Wave energy has come a long way in the past two years, but still hasn”t quite made it outdoors.
In December 2005, when the local group CELL (Coast Economic Localization Link) held a Fort Bragg meeting on local sources of renewable energy, the old standbys — sun and wind power took center stage. There were lots of acronyms like CCA (Community Choice Aggregation) and NCPA (Northern California Power Agency). Wave energy didn”t make much of a splash — described as a futuristic idea by one speaker.
Three years later, Fort Bragg has become one of the most important spots on the globe for the discussion of wave energy, although even the most ardent backers concede it”s still at the futuristic idea stage.
New acronyms now pack the paragraphs, led by FERC (Federal Energy Regulatory Commission), MMS (Minerals Management Service), PG&E (Pacific Gas & Electric) and EPRI (Electric Power Research Institute).
As the city and county prepare to host a busload of top regulatory bureaucrats this Saturday in Fort Bragg, nobody as yet has touched the coast”s actual ocean, said to be so full of potential for wave energy purposes.
A free, day-long wave energy forum sponsored by the City of Fort Bragg and the County of Mendocino takes place this Saturday, Jan. 19, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Dana Gray Elementary School Multipurpose Room, 1197 Chestnut St., in Fort Bragg. A buffet lunch will be provided. (See agenda at end of story.)
Paperwork tsunami
While the action outdoors is in the future, a paperwork tsunami has broken in Washington, D.C., Oregon, Washington state, Sacramento and Ukiah, as local, state and federal bureaucrats deal with inventors, investors, speculators and a few shady characters already attracted to the brand-new field.
Wave energy costs are still above 20 cents a kilowatt hour and need to be below 10 cents to be viable. Although wave energy still isn”t an economically feasible technology, much less one that has been tested in the ocean, it looks less and less like something from an old Jetsons cartoon, as crude oil prices go higher and higher.
Saturday”s meeting will be the first time ever that the FERC, MMS, the State Lands Commission and California Coastal Commission, which all have regulatory claims on the same waters, have sat at the table together, and certainly not in public.
How did local governments get so many to travel so far on winding roads?
“Heidi Dickerson from Congressman Thompson”s office was instrumental in getting all of the federal agency representatives to come,” said Fort Bragg City Manager Linda Ruffing.
“And there”s a lot of interest from state agencies who are still trying to figure out what their roles and positions will be with the wave energy applications. It should be an interesting day,” Ruffing said.
Canned wind
and solar energy
Wave energy has been talked about nearly as long as the weather itself, as it is much denser and potentially much more efficient than wind and solar energy. In fact, wave energy is something like canned wind and solar energy, implanted in the ocean by the sun and delivered by the wind.
But as big as the ideas were, the power of the ocean”s storms, corrosion and currents were always much bigger.
As oil prices have skyrocketed to $100 a barrel, the backers of wave energy have gotten more hopeful.
Wave energy”s history ranges from a Frenchman”s patent in 1799 to an 1899 plant operated in Santa Cruz, which successfully powered street cleaning efforts. In the 1970s, Scottish Professor Stephen Salter patented the Salter”s Duck in response to the Oil Embargo, a device that many modern wave energy devices are based on. In the 1980s, a large scale test plant began operating off Norway but was obliterated in a huge storm, causing the firm to give up on the whole idea.
Technological advances, such as wireless computering, have helped improve the outlook. Wireless technology would help shorebound operators communicate with a wave energy array during a storm. Improvements in remote control and robotics, driven partly by war adventures around the world, have also advanced the technology.
In 2001, an Indian tribe in Washington state proposed building a wave energy farm off their shores — in a national marine sanctuary.
To deal with the proposal, FERC stepped into a regulatory vacuum and created a dam licensing-based process. Creation of the process stretched over five years but began to get noticed. During that time, the U.S. Navy tested a device off Hawaii, making that the first modern wave energy device to go into the water.
Studies showed that the best place in the nation for wave energy was the whole state of Oregon — along Northern California and much of Washington. Oregon State University in Corvallis became the center of research, setting up a giant wave study tank. Developers set up shop in Portland.
Lincoln County, Ore., claimed its own waters for its residents, a claim which irked FERC: The agency had written the rules for energy developers who had also arrived in Oregon to stake rival claims.
Electric Power Research Institute studies show that as much as 5,000 megawatts of wave power could be generated off the California Coast. Last year power use in California peaked at 68,000 megawatts.
In 2004, the City of San Francisco paid EPRI to test three devices, Ocean Power Delivery, Pelamis and the Energetch — all 10 miles off Ocean Beach. That was to have been the first site in the nation — without any FERC permit, or any of the controversy.
