginning May 11, Vietnam erupted in anti-China protests. The protests resulted in Chinese businesses being harassed and attacked; several foreign-owned factories were damaged as part of the protests. The Vietnamese media featured incidents off Vietnam’s coast involving Chinese coast guard ships and Vietnamese fishing vessels colliding. China had deployed civilian fishing vessels, coast guard ships, and a limited number of People’s Liberation Army Navy assets to protect the waters around HD-981. On May 26, a Vietnamese fishing boat capsized after colliding with a Chinese fishing boat. Ultimately, China evacuated its citizens from Vietnam after two of its citizens died during the protests.
In June, in an attempt to defuse tensions, Chinese State Councilor Yang Jiechi visited Vietnam for a frosty visit with Vietnamese officials, including the Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh and Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung. The visit led to little concrete progress on the dispute, but prevented escalation. Dung remained adamant that China’s actions violated Vietnam’s territorial integrity and sovereignty. Pham, for his part, traveled to the United States later in the year. When he returned to Hanoi, he returned with an assurance that the United State’s long-standing arms embargo against Vietnam would be lifted, specifically for equipment that would help Vietnam improve its maritime safety. The HD-981 incident gave U.S.-Vietnam relations a helpful jolt.
At the time, The Diplomat featured several takes on China’s logic in sending HD-981 into the contested waters. Carl Thayer described the incident as “unexpected, provocative, and illegal.” I explored the reasons the move made strategic sense for Beijing. Dingding Chen claimed that the deployment of the rig was “not a strategic mistake” for China. After China withdrew the rig, in July, sooner than anticipated per the Maritime Safety Administration’s announcement, Thayer offered an analysis, suggesting that political pressure and geopolitical considerations forced China’s hand. He added that the incident and Vietnam’s response suggested that Hanoi had demonstrated resolve in the face of Chinese assertiveness. (Meanwhile, Robert Farley cautioned against over-emphasizing reputational costs in understanding the crisis.) Other commentators suggested that the early withdrawal suggested a “recalibration” of China’s policy.
The HD-981 incident will remain a case study in China’s approach to asserting its territorial claims in the South China Sea. Of course, since May 2014, we’ve seen that the extent of China’s ambitions in its near seas is growing. For example, the topic du jour here at The Diplomat these days seems to be China’s massive land reclamation activities in the Spratly and Paracel Islands. HD-981 was by no means the “beginning” of China’s assertiveness in the South China Sea, but it was a clear inflection point. A year later, China’s relations with Vietnam have somewhat recovered, but they won’t be back to the pre-May 2014 “normal” anytime soon. Vietnam’s skepticism of China’s South China Sea intentions has become more of a driver of its foreign and security policy than ever before. For Hanoi, everything changed last summer.
____________________________________________
Global tribunal courts have been used throughout these few decades of CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA------they installed TRANS PACIFIC TRADE PACT as they were writing it while national media allows these global banking 1% pols and players PRETEND they are fighting against all this. TPP is what made Baltimore a third world ghetto -----it was installed during REAGAN/CLINTON as MOVING FORWARD. TPP is what allows global Wall Street to openly fleece our US Treasury and US citizens' pockets with the 99% US citizens having no ability to attain justice through courts and lawyers.
So, when BP went to court---it went to global tribunal court-----when GOLDMAN SACHS went to court it went to global tribunal court----not our US Federal/state court system. The US state attorney's like Maryland's FROSH are working with global tribunal courts in international law---they are not working to defend our sovereign rights as citizens or our US sovereign territorial and EEZ waters. This is why a MARYLAND state attorney FROSH is a cheerleader to sovereign bond debt fraud and a cheerleader for offshore global corporate industrial platform development and he will defend that global corporation against loss or threat of removal without thinking of defending our US citizens' sovereign rights or the sovereign rights of our state or US cities.
IN MARYLAND OUR FAKE ALT RIGHT ALT LEFT GROUPS AND 5% PLAYERS WON'T EVEN MENTION TPP----SOVEREIGN RIGHTS----BECAUSE WE ARE CAPTURED HERE IN BALTIMORE BY GLOBAL HEDGE FUND IVY LEAGUE JOHNS HOPKINS TIED TO GLOBAL INVESTMENT FIRM CARLYLE GROUP TIED TO OLD WORLD MERCHANTS OF VENICE GLOBAL 1% BANKING.
Remember, Baltimore is home of STAR SPANGLED BANNER -----bombs bursting in air ---fighting to keep those EAST INDIA CORPORATIONS and ROYALS out of our territorial waters. So, too was CHARLESTON quite the battle to defend its territorial waters from these same foreign entities.
Here we see the discussion back in 2002 as all these public policies surrounding global tribunal courts came with Clinton's installation of NAFTA
RELATED: Economy & Work
NAFTA logo
Trading Democracy
February 1, 2002
The Secret Tribunals That Corporations Use to Sue Countries
These ad hoc courts are a main reason why so many politicians and activists are against trade agreements like the TPP.
By Haley Edwards | September 19, 2016
Demonstrators protesting against the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) are seen on Pennsylvania Avenue, near the White House, on Sept. 24, 2013 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images)
This is an excerpt from the newly published book Shadow Courts: The Tribunals that Rule Global Trade by Haley Edwards.
The environmental activist Jane Kleeb was driving down Highway 281 near Lincoln, Nebraska, on a gray day in January 2016, when she got a call from a reporter.
At the time, Kleeb was still riding high off of her success organizing local farmers, ranchers and environmentalists in opposition to the Keystone XL Pipeline, which would have carried petroleum products from Canada’s tar sands across the Nebraska plains to the Gulf of Mexico. Thanks to her and other activists’ efforts, President Barack Obama had announced in November 2015 that his administration would deny the Canadian company TransCanada permission to move forward with the project, ending an eight-year-long effort to get the pipeline built.
