Wind energy production, as a fairly mature industry, with well-tested technologies and large developers in play, has dominated the conversation about ocean energy.  Today Green Inc. highlighted some of the challenges faced in developing wind offshore in Texas.  Currently available wind technologies require that the turbines be anchored in the seabed.

On the West Coast of the U.S., however, wind energy is not as immediately viable as on the East Coast or in the Gulf of Mexico, in-part because the continental shelf drops off quickly and is generally too deep for anchored turbines.  This means that wind turbines off the West Coast may have to be the kind that float-this technology is a number of years from being viable.  In the meantime, there is movement to develop wind and wave energy projects on the West Coast.  George Boehlert and his team from the Hatfield Marine Science Center at Oregon State University have made projections about the environmental impacts of wave and tidal energy production,  but its not possible to know the actual scope of those impacts, and to prevent negative impacts, until small pilot projects have been placed in the water.

This week, a small group of people--conservation groups, utilities, developers, consultants, and Mayor Gavin Newsom of San Francisco--met to talk about getting effective, environmentally sound wave and tidal energy in place as soon as possible.  There are risks and challenges (funding, environmental, regulatory), but wave and tidal power has great potential as a safe clean alternative to fossil fuels.  Federal and state coordination and support is needed now so that ocean energy is managed with an integrated, effective, environmentally sound approach--a step was made in this direction at an important meeting last month in Portland, coordinated by the West Coast Governor's Agreement on Ocean Health.  We also need to get small test projects in the water so that we can start to study the actual impacts of these new technologies.

Oregon State University Conceptual Wave Park