LOCATION/TYPE

NEWS HOME

[ exact phrase in "" • results by date ]

[ Google-powered • results by relevance ]


Archive
RSS

Add NWW headlines to your site (click here)

Get weekly updates

WHAT TO DO
when your community is targeted

RSS

RSS feeds and more

Keep Wind Watch online and independent!

Donate via Paypal

Donate via Stripe

Selected Documents

All Documents

Research Links

Alerts

Press Releases

FAQs

Campaign Material

Photos & Graphics

Videos

Allied Groups

Wind Watch is a registered educational charity, founded in 2005.

News Watch Home

California’s green culture may slow offshore wind progress 

Credit:  By Karl-Erik Stromsta in New York | Recharge Wind | 07 June 2017 | www.rechargenews.com ~~

California’s “jealous guardianship of the ocean” could slow offshore wind development off the Golden State, say developers and regulators.

Offshore wind is on a much slower development curve off the US west coast than off the northeast, in large part because the continental shelf drops off rapidly along the Pacific coast compared to the shallower Atlantic waters. But things got interesting in January 2016, when the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) received its first-ever lease request for a commercial offshore wind farm off California, from Seattle-based Trident Wind.

Trident wants to build a massive offshore wind farm using floating foundations off the coast of Morro Bay, along California’s central coast.

BOEM asked the industry if there was any other interest in the area, and Norway’s Statoil – currently building the five-turbine Hywind Buchan Deep floating wind project off Scotland – said yes.

A competitive lease auction is expected at some point in California, the first to be held on the west coast, though BOEM officials will not give a potential timeline.

Trident chief executive Alla Weinstein, who previously led floating offshore wind specialist Principle Power, believes California needs offshore wind to meet its 50% renewables target for 2030, a case that becomes even stronger if the recent push for a 100% target becomes reality.

Weinstein predicts California will get its first offshore turbine in “2025 or 2026”, and says there’s a reason Trident filed its request a decade early: permitting challenges. “I think permitting probably will be the critical path, more so than the [floating] technology,” she said at a recent industry conference.

“We’re dealing with a market where people don’t really want to see too many things in their ocean.”

Joan Barminski, BOEM’s Pacific regional director, acknowledged California’s “jealous guardianship of the ocean”, saying “people are vocal” in the state – and it will take a “robust” effort to get all the relevant state and federal permitting bodies and other stakeholders on the same page.

Famous for its majestic Pacific views and surfing culture, California will be “the hardest state in the nation to permit an offshore wind farm”, says Jim Lanard, chief executive of offshore developer Magellan Wind.

On top of potential environmental conflicts, Lanard says, there’s the US Defense Department – “a major stakeholder with which it’s going to take a lot of work to find a collaborative outcome”.

Source:  By Karl-Erik Stromsta in New York | Recharge Wind | 07 June 2017 | www.rechargenews.com

This article is the work of the source indicated. Any opinions expressed in it are not necessarily those of National Wind Watch.

The copyright of this article resides with the author or publisher indicated. As part of its noncommercial educational effort to present the environmental, social, scientific, and economic issues of large-scale wind power development to a global audience seeking such information, National Wind Watch endeavors to observe “fair use” as provided for in section 107 of U.S. Copyright Law and similar “fair dealing” provisions of the copyright laws of other nations. Send requests to excerpt, general inquiries, and comments via e-mail.

Wind Watch relies entirely
on User Funding
   Donate via Paypal
(via Paypal)
Donate via Stripe
(via Stripe)

Share:

e-mail X FB LI TG TG Share


News Watch Home

Get the Facts
CONTACT DONATE PRIVACY ABOUT SEARCH
© National Wind Watch, Inc.
Use of copyrighted material adheres to Fair Use.
"Wind Watch" is a registered trademark.

 Follow:

Wind Watch on X Wind Watch on Facebook

Wind Watch on Linked In Wind Watch on Mastodon