Political and technological currents have changed course several times since Fort Bragg was a national center of wave energy five years ago, but so far the risks and benefits are still making a splash only on paper.
Local meetings and controversy from 2004 to 2008 clearly contributed to a national understanding that the political and environmental “hydrokinetic” process is as raw and flawed as the technology itself remains.
Has the process improved since? Might a global conglomerate once again be granted an exclusive claim to study, then mine, ocean wave energy off Mendocino, all without sharing any benefit with taxpayers?
Finding those answers remains nearly as difficult as in 2005, when the city, county and state of California all were surprised to learn that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) had been granting exclusive leases of the ocean to corporations literally in back rooms and in private, without anyone mentioning there even was a process to any of the local governments, much less seeking input.
Back then, the Minerals Management Service (MMS) proposed that Fort Bragg”s offshore waters be the primary national testing grounds for wave energy, as one of the solutions to the nation”s dependence on petroleum products.
FERC, MMS”s then rival in Washington, was entertaining two apparently serious proposals which staked exclusive claims to offshore waters from Little River to Mendocino, not to mention a third on Cape Mendocino. FERC officials made rare appearances. Oil giant Chevron even had a claim for a few months.
Now, all those claims have all been withdrawn or rejected by FERC. A lawsuit brought by local fishermen challenging the wave energy process has been dismissed as moot — since there are no projects left to challenge.
Fort Bragg-based Fishermen Interested in Safe Hydrokinetics (the FISH Committee) chaired by Jim Martin and John Innes, had sued FERC for failing to establish a review process that would protect the ocean, based on the GreenWave permit, which then claimed waters off the town of Mendocino.
The GreenWave preliminary permit came with very little specific information and appeared to be a paper-only claim to many. FERC cancelled GreenWave”s permit after the Southern California housing developer-led company missed several deadlines and failed to provide specific information to FERC.
Elizabeth Mitchell, FERC coordinator for FISH, said the local federal case had been briefed and was ready for its first court date on Feb. 15. FISH had argued that the suit should continue even after the GreenWave dismissal, to rectify problems with the process.
“In the lawsuit, we were attempting to require FERC to develop a comprehensive plan for West Coast wave energy development before issuing permits for individual projects. While we would have preferred to have the court”s decision on the merits, we are content that no projects are currently authorized for the North Coast,” Mitchell said.
FERC finally did tell the state of California that it was entertaining commercialization of state waters. FERC and the state now are actually operating under a wave energy legal contract, called a memo of understanding, which is posted on the FERC website.
Ironically, the most active wave energy developer in California is now the Sonoma County Water Agency, which has three separate proposals before FERC to study and develop the ocean. Sonoma, Mendocino and Humboldt county supervisors all became outraged and involved after the FERC private giveaway. Sonoma County filed for a FERC permit for all its waters in order to have a say-so in any projects given the nod by FERC. FERC replied that Sonoma County couldn”t act to protect its waters; it must study with intent to develop and rejected the blanket permit.
Now, Sonoma County, through its often controversial water district, has three permits on file, which look like the most specific proposals filed to date in the state.
Nationally, the Obama administration quickly quelled the long brewing FERC-MMS rivalry upon taking office. Later the administration renamed the MMS as the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement, as part of forced reform for a federal agency, which had humiliated both Bush and Obama by being too friendly with big oil.
The Obama administration also rejected in 2008 the pressure from national environmental groups led by the Environmental Defense Fund to get started right away on wave energy. After an investigation, the Obama administration learned exactly what locals learned through years of controversy — there was nothing to get started on.
Scientists still say wave energy is probably decades away from being functional and the process is equally nascent. FERC defined hydrokinetics as any energy from flowing water not involving a dam. That has resulted in thousands of proposals to put generators into the nation”s major rivers, although none in the West, where environmental and water quality questions would have to be asked.
If anything is happening on the technological front, nobody is talking. PG&E had fought to keep all its research and any local wave energy breakthroughs a trade secret.
The United States has left development up to private industry, while countries from the United Kingdom to South Africa to Israel to China have made public investments in development of wave and tidal energy.
Is the process now more open? Are any proposals currently being considered off the Mendocino Coast?
The newspaper asked that question of FERC officials late last month and was pointed to the FERC website, which was two months out of date and featured PG&E”s Eureka wave energy proposals as active, which were withdrawn in October. An update followed, featuring maps and lists updated this month. Those maps still show PG&E as an active proposal, although FERC files show that PG&E has withdrawn from the area.
But PG&E has not officially withdrawn its wave energy preliminary permit, only the license it applied for to actually try wave energy off Humboldt County, FERC”s Celeste Miller said.
FERC does not put new filings on the map or on the official list until they have been reviewed and approved for filing, which has taken as much as a year in the past. Could there be new claims on local waters not yet on the map? Several hours of searching through the raw data found no new filings.
With analysts agreeing that the current Congress is unlikely to make any new commitments to alternative energy, the breakers will likely continue splashing undisturbed for some time.
The map of Northern California wave energy permits shows the defunct PG&E permit, the three permits of the Sonoma County Water Agency and the Golden Gate Energy Company”s proposal to harvest energy flowing out to sea under the world”s most famous bridge.
There are also three in Southern California, where wave energy and public involvement and criticism are both less powerful.
“We do not know what the future will bring. FERC is still issuing permits to all comers, the most recent example being a permit for a proposed project that would consist of 11,443 Ocean Wave Electricity Generation units off the San Onofre nuclear reactor in San Diego County. There was, of course, no plan or environmental analysis before the permit was issued,” said Mitchell.
Innes thinks such things are unlikely to happen again off the Mendocino Coast.
“Your work will not be done in vain, because FERC now understands there is a Tiger in the Tank” on the North Coast. I believe they will tread with a lighter foot if they want to do something up here. You can bet if any company or agency is considering filing for a permit, they will look at past history and take a very cautious approach,” Innes said.
Email Frank Hartzell at frankhartzell@gmail.com.
