'Another attempt to industrialize the coast' : California's Central Coast residents work to stop -- or at least slow down -- offshore wind

[hunter]

MORRO BAY -- Joey Racano used to have a dining room table. Now the sunlit nook off the family kitchen more often than not serves as a conference room. The table is covered with maps, thick binders bulging with tech reports, towers of meeting minutes, abandoned coffee mugs -- the accumulation of years of community vigilance.

On this day, his home is a lively place where a handful of locals are discussing one of California’s most complex and audacious initiatives -- loading the Pacific Ocean with sprawling wind farms that float 20 miles from shore.

To some, it's an exciting endeavor that will power California's carbon-free electricity grid of the future. To others, including the people around the table, the construction of untried technology off the coast carries too many risks and unknowns.

"This is just another attempt to industrialize the coast," said Rachel Wilson, who lives in Cayucos, a tiny, old-fashioned beach town, and regularly attends public meetings about the wind projects. "I can just see Port Hueneme with cranes and lights and a huge wharf in my charming little coastal community. No way."

--more--
https://calmatters.org/environment/2023/10/california-offshore-wind-central-coast/

People who know me as a radical environmentalist are frequently surprised that I oppose these and similar large scale solar and wind projects on previously undeveloped land and seascapes.

In this case we won't save the world by dumping more of our crap in the ocean. These projects are entirely dependent on fossil fuels, especially natural gas, for their economic viability and will only prolong our use of them and therefore accomplish nothing in the long run towards reducing the total amount of greenhouse gasses humans dump in the atmosphere.

These solar projects won't "buy us time" in any significant way and they won't be part of any meaningful energy transition away from fossil fuels.

These offshore wind turbines are mostly greenwash for the filthy natural gas industry.

We know what we have to do to quit fossil fuels entirely and we have both the technology and the economic resources to do it.

But too many people would rather live in this fantasy world of wind and solar "farms" and magical energy storage schemes. It's all just another flavor of climate change denial.

[Blues Heron]

1. NIMBY BS

We need to harvest that free, unlimited, wind power. Their idea is if they can see it it’s bad. It’s not like they’re putting up floating nukes or oil wells. It’s a big propellor slowly turning - OMG the horror!

[flashman13]

2. I was on a road trip last December and stopped in Morro Bay. It is a quaint touristy town and I

understand it's citizens desire to preserve it. I hate to tell those people, but climate change is going to impact them no matter what they do. The best we can hope for is to minimize the change by reducing carbon emissions. So accepting some change now is the best way to lessen much more sever changes later on.

In the short synopsis above, Mr. Racano's comments are somewhat incoherent. I suggest if you are interested and want to learn more you should read the complete article in the link.

In my state, if a land owner wants to dry up a wetland they are required to build a replacement wet land at least as large as that being removed. My suggestion is that the companies that are going to construct and profit from the wind development be required to construct mitigating environmental projects both at sea and on land. Such things as underwater fish and botanical habitats. Possibly floating artificial islands away from the farms to attract and accommodate birds and sea lions is another possibility. If it is necessary to construct an entirely new port, that construction should be offset by the construction of large biological preserves, especially wetlands.

My point is that change is coming whether we like it or not. We might still have a chance to lessen the effects of climate change. Developing wind and at the same time constructing environmental offset projects can be a win-win that can limit the destructiveness of climate change.

[hunter]

3. So pretending to do something about climate change is preferable to actual solutions?

You can model any kind of solar and wind utopia you like using real world data from existing gigawatt scale projects. The results are not pretty.

Start here:

https://www.caiso.com/TodaysOutlook/Pages/supply.html

or here:

https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/DK-DK1

Subtract out fossil fuels, nuclear power, or any other energy source you don't like and imagine what sort of energy grid your favorite energy resources could support.

For wind and solar enthusiasts their answer usually comes down to magical energy storage systems (batteries, hydrogen, whatever...) and/or "natural gas ain't so bad."

That, and an implicit "fuck you" to anyone who can't afford electricity at fifty cents a kilowatt hour (or more) and a stand-by generator.

