Wave energy is back off the Mendocino Coast, at least on paper.
Green Wave Energy Solutions has refiled for permits to develop wave energy off the village of Mendocino and San Luis Obispo; both sets were thrown out by the Federal Regulatory Energy Commission last fall. FERC revoked the Thousand Oaks” company”s 2009 permits citing a repeated pattern of missing filing deadlines, and responding to specific questions with general answers.
The new local application contains many more details, as well as a map showing just where the proposed wave energy project would be located. Onshore, the village of Mendocino would be the middle point of the proposed local project.
“The project site is situated in the open ocean approximately 0.5 to 2.6 miles from shore in water depths that range from 120 to 390 feet. The approximate dimensions of the proposed site are 2.5 miles wide (east-west) by 6.9 miles long (north-south) resulting in a project area of 17-square-miles,” the application says.
Green Wave was composed of attorney Wayne Burkamp, engineer Bill Bustamante, developer Dean Kunicki, developer Gary Gorian and State Senator Tony Strickland, a top GOP politician. Neither Kunicki nor Strickland”s names are found on the current application, but Strickland”s website still identifies him as vice president of Green Wave.
Strickland was criticized for using Green Wave to make himself, one of the state”s most conservative members of the legislature, appear environmentally sensitive, while the company in fact existed only on paper. Strickland, who has served in both houses of the California Legislature, is considered a lock for the GOP nomination for new Senate District 27, recently created by redistricting and considered a key battleground for the two parties.
In 2010, Green Wave promised FERC meetings would be held on the Mendocino Coast involving the firm. Those meetings were never held. The company did hire a top consultant and formed a partnership with a company actively developing wave energy on the West Coast, but never made any public appearances at numerous public forms on wave energy here, or met with county or city officials.
It remains to be seen if the company will do any active local study if they are granted the permit this time. The new application calls the village of Mendocino a “city” and suggests a connection to the grid there, which those many local wave energy meetings in 2007-2010 showed to be a highly improbable place to plug in.
“A subsea transmission cable will carry power from the project area to shore for connection to the grid in Mendocino,” the application states.
PG&E and Chevron have both proposed wave energy projects off the Mendocino Coast in the past, but the Green Wave proposal is the only one currently on the books.
Like the last time, Green Wave”s says its project is about finding the best technology, not solving environmental problems or other issues raised by others studying wave energy.
“A number of different device concepts are being pursued by independent device developers, and there is no industry consensus at this time on the optimal technology. As such the initial function of this wave park will be to evaluate technology options, which may include more then one technology in a small wave farm with a capacity of up to five megawatts. During this initial phase, the best technology options, environmental effects and other issues will be identified,” the application states.
A three-year preliminary permit gives a developer exclusive study rights to an area, and more importantly, automatic first priority for a FERC license at the end of three years.
Now that Green Wave has filed for the permit, FERC will review the application and decide whether to once again grant a preliminary permit. FERC has established a process to weed out purely speculative permit applications and requires anyone holding a permit to file periodic reports.
FERC”s review period has lasted from weeks to months in the past.
