CA Coastal Types Singing Wind Turbine Blues: Help, Help Me, Rhonda! Get ‘Em Outta My Park!

I’m not really sure if there’s anything much funnier than when touchy-feely progressive types wake up one morning, and realize what they’ve foisted on everyone else is suddenly coming home to roost in someplace they consider breathtakingly beautiful and ever so special.

The shock and spontaneous yelps of, “But you can’t do that HERE!!” are beyond precious. 

Makes me smile, kind of like I’m smiling right now, reading this article on Bloomberg (and it might be paywalled – they’re proud of their stuff). 

A  wind-energy dispute highlights the intense opposition large renewable power projects often face, even in states committed to the fight against climate change.

Daggum sounds familiar.

Two of President Joe Biden’s biggest priorities — conservation and the switch to clean energy — are colliding in the ocean off California’s quiet Central Coast.

Located halfway between San Francisco and Los Angeles, Morro Bay boasts a rich ecosystem of fish, otters and migrating whales that the Indigenous Chumash people want to protect with a new marine sanctuary. But 20 miles (32 kilometers) out, developers plan some of the West Coast’s first offshore wind farms, where 1,100-foot-tall turbines (335 meters) tethered to the seabed will help California cut its carbon emissions.

It rang and bell in my not-quite-as-fogged-as-Biden’s brain, and – by golly – I was right. I had written about this over a year ago when the auction for the lease was won and dang! Do I know hypocritical progressives like the back of my hand or WHAT?!

…Morro Bay is really quite a beautiful place. I’m wondering what that “substantial new waterfront infrastructure” all entails. Maybe the greenies won’t be so thrilled with it when the bulldozers come in?

In the meantime, plans are for a 3GW wind farm, built with pretty radical technology for the West Coast’s unique off-shore requirements. Basically the problem there is it drops off a cliff into the depths, not a gentle decline as on most of the East Coast. So they’re going to use floating platforms tethered to the seabed.

They’d also neglected to check in with fisherfolk who ply the area or, probably more importantly because no one gives a rat’s patootie about working folks, they neglected to consult with any of the CA tribes who call that area home. They weren’t happy in 2022.

…“We’re asking developers to simply view us for what we are: sovereign nations,” said Frankie Myers, vice chairman of the Yurok Tribe, who for thousands of years have lived on the redwood coast and along the Klamath River in what is now northwestern California.

Yurok tribal leaders spoke with half a dozen potential developers in advance of California’s offshore wind auction, but Myers said they weren’t consulted by RWE or the other auction winners.

I’d also discovered that this whole “tethering concept” – in a Pacific Ocean known for towering, yuge waves and in an area where the bottom basically just falls off a cliff – hadn’t even been developed yet. It was more of a concept than a construct if you get my drift. 

Hell, it’s only money. Spend away!

Fast forward to me reading this a little bit ago. Holy smokes. The rest of that part of the coast has just woken up and, man, are they pissed off.

This truly is hilarious. Where you been, guys?

One fellow went from “I don’t think this is such a good idea” in July…

I heard about the proposed Morro Bay Offshore Wind Farm awhile back but didn’t really think too much about it. It would supposedly be out of sight and didn’t seem to have any affect on my life since I launch my fishing boat out of Port San Luis. 

But now I understand there is a plan to industrialize Port San Luis to be used as a base to assemble, operate, and maintain the 1,000 foot wind turbines for the wind farm, and for the Vandenberg Space Force base to barge in rockets and components that are too large to travel by land. This plan would involve major dredging to accommodate large ships, cranes and other heavy equipment. Additional concrete piers will be constructed  requiring under water blasting.

 I am not sure this is such a good idea. I began to do some research on wind farms. This developed into hours and hours of digging through material. What I have learned is quite alarming.

…to converted evangelist screaming, “Holy crap, we gotta stop this thing!” in only six months. Amazing what you can learn with a little bit of effort in a short period when it’s your recreational fishing that’s going to be blown away.