The reporter was calling to ask Kleeb about a new twist in the saga. Earlier that day, TransCanada had announced it was suing the US government for $15 billion on the grounds that Obama’s decision to block the project violated the North American Free Trade Agreement. It was the first Kleeb had heard of the suit. “I’m an organizer, so my reaction was, ‘When are the hearings? Where is this happening? Who’s the judge?’” she said recently. If TransCanada was challenging the decision in court, she wanted to be there. Could she protest on the courthouse steps? Arrange for a rally in a nearby town?
In the last 20 years, the mechanism has quietly changed, evolving into something much more powerful — and very political indeed.But that, Kleeb learned, was not how this case would go down. TransCanada wasn’t suing the US in a US court, or in a Canadian court for that matter. Its argument would not be heard by a judge, and the merits of the case would not be considered under the auspices of either country’s legal system. There would be no protest on any courthouse steps. Instead, the case would be heard by a tribunal, manned by three private arbitrators, operating under a supranational legal system that Kleeb had never heard of. “It was totally strange,” she told me. “A foreign company can sue us in some secret tribunal? How is that even possible?”
Investor-state dispute settlement, or ISDS, first appeared in treaties in 1969. The idea behind the mechanism was straightforward: If a foreign investor believed that his host country — the nation where his company was operating had violated an international treaty by seizing or destroying his factories, oil fields or other assets, he could file an ISDS claim directly against that country. He could do that without involving his own government and without having to wait endlessly for a developing country’s corrupt or biased court system to dispense judgment.
By filing an ISDS claim, the investor would trigger the formation of a special arbitration tribunal, which would exist temporarily outside the jurisdiction of any nation’s judiciary or any international body. Its sole purpose would be to determine how much, if anything, the country owed the investor in compensation for property that had been seized or demolished. For example, in the late 1980s, the Sri Lankan government destroyed a British seafood company’s shrimp processing plant during a military raid on rebels. The British investor filed an ISDS claim, a tribunal was formed and the arbitrators determined that the Sri Lankan government must pay the company $460,000 in compensation for the destroyed plant. That was it. Case closed. The British company did not have to rely on Sri Lankan courts. The episode did not become a major diplomatic incident. The UK did not have to step in to defend its investors’ interests.
RELATED: Economy & Work
Trading DemocracyFebruary 1, 2002
And that was the whole point: ISDS was supposed to be a cool, efficient and apolitical dispute resolution system that kept powerful nations from interfering in the affairs of weaker countries, and that offered an extra layer of protection for foreign investors operating in countries with unreliable courts. But in the last 20 years, the mechanism has quietly changed, evolving into something much more powerful — and very political indeed.
One factor in this evolution is the explosion of new claims. Between the 1960s and 2000, ISDS was almost never used. Investors brought about 40 claims total in 40 years. Since 2000, there have been 647. In 2015 alone, there were 70 new cases. That uptick is partly because there are thousands more treaties today that include ISDS. For the last 25 years, countries have signed thousands of bilateral investment treaties, and beginning in the 1990s, nearly every new trade agreement, from NAFTA and Central American Free Trade Agreement to the Energy Charter, included a chapter on investment, complete with ISDS. In 1989, there were just a few hundred agreements that included ISDS. As of 2015, there were more than 3,000.
Another reason for the explosion of new claims is that the definition of what it means for a sovereign nation to seize or destroy a foreign company’s property, or otherwise violate an investor’s property rights under the terms of an investment treaty, has become much more expansive. Investors now regularly file claims if their host government passes a new law or regulation that results in even a partial loss of a company’s property or impinges in some way on its future profits. For example, in TransCanada’s ISDS claim against the US, it argues that President Obama’s decision to cancel the Keystone XL Pipeline violated NAFTA by expropriating the company’s expected future profits.
That modern interpretation has only cropped up in the last 20 years, but it has opened up a vast new gray area. Where ISDS claims were once about seized oil fields and bulldozed factories, now they are about tax increases and environmental regulations. Where is the line between a government’s right to regulate in the public interest and a foreign corporation’s claim to its own property?
Including the mechanism in the TPP and TTIP would forever alter the global legal landscape for investors.US trade negotiators are now working to include ISDS in as many new treaties as possible, including both of the massive new free trade deals coming down the pike. The Trans-Pacific Partnership, which President Obama signed in February 2016 and which Congress will likely ratify before he leaves office, already includes ISDS. Whether the mechanism will be inserted into the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, linking the US and Europe, is a subject of controversy. The question has already catalyzed something of an intellectual civil war in Europe, with the European Parliament recently rejecting, across party lines, any treaty that includes ISDS. Protesters opposed to it have swamped the streets in Berlin, Paris and Brussels and written hundreds of letters in opposition to what they see as the imposition of shadowy “corporate courts” that can be used to undermine laws and regulations and compromise national sovereignty.
US trade negotiators say such rhetoric is overblown. They point out that the US is already a signatory to 50 agreements that include ISDS, and that foreign corporations have only ever used it to challenge Washington 18 times. The US hasn’t yet lost a case. But experts on both sides of the debate argue those stats undersell the importance of ISDS. Including the mechanism in the TPP and TTIP would forever alter the global legal landscape for investors. The US’ 50 existing treaties are relatively tiny, representing just 10 percent of the US’ foreign direct investment; including ISDS in the TPP would increase that ratio significantly. If ISDS is included in both those trade deals, it would mean that any corporation headquartered in any of the nations that are signatories to either treaty — that includes the vast majority of companies listed under the Global Fortune 500 — could use the mechanism to challenge US laws and regulations outside of US courts, in the same way that TransCanada is today.
“I don’t think the question is whether US laws will get challenged by foreign corporations under the TPP,” Simon Lester, a trade expert at the libertarian Cato Institute, told me recently. “It’s pretty clear the US will be challenged and it will lose some of those challenges and the US taxpayers will have to pay.”
_____________________________________________
What happens globally when sovereign nations open their EEZ to multi-national corporations is the use of these offshore platforms as excuses for eminent domain on land. This is happening in MOVING FORWARD US cities as Foreign Economic Zones----we speak of this in regards to global corporations building a HEADQUARTERS as here in Baltimore with UNDERARMOUR-----then that headquarters is given eminent domain to expand for miles in all directions.
