Three miles offshore the Mendocino Coast, the cluster of bright red tubes, each about the size and circumference of a giant redwood tree, would wiggle and dive in the surf like giant sea snakes.
The segmented “Pelamis” design of a wave energy plant was just one painted Monday night by engineer Roger Bedard of the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) for the Fort Bragg City Council and about 100 spectators who filled Town Hall.
Such a floating power station could cost more than $100 million, provide dozens of good paying local jobs and reduce wave heights reaching local beaches by 10 percent, Bedard told the crowd.
Bedard, whose science fiction-sounding ideas belied his crisp Air Force officer school manner, riveted the crowd and council by erupting a mountain of clearly articulated and illustrated facts about wave energy for nearly an hour.
“We worry about keeping the lights on 10 to 20 years from now,” he said.
He said two scientific buoys off Fort Bragg, one operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration at Point Arena and one operated by the Scripps Oceanographic Institute called the Noyo, give promising signs about power potential from winter storms. A possible 90 megawatt plant would provide enough power for about 34,000 homes.
Local onshore indicators were also good, including the city sewer pipe outflow from the Georgia Pacific mill site, the mill site itself and the Pacific Gas & Electric substation on Walnut Street.
“You have a harbor with machine shops and docks and local labor that could do mooring and cable deployment and operational maintenance work,” Bedard said.
A wave energy plant has no emissions, can use just a few gallons of biodegradable hydraulic fluid in its operations and be invisible from shore despite bright colors used to alert shipping.
But a wave energy plant would act like a breakwater, disrupting currents and waves. It would cause unknown impacts on whales, tidepool life and even surfers, members of the audience said.
Bedard said work could be done in the summer to stay away from whales. The floating station would need to find ways to keep seals and sea birds from becoming dependent on the floating devices, he said.
“There are a whole bunch of environmental concerns that need to be addressed. But with proper care and siting you can have a very, very benign system.”
He said the only existing wave energy plant, in Navy waters in Hawaii, came with a finding of no significant environmental impact.
While audience members expressed some reservations, none opposed the idea and most said they hoped to see it succeed, as it fit with ideas about localization and environmental sustainability. PG&E currently supplies power to the city of Fort Bragg , is working toward providing 20 percent California qualified renewable energy by 2010, and wants to find new alternative energy sources. The wave energy would not be under any obligation to use PG&E and could even form a local community utility to wheel the power.
Bedard was adamant that he is “apolitical,” an assertion refuted by Councilman Jere Melo in his praise of the high quality factual presentation.
“I don”t believe that. If relating to the body politic is political, that is what you are,”Melo said.
Fort Bragg resident Skip Wollenberg, a geologist, asked if the device would be tsunami ready. While Bedard said big waves had crunched wave energy devices of the past, but those were storm waves. A tsunami moves fast and isn”t even large enough offshore to cause damage, he said. He showed how the Pelamis is engineered to dive into the face of giant storm waves in just the way a person on the beach would do to avoid the impact of a breaker.
Mendocino resident Gary Evans was an economics teacher at College of the Redwood a few years back when a student proposed using the Georgia Pacific mill site for a wave and wind energy plant.
Bedard said integrating alternative energy technologies was one of his dreams.
“The wave energy and wind energy people are separate and not talking to each other at this point. I hope to get them talking,” Bedard said.
He said his dream, for a time long after his own death, is for offshore powerplants 20 to 30 miles offshore integrating wind, solar and wave energy.
Dr. Richard Miller said the ideas were worth the challenges and wait, getting a laugh when he said only Councilman Brian Baltierra (youngest of the council) might be around to see them to fruition.
“Energy sustainability and independence for the city of Fort Bragg is very exciting,” Miller said.
Cindy Arch of the Ocean Protection Coalition praised the idea and requested that everything be done with full openness and disclosure.
Larry Knowles, owner of Rising Tide Sea Vegetables, seemed to surprise Bedard with details of impacts that a drop of swell heights could have on edible seaweeds and other creatures.
He pointed out how two sea vegetables, Nori and sea palm, were impacted by tiny changes in the flow of sand and wave heights and said many other creatures could be impacted.
“You are a perfect candidate to be on the port liaison project. These are the type of concerns known to local people. Not being an oceanographer, I didn”t know about this,” Bedard told Knowles.
Bedard said crabbing and fishing could also be impacted, as it was in Oregon, where fishermen were brought on board as liaisons and were compensated by NOAA for their involvement.
“Without the fishing and crabbing community being involved in Oregon, the private investors would never have been attracted to this site, because we know such a project can be stopped very easily by any opposition group.”
Bedard said the Pelamis is the most mature technology among a half dozen designs that have advanced at least to the prototype stage. Wave energy technology has been around for decades but is being put into use now because of oil prices and concerns about emissions, he said. A serious study was made 25 years ago in Fort Bragg, Bedard confirmed.
EPRI is funded to find the first California plant site from Half Moon Bay to the Oregon border, in a project funded by the California Energy Commission.
He said a 100-megawatt plant might cost $100 to $150 million.
“Unlike a natural gas plant, for example, there is no fuel cost, but the initial capital cost is probably higher.”
He said it would take 25 to 30 people to operate the plant and more jobs would come from installation and maintenance.
Three wave energy plants are in the development stage on the West Coast.
Bedard explained that East Coast plants are less practical because most wave energy flows west to east.
In Humboldt County, the Seadog, a bottom-mounted pump, is being developed. Eventually that plant would pump water from the bottom of the ocean to a top of a water tower, where it would generate hydroelectric power on the way back down.
EPRI identified Reedsport as the “sweetspot” in Oregon; it is a similar community to Fort Bragg with a huge closed plant as the town anchor and an offshore pipe. On July 16 that project became the first in the United States to move beyond the theoretical with a permit filed to run a 15-megawatt powerplant.
Another plant is under development at the tip of Washington State.
Bedard came at the invitation of George Reinhardt, an energy activist who has been involved in seeking accountability and sustainability at the G-P mill site.
Councilmen Jere Melo, Brian Baltierra, Doug Hammerstrom and Mayor Dave Turner all praised the presentation and pledged to continue to be involved and learn about the idea.
Hammerstrom asked how flexible the location was and whether the floating plant, which would be anchored to the bottom on a slack cable much like the anchor of a ship, could be moved to mitigate onshore impacts to waves.
Bedard pointed out that no single proposal exists for Fort Bragg among the many shapes of wave energy plants. He answered Hammerstrom by saying moving the device would be possible but could be costly.
Bedard said the developer would likely come from out of the area.
“I think there are bigger pockets in the state of California than exist in a 7,000-person town.”
Turner mentioned the idea of locally controlled power.
“Being an election year I had hoped to promise free electricity for everyone,” Turner joked.