“Ocean Beach was an attractive site for a small pilot plant, but it was not a good site for a 50- to 100-megawatt commercial size plant because the underground distribution system from the west side or coastal side of the city would need a major and expensive upgrade to get the power to the load or eastern side of the city,” said Roger Bedard of EPRI.
A wave energy buoy was also tested off New Jersey in 2005.
Wave energy is just one way of getting power from the ocean that has been discussed in the current process. Tidal energy permit applications have sprouted by the dozens from the Florida Keys to New England.
The Minerals Management Service plans to entertain applications from developers looking to gain power from the difference in temperatures between deep cold ocean waters and warmer surface waters. The newest FERC process also contemplates thousands of permits being issued to developers located on rivers.
As FERC took control of the wave energy process and more and more developers came forward, the New York Times, the Washington Post and the scientific journal Nature all featured in-depth stories on the fast-developing technology.
In Europe, governments have funded development of the technology with tax breaks and grants. While the United States lags behind, the election of Democrats two years ago added to the hopes of wave energy backers, as the party platform has a stronger emphasis on fighting global warming and developing alternative energy.
The prospect reaches Mendocino Coast
California lagged behind Oregon, too. Despite a 2003 study by the California Department of Energy that identified tremendous potential in Sonoma, Mendocino, Humboldt and Del Norte counties from ocean waves, nobody was talking about the issue officially, much less filing any claims.
First contact for the Mendocino Coast came in August 2006 when Bedard of the Electric Power Research Institute made a presentation to the Fort Bragg City Council. The former Air Force officer impressed the crowd with his vision of a future where offshore wind and wave energy plants empowered a post-petroleum world.
Bedard emphasized that he was there to discuss ideas only, at the invitation of local energy activist George Reinhardt.
“There is no project — we are discussing the possibilities only,” Bedard said after the meeting. But specific projects were being discussed behind the scenes, with no local officials in the loop.
After the Fort Bragg City Council heard the initial presentation in August 2006, they backed the idea of wave energy in an October resolution that does not name PG&E. Next, a January meeting was held in Noyo Harbor, where EPRI sought input from the community. That meeting was not noticed to the newspaper.
Next came the surprise news that PG&E had filed its preliminary permit application with FERC.
PG&E claimed support from the city in its filing, which the city later clarified with a filing of its own saying it supported no specific plan.
PG&E did launch a public dialogue, participating in several meetings organized by the city, county, Alliance for Democracy and North Coast Fishing Association.
Another stunner hit when Chevron filed for a wave energy farm in the waters off Mendocino in July 2007. This filing brought the town”s virulent opponents of offshore oil or gas exploration into the issue.
While local fishermen spoke out against using the ocean as an experimental laboratory, other activists were most irked by the fact that FERC”s new process gave exclusive rights to the waters to whoever filed paperwork first. Others were irritated by the lack of any local control mechanism in the FERC process and by the total silence of state agencies and the Schwarzenegger administration on federal wave energy regulations in state waters.
Chevron yanked its application in August, without giving an explanation.
Fort Bragg and Reinhardt have been interested in the prospects of jobs and revival of Noyo Harbor by wave energy funds, although they”ve been cautious about impacts on fishing and the environment.
The biggest consensus in all the meetings was that it was too early to have strong opinions, at least until there was a plan to put something into the water.
FERC proposes shortening permit process
FERC then created another new process that would allow wave energy devices to get out of red tape and into the blue much faster.
Filed just before the Christmas holidays with less than 10 days for a comment period, the proposal brought a cavalcade of negative reviews from fellow federal agencies like the Department of Interior and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration as well as Washington, Oregon and California agencies.
The agencies want FERC to slow down and conduct an official rulemaking process that would create a paper trail and be subject to sunshine laws which support the public”s right to know. They also said the time period for comments was too short.
The County of Mendocino objected, too. Supervisor Kendall Smith, whose Fourth District includes Fort Bragg, pushed the county to study the issue — over the objections of two inland supervisors who saw it as a waste of time.
Elizabeth Mitchell, a retired NOAA attorney who says she moved to Fort Bragg to take on the wave energy issue, also filed objections.
In fact, her objections were well-stated and in-depth enough that both the county of Mendocino and Lincoln County, Ore., referred FERC to her filing, demanding that the federal agency conduct a rehearing of its pilot project idea.
Momentum growing
Another filing came in October, by a company called GreenWave, claiming the waters off the town of Mendocino. The company issued no press releases and the filing still is not evident on the FERC Website, which lists other preliminary permit applications. Principals in the Thousand Oaks company include President Wayne Burkamp, a San Francisco attorney, and Ventura developer Gary Gorian.