This same public policy extends to offshore rigs-----once that first rig is installed expansion all along the coastline is expected. Here on the East Coast from Maine to Florida the exploration soared during BUSH ERA-----OBAMA opened East Coast to offshore development-----and of course TRUMP is simply MOVING FORWARD. We discussed how a CHINESE global corporation is tied to managing all our US PORT CITIES we are told they are the experts.
ENERGY CORPORATIONS like DUKE or DOMINION sound American-----but as with EXELON and CHESAPEAKE -----all are merging and enfolding into multi-national corporations not tied to being AMERICAN at all---so too Duke and Dominion.
EMINENT DOMAIN LAWS ARE CENTRAL TO NATIONAL, STATE, AND LOCAL SOVEREIGNTY. THEY ALSO GUARD AGAINST CAPTURE OF COASTLINES INCLUDING IN OUR LOCAL HARBORS.
All these policies tie together ----and are the source of US city decay-----the inability of our local US citizens to attain employment, housing, any civil rights guaranteed by our US Constitution and 300 years of Federal law.
Who hates eminent domain attacks the most? Our right wing voters-----who votes for all these right wing economic policies the most------our right wing voters. Who is trying not to vote right wing economics to stop MOVING FORWARD? Our 99% of Democratic labor and justice voters continually facing fraudulent and rigged elections keeping far-right wing global banking 5% pols and players in place.
COME TOGETHER AS A 99% VS GLOBAL 1%---LET'S JUST DO IT.
Dominion should not use eminent domain for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline
Dominion should not use eminent domain for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline
May 13, 2016 by Richard Averitt,
Within the span of a few short years, the United States has become the world’s largest producer of natural gas and the fastest growing producer of oil. While many welcome this development with its prospect of affordable, reliable energy for all Americans, we must ensure that the property rights of our fellow citizens are not sacrificed in the process.
Unfortunately, just such a possibility of large-scale landowner abuse exists here in Virginia. Richmond-based Dominion Resources has teamed up with three major U.S. energy companies – Duke Energy, Piedmont Natural Gas, and AGL Resources – to build a $5 billion, 590-mile gas pipeline. The Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) would originate in gas-rich Harrison County, West Virginia, run southeast to Greensville County, Virginia, and then south into eastern North Carolina. A lateral extension is planned from the Virginia-North Carolina border east to the coast.
What deeply troubles many landowners in the pipeline’s path is Dominion’s threat to ram the project down their throats using the power of eminent domain. The energy giant’s project will affect over 2,750 landowners along a 400-foot-wide study corridor, where the 42-inch pipe – designed to carry 1.5 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day – will be installed. Laying the pipeline, which will not provide service to most of the counties along the route, requires clear-cutting and excavating a swath 125 feet wide across someone’s land. The permanently cleared easement, on which no trees can be planted and no structures built, will be 75 feet wide. Landowners must continue paying property taxes on this easement, even as they lose rights to its use and incur devaluation on their remaining property.
If Dominion cannot obtain the land with the owners’ consent, the company plans to take it through eminent domain under federal law. By choosing to use federal law instead of state law, Dominion will sidestep the very protections provided to landowners by the 2012 amendment to Virginia’s constitution, which was approved by 75 percent of voters in a referendum. Currently, Dominion is even suing almost 200 landowners, mostly farmers, in central Virginia in order to survey their property against their will.
STATE ASSEMBLIES KNOW THESE STATUTES ARE WORTHLESS IN THESE INTERSTATE/GLOBAL ENERGY EXPANSIONS---THIS IS A FAKE ALT RIGHT ALT LEFT AMENDMENT BY VIRGINIA ASSEMBLY.
Dominion may say that the pipeline cannot be built without using eminent domain and that the process is little different than that used in the construction of roads. Unlike roads, however, pipelines do not need to be straight or flat or connect specific localities along the way. The proposed ACP already has a number of twists and turns to help navigate specific geographic features and historical or environmental sites. Thus, Dominion has a lot of flexibility to adapt the route to the individual needs of landowners, without resorting to eminent domain to get its way.
There is, in fact, a way to build the pipeline and protect the rights of landowners through a combination of collocation with existing easements and free-market negotiations with willing landowners. Dominion could route a majority of the pipeline through pre-existing rights-of-way and easements to minimize the project’s impact on farmers and other landowners. For example:
In addition to the many collocation opportunities that the executives of Dominion have before them, they could also choose to engage in fair free-market negotiations with property owners that remain in the path of the pipeline. In any case where the pipeline must cross private land, Dominion could enter into agreements with willing landowners, enticing them to participate through negotiated royalties. While these options may add to the initial cost of the pipeline, there is much precedent for such an approach, and that cost would be more than offset by avoiding the lawsuits eminent domain will inevitably produce.
Achieving energy independence is a laudable goal – one which should go hand-in-hand with protecting the rights of landowners. Using eminent domain to bludgeon farmers into submission is not the tactic of a responsible corporate citizen, but that of a bully.
________________________________________
The fight across the pond in Europe is a bit different than here in US----but this article shows the GOALS MOVING FORWARD in literally creating monopoly real estate of our territorial waters and EEZ -----in Europe each nations' citizens are fighting for their SOVEREIGN RIGHTS against EUROZONE CENTRAL BANKING-----so 99% of French citizens or Norway citizens do not want what are being called EUROZONE global platforms off their sovereign coasts. Still, these EUROZONE global platforms are being outsourced to global factories in third world FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES yet we see NO global banking investment outside EUROZONE.
'Pilot studies are already underway for these facilities that will sustainably produce food and energy by, for example, combining wave, wind, solar and thermal power with fish farms, shellfish beds and seaweed plantations'.
So, Europe is MOVING FORWARD same massive offshore platforms but are tying these ownership to EUROZONE OLD WORLD MERCHANTS OF VENICE global 1%. Europe is keeping it EUROPEAN----or ROMAN EMPIRE----the US is being taken colonial with global banking and global corporate ownership outside of US.
Salmon farmers ‘put wild fish at risk’ in fight to kill off ...
www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jun/10/...
