California has approved a plan to create a “massive” system of floating offshore wind turbines, some as high as 70-story buildings, far off the coast and in deep waters, requiring major upgrades to ports along the state’s coastline.
CalMatters.org reported Wednesday:
The California Energy Commission today unanimously approved a sweeping plan to develop a massive floating offshore wind industry in ocean waters — a first-of-its-kind undertaking that will require billions in public and private investments and could transform parts of the coast.
The new state plan sets the path for harnessing wind power from hundreds of giant turbines, each as tall as a 70-story building, floating in the ocean about 20 miles off Humboldt Bay and Morro Bay. The untapped energy is expected to become a major power source as California electrifies vehicles and switches to clean energy.
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The offshore wind industry must be created almost from scratch: a new manufacturing base for the still-evolving technology; a robust and reliable supply chain; transportation networks on land and sea; specially configured ports to make, assemble and maintain the gargantuan seagoing platforms; finding and training a highly specialized workforce; building a large transmission network where none exists and beefing up those that operate now.
It is not clear that California has the capacity to create new ports and a new manufacturing industry — in a state where plans are notoriously difficult to approve, and from which many manufacturers have been fleeing for years.
In this Friday, Sept. 20, 2013 photo, the University of Maine’s 9,000-pound prototype wind turbine generates power off the coast of Castine, Maine. It is the country’s first floating wind turbine. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
The wind energy proposal is part of the state’s plan to achieve “net zero” carbon emissions by 2045, an ambitious goal that skeptics said was overly optimistic, but which nevertheless inspired similar commitments nationwide.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of “”The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days,” available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of “The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency,” now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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