The many thousands of 700-foot tall wind turbines, collectively proposed as the Morro Bay Offshore Wind Farm, are only the first phase of a much larger offshore wind project, a mass-industrialization of our ocean expanses on a scale not seen in world history.
The leasing process, overseen by industry-captured regulators and driven by greedy city officials, entrepreneurs, and biostitute yes-men, is nothing more than a sleight of hand by developers; a who’s-who of those seeking to wring every cent possible out of the land and sea at the expense of vanishing ecosystems.
While rooftops burn in the sunlight without solar panels, these giant turbines will disrupt bird migrations, create navigational hazards for whales, and cause unstudied vibrational effects on the marine environment. California already pays Arizona to take solar-generated excess electricity off our hands. So what will be done with the electricity generated by the wind farm turbines?
The first phase would generate enough power for 300,000 new homes. And where will these new homes get the water needed for such gigantic developments? Probably from the giant desalination plants that will be built piggybacked on the power plant seawater intakes, no longer needed for cooling, but certainly a catalyst for the build-out of the last open lands on the California coast.
Better to put solar arrays on all rooftops and power a fleet of all-electric cars with the electricity the sun generates, and weld the seawater cooling intakes of the power plants shut forever.
Joey Racano
Ocean Outfall Group director
This article appears in Dec 20-30, 2018.
I agree that using the ocean will further harm our ecosystem.!!