Salmon farmers ‘put wild fish at risk’ in fight to kill off sea lice ... Many species – such as ballan ... where wrasse-catching to supply fish farming has also ..
Energy
The offshore multiplexes taking shape along Europe's coast
15 August 2014
by Damien Pearse
The offshore platforms could combine aquaculture and seaports. Image: courtesy of TROPOS
Wind turbine arrays, fish farms and seaports are to be combined into giant offshore facilities that can ease pressure on crowded coastlines and access some of the untapped potential of Europe's oceans.
Pilot studies are already underway for these facilities that will sustainably produce food and energy by, for example, combining wave, wind, solar and thermal power with fish farms, shellfish beds and seaweed plantations.
‘We are looking at how to use the ocean space in an optimum way,’ said Professor Erik Damgaard Christensen, coordinator of the EU-funded MERMAID project.
The MERMAID project is using four pilot sites - in the North Sea near the Netherlands, in the Baltic Sea near Denmark, in the Atlantic Ocean near Spain, and in the Mediterranean near Italy, to develop the techniques it needs to build large-scale platforms by the time it finishes in 2015.
The benefit of bringing these activities together is that, for example, fish produce nutrients that can feed shellfish, which in turn clean the water. Seaweed can act as a valuable defence against ocean waves, while also providing the raw material for bio-based products such as bioplastics and biofuel.
It is urgent that researchers develop new ways to produce fish sustainably because fish consumption is increasingly rapidly. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations said that between 1970 and 2000 consumption per person increased from 11 kg to almost 16 kg per year. The risk is that increased demand will lead to overfishing and deplete natural fish stocks.
WAIT------WE KNOW THESE MASSIVE INDUSTRIAL PLATFORMS ARE KILLING WILD SEA SPECIES AT A TREMENDOUSLY FAST RATE----NO, YOU ARE NOT PROTECTING WILD SEA LIFE.
‘We want to develop novel innovative design concepts for offshore platforms to address different physical conditions – from deep water to shallow and inner waters,’ said Prof. Damgaard.
For example, offshore complexes 10 km by 10 km – the size of the Spanish city of Barcelona – would combine fish farming with large wind farms. The idea is that, rather than building new platforms, the project would combine existing structures.
‘We are looking at how to use the ocean space in an optimum way,’
Professor Erik Damgaard Christensen
Deep water
The EU-funded TROPOS project, which finishes in 2015, is developing a blueprint for deep water platforms.
These could include combined fish and wind farms, seaports, or 'leisure islands’ which could generate their own energy to power hotels and activities such as underwater observation facilities, diving bases and marinas.
For the leisure islands, one idea would be to create them up to 2 km from the shore in areas such as Crete and the Canary Islands – where space for tourism is in short supply.
It would help boost Europe’s tourist industry, which generates approximately a tenth of the EU’s economic output, according to European Commission statistics.
‘The idea for the tourism sector is to have different models, for people to go to the platform on a regular basis,’ said TROPOS project manager Eduardo Quevedo.
The need to find ways to relieve pressure from the coast and to exploit the oceans sustainably is urgent. At the moment, these projects are working out the technology needed to create these facilities, however they hope to have a demonstration version up and running within the next five to 10 years.
AND THE UNCERTAINTY OF COASTAL STATE JURISDICTION'
This research article does a great job explaining to US 99% of WE THE PEOPLE the attack of such multi-national presence on our US sovereignty unfolds in US Federal courts vs global corporate tribunal courts. BUSH/JINDAL just as today's O'MALLEY/HOGAN are deliberately using their states to create PRECEDENCE for the use of global tribunal courts over our SOVEREIGN US FEDERAL COURTS. We watched as BP took their case to global court while US citizens had absolutely no voice -----were taken yet again of tens of billions of dollars in cleanup---and that $20 billion settlement as with the same $20 billion settlement for trillions of dollars in subprime mortgage loan frauds----went right back to that foreign global energy corporation ---BP.
There is NO UNCERTAINTY-------all this is an illegal attack on our US sovereignty pushed by CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA now Trump working for OLD WORLD KINGS AND KINGS global banking 1%.
We are being told the US no longer has the engineering companies to build wind farms----to build bridge tunnels----to drill off coast for oil ------this means we are on par with AFRICA and all other third world nations unable to perform basic industrial activities.
DEEPWATER MOBILE OIL RIGS IN THE EXCLUSIVE ECONOMIC ZONE
AND THE UNCERTAINTY OF COASTAL STATE JURISDICTION
Rebecca K. Richards*
I.
INTRODUCTION
The involvement of a deep water mobile oil rig in the April 2010 BP oil spill
disaster in the United States exclusive economic zone ("EEZ") in the Gulf
of Mexico forcefully demonstrated the potential that deep water mobile
oil rigs have to cause catastrophic harm to the coastal state in ways
not presented by fixed oil rigs operating in shallow water.'
Though coastal states have this great risk of catastrophic harm, their plenary
jurisdiction over deep water mobile oil rigs is currently uncertain.
The vagueness of coastal state jurisdictional authority over these rigs
unacceptably increases the risk of accidents, as seen with the BP Deepwater
Horizon spill. In the event of an accident, the coastal state bears both the brunt of the harm and the majority of the clean-up responsibility; however, under current practice, it does not have the plenary authority to completely regulate the drilling and production operations that occur above the waterline on deep water mobile oil rigs operating in the EEZ.
This note argues that coastal state jurisdiction over deep water mobile oil
rigs must become more certain. As oil rigs operate farther from the coastal state into deeper water, the potential for catastrophic harm increases because of the high oil flow rates, the large amount of oil, and the spill's distance from the coastline.' This incongruity exists, in part, because international law
fails to clearly define and categorize deep water mobile oil rigs in a way that
assures coastal states complete jurisdiction.
For example, BP's leased oil rig, the Deepwater Horizon, was operating in
the U.S. EEZ, but was registered in the Marshall Islands and treated as a
vessel, subject to the Islands' exclusive jurisdiction.