Natural gas is bad. There's still plenty enough of it in the ground to destroy the natural world as we know it and our civilization as well. It's best we leave it in the ground, not use it to support our wind and solar fantasies.

If we truly want to solve this problem there are two things we need to do. We need to turn our cities into attractive affordable places where car ownership (electric or not) is unnecessary, and we have to accept the reality that nuclear power is the only energy resource capable of displacing fossil fuels entirely while supporting a human population of eight billion people.

[flashman13]

4. So your answer is to sit on your ass and pray for utopia. Good luck!

[hunter]

9. I don't promote impossible things here on DU.

I am pointing out a subterfuge of the natural gas industry, as led by people like Warren Buffet..

Wind energy will only prolong our dependence on natural gas and that's acceptable to people who are heavily invested in that industry for whatever reason.

Nuclear power is the only energy resource that's an existential threat to the fossil fuel industry.

For example, compare France to Germany here;

https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/DE

France is consistently green. They closed their last coal mine two decades ago. It wasn't by magic.

Germany, appeasing it's heavy industries powered by cheap coal, and it's leaders cozy with the Russian natural gas industry and innumerate German Romantics, were never able to achieve this, in spite of their aggressive renewable energy schemes and the high prices German households and small businesses pay for electricity.

I supported efforts to keep Diablo Canyon open because it was obvious to me that shutting it down would require the construction of new gas plants of similar capacity to replace it. Ironically I used to be a radical anti-nuclear activist who opposed nuclear power in California.

At some point, as documented in my journal here on DU, I decided natural gas was the greater threat.

[NNadir]

11. Who told you that reactionary dependence on the weather for energy was "doing something?"

The data that it isn't "doing something" can be found here: Weekly average CO2 at Mauna Loa

Week beginning on October 15, 2023: 419.46 ppm
Weekly value from 1 year ago: 415.82 ppm
Weekly value from 10 years ago: 393.98 ppm
Last updated: October 27, 2023

As a "solution," the trillion upon trillion dollar wind/solar/gas/oil/coal scam is actually worse as far as "doing something," than prayer, since in general, praying is responsible for slightly less destruction.

The expensive and useless wind and solar industry is about embracing fossil fuels, not eliminating them.

[CoopersDad]

5. I'm all for it, plus a battery energy storage system is planned for Morro Bay

I live on the coast, I see the old Moss Landing gas plant out my window where the world's largest BESS exist.

It's real, wind and solar and storage, and I'm proud to see them being expanded on the coast where most of the population live.

I'm a big fan of Senator Laird and Assemblymember Addiss.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2023/10/13/governor-signs-sen-laird-bill-prompted-by-moss-landing-bess-incidents/

[Caribbeans]

6. Did you see this?

Questions Over Battery Plants After Moss Landing Incident

October 21, 2021

Questions about fire safety were raised regarding a proposed Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) at the Morro Bay Power Plant, after a similar facility in Moss Landing overheated and forced a full shutdown of what is now the largest BESS in the world at 300 megawatts (1,200 megawatt-hours).

That title would be usurped by the 600 MW BESS that Vistra is proposing to build on its closed Morro Bay plant. The issue of safety arose during a recent online forum on the future of the power plant stacks, sponsored by the City of Morro Bay featuring representatives from Vistra, governing agencies, and attended by some 200 residents via Zoom...

The Morro Bay BESS as proposed would have some 7,200, lithium-ion batteries, housed in three 91,000 square foot, 30-foot tall buildings (with 10-feet of equipment on the roofs), and covering some 22 acres of the plant...
https://esterobaynews.com/news/questions-over-battery-plants-after-moss-landing-incident/

Every single Li-Ion battery dead in ~10-12 years. All will need replacement. Green?

[CoopersDad]

8. Yes, I did, and I also attended the one-year anniversary open house

In Castroville, where the fire department and local emergency leadership presented, as well as Vistra and PG&E, attended by John Laird and Dawn Addis, friends of mine.

No harmful chemicals were released during these incidents and many new safety features and protocols were put into place.

Given the fact that these systems permit greater resiliency and deployment of renewables, I'm supportive of them.

