Friday, August 12, 2022

Oregon is the Saudi Arabia of Wind

Think we could make huge progress on climate by turning offshore wind into electricity?

Think again.

The perfect is the enemy of the good.

An Oregon conservationist and writer-agitator sends up a warning about development of wind turbines off the Oregon coast. Andy Kerr has a lengthy career as a political activist, most notably on behalf of forest preservation, but more widely on all environmental issues. He writes. He testifies at hearings. He organizes and motivates people. He recently posted an article:


Here is a
link to it. He argues that the problems with offshore wind outweigh the benefits. My purpose here is not to enter into the argument of whether he is correct, beyond saying I am in favor of trying every alternative to fossil fuels with the hope that over the next century human technology will have figured out the best one, or more likely, best several. 

Instead, I want to use the article itself as a primary source. A document. Look at it as an example of a mindset and sensibility. It represents a way to think about new energy developments, and more generally any large project. It reflects suspicion. It is hostile. It assumes some person or entity might profit, and that this is bad. It emphasizes problems. This mindset is common among people in the educated-environmental-progressive-suburban demographic that makes up the center of the Democratic coalition. Their sensibilities now shape the party. Someone wants to do something. A factory. Affordable housing. Stop them!

The article is about the potential problems with offshore wind turbines that would float ten to possibly forty miles offshore, tethered to the sea bottom. They would be invisible on shore, but we learn that people with homes on high bluffs might see dim lights on the horizon. Fishing boats would see them. A portion of the area would be "industrialized" by these turbines, and the article shows this image of a battery of turbines 60 miles offshore the German shore. The article warns: Some of the turbines might be big!


The article concludes with recommendations, headlined:

 How to Pour Sand in the Gears
     Defenders of offshore Oregon need to gird their loins for a long battle.

The article posits "developers" who will "exploit" and "despoil" this part of the ocean with turbines. Potential sand in the gears would be establishing Marine Sanctuary zones which would prohibit development. We could ban turbine installers from using ports in Oregon. We could require upfront deposits for de-commissioning to wreck the economics of the project. We could file lawsuits. The tactics are analogous to the widespread tactic employed by states with anti-abortion legislatures. States passed laws to "protect" women by requiring burdensome rules regarding facilities and waiting periods. Abortions were legal, but inaccessible. 

People who are generally part of the educated Democratic demographic--a majority of my readers--can see in this article why Democrats have lost the support of working people, especially those in rural areas with resources that might be developed. Democratic environmentalists are associated with luxury elitist perfectionism. Plausible, job-creating projects are smothered, with the result that fossil fuels continue, which the same environmentalists condemn, so they want confusing cap-and-trade tax systems. It fosters a reputation that Democratic environmentalists will oppose any project, especially if they leave their city for a weekend getaway at the coast and might see lights on the far horizon with binoculars. In an ocean that accommodates container ships and oil tankers, we cannot have wind turbines. Yeah, right. No wonder we can't get anything done in America.

The article's arguments, and ones like them, have stopped construction of dams, new ports, new pipelines, new railroads, new factories, new power plants, new oil refineries. The arguments work--especially if it affects our back yard. 

Kerr's sensibilities may well reflect the values of a great many people, including readers of this blog. He expresses his view clearly and boldly. That sensibility has consequences. To a great many Americans, it looks precious, perfectionist, hypocritical, and elitist. While we are killing offshore wind, we are still using coal to make electricity, and that looks stupid. 


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14 comments:

Michael Steely said...

We know that wind turbines kill lots of birds. Also, tRump says they cause cancer, so it must be true.

The sun provides the Earth enough energy in one hour to meet the electricity needs of everyone one on the planet for a year – we just need to learn how to more efficiently harness and store it. That’s where we should be investing our money.

Rick Millward said...

Infrastructure is not invisible. Highways despoil the environment. That's irrelevant.

For me, the argument comes down to the same one regarding the Jordan Cove pipeline. By now we have a robust industry supporting wind turbines which muddies the waters with respect to weighing the costs and benefits as it proceeds. Is there sufficient benefit to the community, or does the major revenue go to the developers who lobby themselves out of paying all the costs? If they push these projects forward just to enrich themselves we are no better off. If Republicans are supporting this I'd be very wary, too.

There is no question that the scale and technical challenges of sustainable energy will require massive infrastructure. Like healthcare this should not be a for profit enterprise.

Ed Cooper said...

Has Andy Kerr, for all his writing, bloviating and protesting ever done one thing to actually solve any of the multitudes of critically serious problems facing our Planet ?

Ed Cooper said...

The hullabaloo Kerr is stirring up to kill wind farms off the Coast of Oregon reminds of the late Teddie Kennedy killing a turbine installation off Martha's Vineyard, because it might mar his enjoyment of sailing his yacht in that area. These are reasons why I think we're doomed, and if that is so, the Planet will be better off when we are gone. People seem to forget, if the have ever even considered the concept, that Gaiea does not need the Human race to keep spinning around the Sun, but the Human Race has no Planet B, despite what megalomaniac like Bezos and Musk spout about Mars.

Low Dudgeon said...

Sanctimony makes for strange bedfellows. The snobbish disdain for enterprise and profit-making in folks like Andy Kerr is not wholly dissimilar to that in gilt carriage idlers from a Jane Austen novel. Hollywood actors and producers do work hard, yet often affect in public an airy indifference to the wealth and material goods they probably consider absolute necessities in private.

As noted in the post, too, another layer past snobbery is plain hostility to self-interested industry and its rewards. Pollution and despoliation and inequality become moral or ethical as well as literal concomitants. In lieu of Kerr's edenic loincloth 'n spear society, Chinese coal plants are at least lesser evils if they're the People's Factories, run for Social Equality.