______________________________________________
The article we shared of MARYLAND'S offshore wind farm tied to nothing but criminal global banking 1% and foreign corporations asks why would Maryland build such complex structures offshore already knowing it will be a financial albatross and useless in GREEN ENERGY when they had plenty of land to build ordinary wind platforms. The answer is the GOAL-----the intent is to usurp our US sovereignty in territorial waters and continental shelf and open the excuse to bring global mercenary security and policing that 99% of US citizens in states all along US coastline will have absolutely no control and will be drained personally and as taxpayers in efforts to attain common utilities and food.
'The vagueness of coastal state jurisdictional authority over these rigs unacceptably increases the risk of accidents,as seen with the BP Deepwater Horizon spill'.
THIS IS THE COLONIAL EAST INDIA CORPORATION MEETS THE BRITISH/FRENCH ROYAL NAVIES ON STEROIDS.
What we already know is below-----these offshore platforms---whether oil, natural gas, massive solar or wind platforms, or global seafood farming platforms all have a goal of claiming SOVEREIGN RIGHTS separate from those whose coastlines they are allowed to build.
So, China as a sovereign nation is very forcefully protecting its EEZ 200 MILES and it is using the installation of OIL RIG SOVEREIGNTY to invade the sovereignty of neighboring nations very mad about this. Why do US 99% WE THE PEOPLE simply sit back and allow for what a VIETNAM fights?
WE KEEP THINKING CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA ARE AMERICAN WHEN THEY HAVE ALWAYS PLEDGED TO SERVE OLD WORLD MERCHANTS OF VENICE GLOBAL 1%.
1 Year Later: Reflections on China's Oil Rig 'Sovereignty-Making' in the South China Sea
What is the long-term significance of China’s decision to move an oil rig into Vietnam’s exclusive economic zone in May 2014?
By Ankit Panda
May 12, 2015
One year ago, China’s state-owned China National Offshore Oil Company (CNOOC) moved an exploratory oil rig, Haiyang Shiyou 981 (HD-981), worth an estimated $1 billion, into waters within Vietnam’s exclusive economic zone. The incident sparked a major bilateral crisis between the two countries—both of whom claim the disputed Paracel Islands. In hindsight, the event marked the start of China’s attempts to change the status quo in the South China Sea by committing its civilian and non-military assets to disputed areas.
The timeline of the HD-981 stand-off was recently featured in the U.S. Department of Defense’s 2015 report on China’s military. On May 3, 2014, Hainan province’s Maritime Safety Administration declared that the oil rig would begin drilling operations off the disputed Paracel Islands, ending in August that year. The next day, Vietnam’s government protested the Chinese announcement. China declared a 3 nautical mile security radius around the oil rig, far exceeding the 500 meter safety zone state parties to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea are entitled to under that treaty.
Beginning May 11, Vietnam erupted in anti-China protests. The protests resulted in Chinese businesses being harassed and attacked; several foreign-owned factories were damaged as part of the protests. The Vietnamese media featured incidents off Vietnam’s coast involving Chinese coast guard ships and Vietnamese fishing vessels colliding. China had deployed civilian fishing vessels, coast guard ships, and a limited number of People’s Liberation Army Navy assets to protect the waters around HD-981. On May 26, a Vietnamese fishing boat capsized after colliding with a Chinese fishing boat. Ultimately, China evacuated its citizens from Vietnam after two of its citizens died during the protests.
In June, in an attempt to defuse tensions, Chinese State Councilor Yang Jiechi visited Vietnam for a frosty visit with Vietnamese officials, including the Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh and Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung. The visit led to little concrete progress on the dispute, but prevented escalation. Dung remained adamant that China’s actions violated Vietnam’s territorial integrity and sovereignty. Pham, for his part, traveled to the United States later in the year. When he returned to Hanoi, he returned with an assurance that the United State’s long-standing arms embargo against Vietnam would be lifted, specifically for equipment that would help Vietnam improve its maritime safety. The HD-981 incident gave U.S.-Vietnam relations a helpful jolt.
At the time, The Diplomat featured several takes on China’s logic in sending HD-981 into the contested waters. Carl Thayer described the incident as “unexpected, provocative, and illegal.” I explored the reasons the move made strategic sense for Beijing. Dingding Chen claimed that the deployment of the rig was “not a strategic mistake” for China. After China withdrew the rig, in July, sooner than anticipated per the Maritime Safety Administration’s announcement, Thayer offered an analysis, suggesting that political pressure and geopolitical considerations forced China’s hand. He added that the incident and Vietnam’s response suggested that Hanoi had demonstrated resolve in the face of Chinese assertiveness. (Meanwhile, Robert Farley cautioned against over-emphasizing reputational costs in understanding the crisis.) Other commentators suggested that the early withdrawal suggested a “recalibration” of China’s policy.
The HD-981 incident will remain a case study in China’s approach to asserting its territorial claims in the South China Sea. Of course, since May 2014, we’ve seen that the extent of China’s ambitions in its near seas is growing. For example, the topic du jour here at The Diplomat these days seems to be China’s massive land reclamation activities in the Spratly and Paracel Islands. HD-981 was by no means the “beginning” of China’s assertiveness in the South China Sea, but it was a clear inflection point. A year later, China’s relations with Vietnam have somewhat recovered, but they won’t be back to the pre-May 2014 “normal” anytime soon. Vietnam’s skepticism of China’s South China Sea intentions has become more of a driver of its foreign and security policy than ever before. For Hanoi, everything changed last summer.
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Global tribunal courts have been used throughout these few decades of CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA------they installed TRANS PACIFIC TRADE PACT as they were writing it while national media allows these global banking 1% pols and players PRETEND they are fighting against all this. TPP is what made Baltimore a third world ghetto -----it was installed during REAGAN/CLINTON as MOVING FORWARD. TPP is what allows global Wall Street to openly fleece our US Treasury and US citizens' pockets with the 99% US citizens having no ability to attain justice through courts and lawyers.