The alternative is continued dependence on natural gas plants.

I live here.

[hunter]

7. Those batteries are rated for minutes or hours...

... to insure grid stability as solar and wind power fluctuates. Basically they give sluggish gas power plants time to throttle up and down as wind and solar power varies. These batteries do not cover the days or weeks when the sun doesn't shine or the wind doesn't blow.

The amount of batteries that would be required to do that is completely ludicrous.

[OKIsItJustMe]

13. NREL Video: What To Know About Energy Storage on the Future Grid

[NNadir]

10. John Muir fought and lost this battle against industrialization of...

...wilderness more than a century ago.

The battle is still being lost. Calling the despoilers of wilderness to build industrial parks for unreliable redundant and short lived garbage like the expensive and filthy wind industry" environmentalists" is, as you say, merely greenwashing for mining, gas, oil and coal interests.

Environmental sense died with John Muir and there is no hope for the rise of decency. We see without a break in an degrading atmosphere of ennui and excuses the enthusiastic bait and switch game playing out with the big lies, all of which amount to enthusiasm for simplistic, intellectually lazy, rote ignorance.

Muir knew what environmentalism was, but regrettably the modern simpletons who co-opted the organization he founded cheer for this hellacious destructive shit here and elsewhere.

General Sherman, for whom the sequoia in Sequoia National Park is named said in a different context, "You may as well appeal against a thunderstorm" when he prepared to burn Atlanta.

Now it is the planet that is being burned.

Real environmentalists, few of whom remain, Muir type environmentalists, have lost to the industrialists running the gas/oil/coal/wind/solar/hydrogen scam. The fact that this scam has nothing to do with the environment is quite literally written in the wind, in which the concentrations of the dangerous fossil fuel waste carbon dioxide is rising at the fastest rate ever observed.

All the ennui and excuses in the world will not change the numbers nor will they render the apologists for industrialization of wilderness into environmentalists. The arrogance of their ignorance is, to repeat, literally written in the wind. People can lie, to themselves and to each other, but numbers don't lie.

History will not forgive us, nor should it.

[OKIsItJustMe]

12. NREL: 100% Clean Electricity by 2035 Study

https://democraticunderground.com/1127166861

…

Key Findings

Technology Deployment Must Rapidly Scale Up
In all modeled scenarios, new clean energy technologies are deployed at an unprecedented scale and rate to achieve 100% clean electricity by 2035. As modeled, wind and solar energy provide 60%–80% of generation in the least-cost electricity mix in 2035, and the overall generation capacity grows to roughly three times the 2020 level by 2035—including a combined 2 terawatts of wind and solar.

…

Seasonal storage becomes important when clean electricity makes up about 80%–95% of generation and there is a multiday to seasonal mismatch of variable renewable supply and demand. Across the scenarios, seasonal capacity in 2035 ranges about 100–680 gigawatts.

…

[hunter]

14. Okay, I was simply going to let this NREL report sit here as it is, reductio ad absurdum...

... but I couldn't do it.

I've been imaging 100 to 680 gigawatts of seasonal energy storage capacity.

Surely, here in the great and all-powerful U.S.A., we can find places to build the equivalent of 4 to 30 Three Gorges Dams to support our wind and solar energy schemes!





That, or storage schemes even more far-fetched.

NREL link:

https://www.nrel.gov/analysis/100-percent-clean-electricity-by-2035-study.html

By the numbers it's pretty obvious that if we truly want to quit fossil fuels we have to fast track a few standardized nuclear power plant designs and begin replacing fossil fuel plants as fast as we can, perhaps starting with the dirtiest as described in this post:

'Murca!! EPA Releases Worst Of The Worst Awards For Top 10 Climate Polluters
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1127170030

[OKIsItJustMe]

15. Spend some time with the report

It’s not as far fetched as you suggest, and, yes, nuclear fission plays a role.

Personally, I hope to see practical nuclear fusion in five years. The Biden Administration is shooting for ten. My chief candidates are Helion and Commonwealth. I’d prefer Helion as it does not use steam (like a fission plant.)