That was followed in November by a filing off Cape Mendocino by Ocean Power Technologies under the name California Wave Energy Partners. The plan sounds much like Bedard”s dream — there is talk of tying that plant into a wind energy facility at the westernmost point of the continental United States and a biomass plant in the town of Samoa in Humboldt County, which was once home to a lumber mill much like that in Fort Bragg.
In November, Washington Wave Company filed for a preliminary permit in Grays Harbor, Wash., to build 90 wind turbines and 350 wave converters, as wave energy plans gained in number and scale by the month.
Also in November, the first wave energy test buoy deployed off the Oregon coast sunk. The sinking of the 72-foot-tall, $2 million buoy brought home the concerns of fishers and environmentalists who worry about stray technology that could endanger fishing, navigation and whales.
In December after seven years of waiting, the Indian tribe in Washington was granted a permit to develop wave energy there. It was the first-ever permit granted by FERC.
Also in December, PG&E signed a long-term power purchasing agreement with Finavera Renewables. Finavera will supply PG&E with 3,854 megawatt-hours of electricity annually from the Humboldt County Offshore Wave Energy Power Plant, which is expected to begin delivering power in 2012. This is in addition to a WaveConnect project PG&E proposed on the same day as Wave Connect in Fort Bragg, which is nearly identical to the local project.
Another big bit of December news was when the House of Representatives passed a broad energy bill that sets new incentives for developing energy from wind, solar, geothermal and other renewable sources. If the bill eventually passes Congress and is signed into law, it could change the speed and scale of wave energy development.
Wave energy filings have continued in New Year 2008. A politically influential Houston company named Hydro Green Energy filed a flurry of wave energy FERC filings in Alaska. These contain something that Mendocino Coast locals have wished for — they will power nearby villages like Galena and Nulato instead of the grid at large and include prospects for local control.
PG&E spokeswoman Jennifer Zerwer said locals who attend Saturday”s meeting should realize that the technology is truly still in the idea stage.
“A key takeaway is that we are in the very beginning stages of this project and the processes continue to evolve. Many details, including ownership and generation relationships, are yet to be determined and PG&E is committed to working with the regulatory agencies, communities and local stakeholders openly and transparently as the WaveConnect project evolves,” Zerwer said.
Wave energy forum agenda
The free, day-long wave energy forum sponsored by the City of Fort Bragg and the County of Mendocino takes place this Saturday, Jan. 19, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Dana Gray Elementary School Multipurpose Room, 1197 Chestnut St., in Fort Bragg. A buffet lunch will be provided.
The forum is intended to provide information to the community about wave energy from a variety of stakeholder perspectives. It is also an opportunity for people to ask questions and get answers on a wide range of topics relating to wave energy.
A buffet lunch will be provided at no cost.
– Welcoming and introduction, 9 to 9:30 a.m.
Facilitator: George Reinhardt
Doug Hammerstrom, Mayor, City of Fort Bragg
Kendall Smith, Mendocino County Supervisor, 4th District
– Industry perspectives on wave energy, 9:30 to 10:30 a.m.
Moderator: Paul Cayler
Speakers: Mary Jane Parks, Finevera Renewables; Steve Kopf, Ocean Power Technologies; Ian Caliendo, Pacific Gas & Electric
– Break, 10:30 to 10:45 a.m.
– Marine issues, 10:45 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
Moderator: Mike Grady
Speakers: James Bond, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; David White / Steve Edmundson, NOAA/National Marine Fisheries Service; Becky Ota, California Department of Fish & Game; Greg McMurray, Oregon Department of Land Conservation & Development; Troy Nicolini, NOAA/National Weather Service
– Lunch , 12:30 to 1:15 p.m.
– Regulatory agencies, 1:15 to 2:30 p.m.
Moderator: Kendall Smith
Speakers: Stephen Bowler, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission; Maurice Hill, Federal Minerals Management Service; Sue Young, State Lands Commission; Tom Luster, California Coastal Commission
– Break, 2:30 to 2:45 p.m.
– Community and fishing concerns, 2:45 to 4 p.m.
Moderator: Mayor Doug Hammerstrom
Speakers: Richard Charter, National Outer Continental Shelf Coalition; Dan Platt, Salmon Trollers Marketing Association; John Innes, North Coast Fishing Association; Rachel Binah, Political activist; Michael Butler, Surfriders; Warren Wade, Mendocino Coast Audubon Society; Terry Thompson, Lincoln County Oregon Commissioner
– Closing, 4 p.m.