So, when BP went to court---it went to global tribunal court-----when GOLDMAN SACHS went to court it went to global tribunal court----not our US Federal/state court system. The US state attorney's like Maryland's FROSH are working with global tribunal courts in international law---they are not working to defend our sovereign rights as citizens or our US sovereign territorial and EEZ waters. This is why a MARYLAND state attorney FROSH is a cheerleader to sovereign bond debt fraud and a cheerleader for offshore global corporate industrial platform development and he will defend that global corporation against loss or threat of removal without thinking of defending our US citizens' sovereign rights or the sovereign rights of our state or US cities.
IN MARYLAND OUR FAKE ALT RIGHT ALT LEFT GROUPS AND 5% PLAYERS WON'T EVEN MENTION TPP----SOVEREIGN RIGHTS----BECAUSE WE ARE CAPTURED HERE IN BALTIMORE BY GLOBAL HEDGE FUND IVY LEAGUE JOHNS HOPKINS TIED TO GLOBAL INVESTMENT FIRM CARLYLE GROUP TIED TO OLD WORLD MERCHANTS OF VENICE GLOBAL 1% BANKING.
Remember, Baltimore is home of STAR SPANGLED BANNER -----bombs bursting in air ---fighting to keep those EAST INDIA CORPORATIONS and ROYALS out of our territorial waters. So, too was CHARLESTON quite the battle to defend its territorial waters from these same foreign entities.
Here we see the discussion back in 2002 as all these public policies surrounding global tribunal courts came with Clinton's installation of NAFTA
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NAFTA logo
Trading Democracy
February 1, 2002
The Secret Tribunals That Corporations Use to Sue Countries
These ad hoc courts are a main reason why so many politicians and activists are against trade agreements like the TPP.
By Haley Edwards | September 19, 2016
Demonstrators protesting against the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) are seen on Pennsylvania Avenue, near the White House, on Sept. 24, 2013 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images)
This is an excerpt from the newly published book Shadow Courts: The Tribunals that Rule Global Trade by Haley Edwards.
The environmental activist Jane Kleeb was driving down Highway 281 near Lincoln, Nebraska, on a gray day in January 2016, when she got a call from a reporter.
At the time, Kleeb was still riding high off of her success organizing local farmers, ranchers and environmentalists in opposition to the Keystone XL Pipeline, which would have carried petroleum products from Canada’s tar sands across the Nebraska plains to the Gulf of Mexico. Thanks to her and other activists’ efforts, President Barack Obama had announced in November 2015 that his administration would deny the Canadian company TransCanada permission to move forward with the project, ending an eight-year-long effort to get the pipeline built.
The reporter was calling to ask Kleeb about a new twist in the saga. Earlier that day, TransCanada had announced it was suing the US government for $15 billion on the grounds that Obama’s decision to block the project violated the North American Free Trade Agreement. It was the first Kleeb had heard of the suit. “I’m an organizer, so my reaction was, ‘When are the hearings? Where is this happening? Who’s the judge?’” she said recently. If TransCanada was challenging the decision in court, she wanted to be there. Could she protest on the courthouse steps? Arrange for a rally in a nearby town?
In the last 20 years, the mechanism has quietly changed, evolving into something much more powerful — and very political indeed.But that, Kleeb learned, was not how this case would go down. TransCanada wasn’t suing the US in a US court, or in a Canadian court for that matter. Its argument would not be heard by a judge, and the merits of the case would not be considered under the auspices of either country’s legal system. There would be no protest on any courthouse steps. Instead, the case would be heard by a tribunal, manned by three private arbitrators, operating under a supranational legal system that Kleeb had never heard of. “It was totally strange,” she told me. “A foreign company can sue us in some secret tribunal? How is that even possible?”
Investor-state dispute settlement, or ISDS, first appeared in treaties in 1969. The idea behind the mechanism was straightforward: If a foreign investor believed that his host country — the nation where his company was operating had violated an international treaty by seizing or destroying his factories, oil fields or other assets, he could file an ISDS claim directly against that country. He could do that without involving his own government and without having to wait endlessly for a developing country’s corrupt or biased court system to dispense judgment.
By filing an ISDS claim, the investor would trigger the formation of a special arbitration tribunal, which would exist temporarily outside the jurisdiction of any nation’s judiciary or any international body. Its sole purpose would be to determine how much, if anything, the country owed the investor in compensation for property that had been seized or demolished. For example, in the late 1980s, the Sri Lankan government destroyed a British seafood company’s shrimp processing plant during a military raid on rebels. The British investor filed an ISDS claim, a tribunal was formed and the arbitrators determined that the Sri Lankan government must pay the company $460,000 in compensation for the destroyed plant. That was it. Case closed. The British company did not have to rely on Sri Lankan courts. The episode did not become a major diplomatic incident. The UK did not have to step in to defend its investors’ interests.
RELATED: Economy & Work
Trading DemocracyFebruary 1, 2002
And that was the whole point: ISDS was supposed to be a cool, efficient and apolitical dispute resolution system that kept powerful nations from interfering in the affairs of weaker countries, and that offered an extra layer of protection for foreign investors operating in countries with unreliable courts. But in the last 20 years, the mechanism has quietly changed, evolving into something much more powerful — and very political indeed.
One factor in this evolution is the explosion of new claims. Between the 1960s and 2000, ISDS was almost never used. Investors brought about 40 claims total in 40 years. Since 2000, there have been 647. In 2015 alone, there were 70 new cases. That uptick is partly because there are thousands more treaties today that include ISDS. For the last 25 years, countries have signed thousands of bilateral investment treaties, and beginning in the 1990s, nearly every new trade agreement, from NAFTA and Central American Free Trade Agreement to the Energy Charter, included a chapter on investment, complete with ISDS. In 1989, there were just a few hundred agreements that included ISDS. As of 2015, there were more than 3,000.
Another reason for the explosion of new claims is that the definition of what it means for a sovereign nation to seize or destroy a foreign company’s property, or otherwise violate an investor’s property rights under the terms of an investment treaty, has become much more expansive. Investors now regularly file claims if their host government passes a new law or regulation that results in even a partial loss of a company’s property or impinges in some way on its future profits. For example, in TransCanada’s ISDS claim against the US, it argues that President Obama’s decision to cancel the Keystone XL Pipeline violated NAFTA by expropriating the company’s expected future profits.