The Morro Bay wind farm project is moving forward at a rapid pace regardless of the numerous negative impacts this will have on the marine life and our communities. Port San Luis is being considered as a location to serve as a base for the construction and maintenance of hundreds of 1,000 foot tall wind turbines which would require a massive alteration project drastically changing the Port’s current primary mission from “To serve the public with an array of commercial and recreational fishing and boating opportunities while ensuring an environmentally responsible, safe, sustainable harbor that preserves our marine heritage and character” to the plan for a larger, industrialized port with a mission to serve large ships, cranes and other related equipment. Unsurprisingly the majority of people who live in the PSL/Avila Beach area and those that use the port for fishing, boating, and camping are not happy about with this. 

The Northern Chumash Indians are not happy, because their nation has been working for years on establishing something called the Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary. They’ve been on this stretch of coastline for eons, and the sanctuary efforts have been directed at preserving what’s left of the wild, wonderful northern CA coast in the area.

…The 7,573-square-mile sanctuary would include 156 miles of coastline between the towns of Cambria and Gaviota and link the Greater Farallones and Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuaries to the north and the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary to the south, creating a chain of conservation of more than 20,000 square miles. The new designation would limit offshore oil drilling, acoustic underwater testing and other activities in the area, while providing funding for research and protection to numerous Chumash sacred sites, both on and offshore.

Limit drilling and acoustic underwater testing – sonar surveying would maybe qualify – none of which are compatible with wind farm anything.

Imagine their surprise when they got word the sanctuary was, you know, a terrific idea, but y’all gonna have to shift it over a couple miles, and that “sacred spot” at the center of it? You can find another big rock elsewhere. 

We’ve got the planet to save.

…But NOAA has thrown a late wrench in the plans. In an effort to allow for the development of an offshore wind energy project, NOAA is now suggesting shifting the sanctuary’s borders to remove a section of the coastline that includes Morro Bay and Morro Rock — or Lisamu’, a site sacred to the Chumash that was always meant by the tribe to be the hub of the sanctuary.

There’s gonna be a whale of a tussle. You can tell what side the spendthrift CA legislature is on, so I wouldn’t go looking for a handout from that quarter. Those Sacramento socialists can’t wait to throw money into the ocean, particularly if there’s a chance they’re blowing it on unproven, untried technology. This should be a great investment.

In a step toward building the first massive wind farms off California’s coast, three Assemblymembers today proposed a $1 billion bond act to help pay for the expansion of ports.

The bill, if approved, would place a bond before voters aimed at helping ports build capacity to assemble, construct and transport wind turbines and other large equipment. Long Beach and Humboldt County have plans to build such expansion projects. 

Port expansion is considered critical to the viability of offshore wind projects, which are a key component of the state’s ambitious goal to switch to 100% clean energy. The California Energy Commission projects that offshore wind farms will supply 25 gigawatts of electricity by 2045, powering 25 million homes and providing about 13% of the power supply.

The first step to building these giant floating platforms has already been taken: The federal government has leased 583 square miles of ocean waters about 20 miles off Humboldt Bay and the Central Coast’s Morro Bay to five energy companies. The proposed wind farms would hold hundreds of giant turbines, each as tall as a skyscraper, about 900 feet high. The technology for floating wind farms has never been used in such deep waters, far off the coast.

 Woo hoo! Money to burn. Speaking of which, firm climate cult members that they are there, Bloomberg was unintentionally ironic in trying to justify this trainwreck.

Really guys? The price of electricity from wind farms has jumped 50% but we should go ahead anyway? When unreliable renewables are a major reason that electricity is expensive to begin with? 

…The dispute in eco-conscious California highlights the intense opposition large renewable power projects often face, even in states committed to the fight against climate change. And it comes as the offshore wind industry worldwide struggles with supply chain disruptions and inflation woes that have led to failed projects and canceled contracts in the eastern US. The estimated cost of electricity from a US offshore wind farm jumped nearly 50% from 2021 to 2023, according to the BloombergNEF research firm, threatening state and federal goals to get more clean power from the sea. Biden wants 30 gigawatts of offshore wind installed by 2030, enough to power more than 10 million homes.

Woo hoo! Somebody sure has money to burn and is moaning that it’s so hard to. 

Now that people know what’s in store, it’s not a mad rush or anything. They’ll have plenty of time to get their protest acts together (the Sierra Club is, of course, totally behind the wind farm, so they’ll have to ask someone else for help), because all bad things take time. LOTS of time.

…It could take 12 to 15 years to fully develop the planned wind projects off the coast of Morro Bay, according to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM).

Someone should have a plan by then.