Kerr and his ilk blow a mighty wind. But only the uncharitable would deny them good intentions in many if not most respects. They are not pharisaical scolds for the sake of scolding. Yet doesn't it boil down to humanism in some form? Humans as basically pathogens on the earth, OR as transcendent after all, with our ingenuity the most potent force ever known? Say, I think I'm gassy...

Michael Trigoboff said...

Elite environmentalists can think of only one permissible economic fate for inhabitants of rural areas: obsequious hosts of bed and breakfasts for when their urban overlords deign to visit on vacation.

Michael Trigoboff said...

To rely on solar power for all of our energy needs would require covering so much land with solar cells that there would be at least as much environmental impact as there is with wind power.

The intermittent and unreliable nature of both wind and solar would require the construction of huge battery farms, which would cover more land. And this is to say nothing of the mining that would be required to produce the materials for those batteries.

All of this would produce at least as much environmental opposition for solar as there is for wind power.

Nuclear power is the current carbon-free available alternative. There are many new reactor designs that are inherently safe. Environmentalists also oppose nuclear power.

Dig down deep enough into the implications of their ideology, and what environmentalists like Kerr seem to desire is a return to the Paleolithic era.

Malcolm said...

All our past failures with nukes had received glowing reports of their safety and efficiency. Remember, “Clean, safe, too cheap to meter”? I do. I think those words were spoken by Reagan, back when he was the mouthpiece of General Electric, which, coincidently, was the secret(?) manufacturer of nuclear power plants back then. Admittedly, I believed the hype. But hell, I was still in grade school, the best place to indoctrinate future decision makers.

How many horrible nuclear disasters does it take to stop making new plants? Apparently, there’s such a strong set of greedy guts that the promotion of “safe” nuclear will never stop.

Keep your eye on Ukraine. This “safe” plant is on the verge of sending nuclear waste plumes all over europe, and all points downwind

Now the latest, greatest nuclear tech calls for “Mimi nukes” in everyone’s back yards. Safe, oh sure. Just place army personnel around each of them. .

Off hand, I can’t even think of a single issue involving Kerr that I could come close to supporting.

The only cure for all the earth killing technology that I can envision is going to arrive with drastic population reductions, hopefully voluntary, but otherwise brought about thru big government, or massive due offs from plagues and pollution.

John F said...

I said before NIMBY is alive and well in the hearts of us all. From my personal experience, those making decisions to build infrastructure decry development near them. I do not hold my breath that reason and compromise on environmental issues will prevail. I remember my reaction to seeing the tri-blade wind turbines the first time I flew into Copenhagen, a mixture of awe and shock as I had been involved with a company doing research in its development in Oregon. Here it was up and running smoothly. Now I see the wind turbines throughout Oregon and Washington. The yield of electricity is significant and non-polluting. The workers they employ earn living wages. The coastal stretches along the Eastern Pacific, if constructed there, do not occupy land that can be developed or conserved. The only consideration I see in placing them in near coastal waters is where present and historic Pacific and North American tectonic plate movement occurs, which is a threat to ALL development in the coastal to valley regions of the Northwest. Furthermore, after initial installation, sea life thrives on the the submerged structure. The presence of turbines is an obstruction to drag net commercial fishing, moving those vessels further from shore, making a safer zone for more traditional local fishing techniques. Those worried about the presence of wind turbines on pleasure boating and game fishing have only to experience being insnared in a crab pot. In short, I think the arguments against that the presence of wind turbines are a red herring.

Anonymous said...

Edward M. Kennedy (Ted or Teddy, not "Teddie") was not the only wealthy and well-connected individual who opposed Cape Wind. Former Massachusetts Republican Governor Mitt Romney opposed it. Also Republican billionaire businessman Bill Koch opposed it. There is a Wikipedia page for Cape Wind.

Mike said...

The notion that we would have to cover the land with solar cells to switch to solar presupposes that solar energy is already as advanced as it will get. Not likely! If we invest in research and development, it's a pretty sure bet that solar will become far more efficient and practical.

Malcolm said...

Peter, what do you think radical enviros would do if we decided to eliminate the need-in most areas in the West, especially-to store green power in batteries, instead using said power to pump water from streams right below existing hydropower dams over the dams, thus turning the water into potential energy, usable when green power was not available? Would they support the idea, or fight it?

Pumped hydro storage doesn’t ever wear out, as batteries do, and have much greater efficiency than batteries.

This idea is almost identical to Pumped Hydroelectric Storage, which is used successfully all over the world, but has two big drawbacks: the need for new upper and lower reservoirs angers enviros, and is super expensive to set up.

My idea eliminates the need for ANY new reservoirs, and also eliminates the need for new electricity generating turbines. The main expense simply to install the aforementioned pumps, and to run power lines from green energy sources to the nearest hydropower dam.

I’ve tried my hardest to get the idea even considered by all the politicians I’ve repeatedly tried to conrtact, and am quite frustrated.

Michael Trigoboff said...

Environmentalists killed one of the first pumped energy storage facilities proposed in the United States. Have their minds changed since then?

Malcolm said...

Storm king? Yes, the mood has shifted now, I’m told. Generally speaking, even “regular” pumped hydro energy storage is the cheapest, most efficient, and some would say “cleanest” form of energy storage on a large scale. Imagine if they’d listen to my new idea. At least they could try to explain why my idea won’t work, if they think it won’t.

Oops, I can’t really say what enviros' minds are thinking these days. I do agree with Peter's pOints, though. The perfect is the enemy of the good, and some people will never be satisfied.