That modern interpretation has only cropped up in the last 20 years, but it has opened up a vast new gray area. Where ISDS claims were once about seized oil fields and bulldozed factories, now they are about tax increases and environmental regulations. Where is the line between a government’s right to regulate in the public interest and a foreign corporation’s claim to its own property?
Including the mechanism in the TPP and TTIP would forever alter the global legal landscape for investors.US trade negotiators are now working to include ISDS in as many new treaties as possible, including both of the massive new free trade deals coming down the pike. The Trans-Pacific Partnership, which President Obama signed in February 2016 and which Congress will likely ratify before he leaves office, already includes ISDS. Whether the mechanism will be inserted into the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, linking the US and Europe, is a subject of controversy. The question has already catalyzed something of an intellectual civil war in Europe, with the European Parliament recently rejecting, across party lines, any treaty that includes ISDS. Protesters opposed to it have swamped the streets in Berlin, Paris and Brussels and written hundreds of letters in opposition to what they see as the imposition of shadowy “corporate courts” that can be used to undermine laws and regulations and compromise national sovereignty.
US trade negotiators say such rhetoric is overblown. They point out that the US is already a signatory to 50 agreements that include ISDS, and that foreign corporations have only ever used it to challenge Washington 18 times. The US hasn’t yet lost a case. But experts on both sides of the debate argue those stats undersell the importance of ISDS. Including the mechanism in the TPP and TTIP would forever alter the global legal landscape for investors. The US’ 50 existing treaties are relatively tiny, representing just 10 percent of the US’ foreign direct investment; including ISDS in the TPP would increase that ratio significantly. If ISDS is included in both those trade deals, it would mean that any corporation headquartered in any of the nations that are signatories to either treaty — that includes the vast majority of companies listed under the Global Fortune 500 — could use the mechanism to challenge US laws and regulations outside of US courts, in the same way that TransCanada is today.
“I don’t think the question is whether US laws will get challenged by foreign corporations under the TPP,” Simon Lester, a trade expert at the libertarian Cato Institute, told me recently. “It’s pretty clear the US will be challenged and it will lose some of those challenges and the US taxpayers will have to pay.”
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What happens globally when sovereign nations open their EEZ to multi-national corporations is the use of these offshore platforms as excuses for eminent domain on land. This is happening in MOVING FORWARD US cities as Foreign Economic Zones----we speak of this in regards to global corporations building a HEADQUARTERS as here in Baltimore with UNDERARMOUR-----then that headquarters is given eminent domain to expand for miles in all directions.
This same public policy extends to offshore rigs-----once that first rig is installed expansion all along the coastline is expected. Here on the East Coast from Maine to Florida the exploration soared during BUSH ERA-----OBAMA opened East Coast to offshore development-----and of course TRUMP is simply MOVING FORWARD. We discussed how a CHINESE global corporation is tied to managing all our US PORT CITIES we are told they are the experts.
ENERGY CORPORATIONS like DUKE or DOMINION sound American-----but as with EXELON and CHESAPEAKE -----all are merging and enfolding into multi-national corporations not tied to being AMERICAN at all---so too Duke and Dominion.
EMINENT DOMAIN LAWS ARE CENTRAL TO NATIONAL, STATE, AND LOCAL SOVEREIGNTY. THEY ALSO GUARD AGAINST CAPTURE OF COASTLINES INCLUDING IN OUR LOCAL HARBORS.
All these policies tie together ----and are the source of US city decay-----the inability of our local US citizens to attain employment, housing, any civil rights guaranteed by our US Constitution and 300 years of Federal law.
Who hates eminent domain attacks the most? Our right wing voters-----who votes for all these right wing economic policies the most------our right wing voters. Who is trying not to vote right wing economics to stop MOVING FORWARD? Our 99% of Democratic labor and justice voters continually facing fraudulent and rigged elections keeping far-right wing global banking 5% pols and players in place.
COME TOGETHER AS A 99% VS GLOBAL 1%---LET'S JUST DO IT.
Dominion should not use eminent domain for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline
Dominion should not use eminent domain for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline
May 13, 2016 by Richard Averitt,
Within the span of a few short years, the United States has become the world’s largest producer of natural gas and the fastest growing producer of oil. While many welcome this development with its prospect of affordable, reliable energy for all Americans, we must ensure that the property rights of our fellow citizens are not sacrificed in the process.
Unfortunately, just such a possibility of large-scale landowner abuse exists here in Virginia. Richmond-based Dominion Resources has teamed up with three major U.S. energy companies – Duke Energy, Piedmont Natural Gas, and AGL Resources – to build a $5 billion, 590-mile gas pipeline. The Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) would originate in gas-rich Harrison County, West Virginia, run southeast to Greensville County, Virginia, and then south into eastern North Carolina. A lateral extension is planned from the Virginia-North Carolina border east to the coast.
What deeply troubles many landowners in the pipeline’s path is Dominion’s threat to ram the project down their throats using the power of eminent domain. The energy giant’s project will affect over 2,750 landowners along a 400-foot-wide study corridor, where the 42-inch pipe – designed to carry 1.5 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day – will be installed. Laying the pipeline, which will not provide service to most of the counties along the route, requires clear-cutting and excavating a swath 125 feet wide across someone’s land. The permanently cleared easement, on which no trees can be planted and no structures built, will be 75 feet wide. Landowners must continue paying property taxes on this easement, even as they lose rights to its use and incur devaluation on their remaining property.
If Dominion cannot obtain the land with the owners’ consent, the company plans to take it through eminent domain under federal law. By choosing to use federal law instead of state law, Dominion will sidestep the very protections provided to landowners by the 2012 amendment to Virginia’s constitution, which was approved by 75 percent of voters in a referendum. Currently, Dominion is even suing almost 200 landowners, mostly farmers, in central Virginia in order to survey their property against their will.
STATE ASSEMBLIES KNOW THESE STATUTES ARE WORTHLESS IN THESE INTERSTATE/GLOBAL ENERGY EXPANSIONS---THIS IS A FAKE ALT RIGHT ALT LEFT AMENDMENT BY VIRGINIA ASSEMBLY.
Dominion may say that the pipeline cannot be built without using eminent domain and that the process is little different than that used in the construction of roads. Unlike roads, however, pipelines do not need to be straight or flat or connect specific localities along the way. The proposed ACP already has a number of twists and turns to help navigate specific geographic features and historical or environmental sites. Thus, Dominion has a lot of flexibility to adapt the route to the individual needs of landowners, without resorting to eminent domain to get its way.
There is, in fact, a way to build the pipeline and protect the rights of landowners through a combination of collocation with existing easements and free-market negotiations with willing landowners. Dominion could route a majority of the pipeline through pre-existing rights-of-way and easements to minimize the project’s impact on farmers and other landowners. For example:
- Almost the entire pipeline could be laid within the easement of Dominion’s own high-voltage transmission lines, which run from Harrison County, West Virginia all the way to the ACP’s planned destinations in Virginia and North Carolina. This is a common practice, which Dominion itself has employed in other states.
- The pipeline could also follow the I-64 right-of-way through the mountains where it would connect with and follow the easements of other mass-transmission pipelines that lead all the way to Chesapeake, Virginia.
- The pipeline could be laid within the easement of the Columbia Gas transmission line, which runs from northern West Virginia to Chesapeake.
In addition to the many collocation opportunities that the executives of Dominion have before them, they could also choose to engage in fair free-market negotiations with property owners that remain in the path of the pipeline. In any case where the pipeline must cross private land, Dominion could enter into agreements with willing landowners, enticing them to participate through negotiated royalties. While these options may add to the initial cost of the pipeline, there is much precedent for such an approach, and that cost would be more than offset by avoiding the lawsuits eminent domain will inevitably produce.
Achieving energy independence is a laudable goal – one which should go hand-in-hand with protecting the rights of landowners. Using eminent domain to bludgeon farmers into submission is not the tactic of a responsible corporate citizen, but that of a bully.
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The fight across the pond in Europe is a bit different than here in US----but this article shows the GOALS MOVING FORWARD in literally creating monopoly real estate of our territorial waters and EEZ -----in Europe each nations' citizens are fighting for their SOVEREIGN RIGHTS against EUROZONE CENTRAL BANKING-----so 99% of French citizens or Norway citizens do not want what are being called EUROZONE global platforms off their sovereign coasts. Still, these EUROZONE global platforms are being outsourced to global factories in third world FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES yet we see NO global banking investment outside EUROZONE.
'Pilot studies are already underway for these facilities that will sustainably produce food and energy by, for example, combining wave, wind, solar and thermal power with fish farms, shellfish beds and seaweed plantations'.
So, Europe is MOVING FORWARD same massive offshore platforms but are tying these ownership to EUROZONE OLD WORLD MERCHANTS OF VENICE global 1%. Europe is keeping it EUROPEAN----or ROMAN EMPIRE----the US is being taken colonial with global banking and global corporate ownership outside of US.
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Energy
The offshore multiplexes taking shape along Europe's coast
15 August 2014
by Damien Pearse
The offshore platforms could combine aquaculture and seaports. Image: courtesy of TROPOS
Wind turbine arrays, fish farms and seaports are to be combined into giant offshore facilities that can ease pressure on crowded coastlines and access some of the untapped potential of Europe's oceans.
Pilot studies are already underway for these facilities that will sustainably produce food and energy by, for example, combining wave, wind, solar and thermal power with fish farms, shellfish beds and seaweed plantations.
‘We are looking at how to use the ocean space in an optimum way,’ said Professor Erik Damgaard Christensen, coordinator of the EU-funded MERMAID project.
The MERMAID project is using four pilot sites - in the North Sea near the Netherlands, in the Baltic Sea near Denmark, in the Atlantic Ocean near Spain, and in the Mediterranean near Italy, to develop the techniques it needs to build large-scale platforms by the time it finishes in 2015.
The benefit of bringing these activities together is that, for example, fish produce nutrients that can feed shellfish, which in turn clean the water. Seaweed can act as a valuable defence against ocean waves, while also providing the raw material for bio-based products such as bioplastics and biofuel.
It is urgent that researchers develop new ways to produce fish sustainably because fish consumption is increasingly rapidly. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations said that between 1970 and 2000 consumption per person increased from 11 kg to almost 16 kg per year. The risk is that increased demand will lead to overfishing and deplete natural fish stocks.
WAIT------WE KNOW THESE MASSIVE INDUSTRIAL PLATFORMS ARE KILLING WILD SEA SPECIES AT A TREMENDOUSLY FAST RATE----NO, YOU ARE NOT PROTECTING WILD SEA LIFE.
‘We want to develop novel innovative design concepts for offshore platforms to address different physical conditions – from deep water to shallow and inner waters,’ said Prof. Damgaard.
For example, offshore complexes 10 km by 10 km – the size of the Spanish city of Barcelona – would combine fish farming with large wind farms. The idea is that, rather than building new platforms, the project would combine existing structures.
‘We are looking at how to use the ocean space in an optimum way,’
Professor Erik Damgaard Christensen
Deep water
The EU-funded TROPOS project, which finishes in 2015, is developing a blueprint for deep water platforms.
These could include combined fish and wind farms, seaports, or 'leisure islands’ which could generate their own energy to power hotels and activities such as underwater observation facilities, diving bases and marinas.
For the leisure islands, one idea would be to create them up to 2 km from the shore in areas such as Crete and the Canary Islands – where space for tourism is in short supply.
It would help boost Europe’s tourist industry, which generates approximately a tenth of the EU’s economic output, according to European Commission statistics.
‘The idea for the tourism sector is to have different models, for people to go to the platform on a regular basis,’ said TROPOS project manager Eduardo Quevedo.
The need to find ways to relieve pressure from the coast and to exploit the oceans sustainably is urgent. At the moment, these projects are working out the technology needed to create these facilities, however they hope to have a demonstration version up and running within the next five to 10 years.
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