Scaleback Urged for Coos Bay Wave Energy

Susan Chambers, The World, January 26, 2009

Coos Bay, Oregon – Ocean Power Technologies is feeling pressure as local groups, the state and even the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission urge the company to shrink its 200-buoy Coos Bay plan.

Oregon Wave Energy Partners I, as Ocean Power Technologies, filed its notice of intent and preliminary application document with FERC in March 2008 for the 200-buoy array off the North Spit.

The Southern Oregon Ocean Resource Coalition, Oregon International Port of Coos Bay, Surfrider Foundation and the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife filed comments suggesting OPT slow down. Instead of going for a full build-out, phase it in after more studies are done, they said.

The 200-buoy plan also runs counter to FERC’s own advice.

In August 2008, FERC told OPT that, “since information about the potential environmental effects of large-scale projects, such as proposed in your (preliminary application document) is limited, we believe that in most situations, smaller pilot projects are better suited for development at this time.”

The coalition also debated the length of the license, should it be granted. Like hydropower licenses, which typically are in force for between 30 and 50 years, so too are hyrokinetic licenses — those that cover wave, tidal and current energy projects.

“… it is premature to license a project of the size and scope planned off of Coos Bay, especially given the 30- to 50-year license terms being sought after,” SOORC said, noting that more studies should be done first.

OPT has said it will be a few years before even the first few buoys are in the water. OPT hasn’t yet placed one buoy in the water at Gardiner but FERC could grant a license for the Coos Bay project before any studies from the Reedsport project are completed.

ODFW, too, said more studies must be done.

“ODFW believes that the proposed project size (200 buoys) is not consistent with state’s support of experimental wave energy projects,” ODFW wrote in its comments. “A full build-out of a commercial sized project at this stage would lack the applied knowledge from studies of previous experimental projects, thus ODFW would not fully understand the potential impacts of the project in order to responsibly and thoroughly comment on a large project.”

The Port of Coos Bay reiterated Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski’s plan for the territorial sea. Last year, Kulongoski wrote to FERC that large-scale projects “must be preceded by a comprehensive evaluation for this and other uses of these waters to ensure those ocean resources and other ocean values and uses will not be harmed.”

That shows, the port said, that a small demonstration project should be allowed first, with studies over several years on impacts to the environment and coastal communities — before a full license is granted.

OPT’s vice president of Business Development and Marketing, Herb Nock, said the company expected such comments.

“It’s a range of views,” Nock said. “We came back to the public meetings and are investing the time to understand the alternative uses of the sea.”

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Surfrider Foundation Developing Policy on Wave Energy

From Three Tree Journal (tres_arboles), January 17, 2008

The Surfrider Foundation, a national ocean recreation advocacy organization is developing a policy position on wave energy projects and their potential effects on recreational uses. As a policy wonk, tres_arboles recognizes their need to avoid stridency on this issue, and approach it with critical, but supportive attention. On the one hand, the technology being proposed up and down the United States west coast and around the Hawaiian islands, has the potential for myriad human, environmental, and ecological effects when the arrayed technology is fully deployed in the near-shore marine environment. On the other hand, the technology has the promise of perpetually renewable, carbon-free electricity, decreasing our national dependence on all forms of carbon consuming, pollution spewing, climate change inducing forms of energy production. These latter concerns are largely shared by all but the most growth-crazed, anti-environmental ideologues in society today. So present here, as it almost always is in the policy development arena, is the nuanced competition of values that makes developing policy far more intricate than the “one side versus the other” to which we are so frequently treated in the ordinary news media.

Surfrider is an organization of local chapters, some of which are little more than an individual with a MySpace page. In contrast (fortunately), others are membered by conscientious surfers that are capable of providing scrutiny and analysis of issues affecting surf access and environmental matters of concern to surfers. Hopefully, that’s the case with the Oregon chapters now tracking the (at least three by my last count) proposed “wave park” buoy arrays that could diminish, if not destroy the surfability of the locations where they are proposed (among all of the other environmental and ecological issues they raise).

Surfrider presently supports the use of “adaptive management” in the development of the buoy arrays that are the infrastructural element of wave energy production that most concerns environmentalists, fishing organizations, and recreationalists. I am thankful that Surfrider appears engaged. However, I question the value of adaptive management in the context of the construction of these wave buoy “farms” or “parks.” Adaptive management is an approach to managing an ongoing activity that involves monitoring the activity to determine whether the activity is causing certain, predicted, and pre-agreed outcomes. Adaptive management is valuable because it enables, and in fact it relies on the ability to change the activity while it is ongoing, if monitoring shows it is not meeting those predicted, pre-agreed outcomes.

While the Surfrider blog entry is a brief one, and as such I might be making stuff up to fill in the blanks, it appears that the adaptive management proposed for the Oregon preliminary permits will assess certain issues during the incremental installation of the buoys under those permits. This does not really follow the classical adaptive management model in any way! Assessing the fishery, environmental, and recreational effects of a one buoy field will not inform the probable outcome of a 10 buoy field. And in turn, monitoring the effects of a 10 buoy field will not in any way help assess the move to a 200 buoy field, as proposed there. That is, it’s not enough to learn that one or three or ten buoys do not knock down the waves enough to enable the deployment of several tens, if not 100’s more. What if the monitoring shows that crabbers can crab the ground around ten buoys, but not fifty? Will the developer then pull 40 buoys and proceed to seek its FERC license on a reduced ten buoy project? What if that developer is beholden to shareholders?

I sincerely doubt that the types of corporate ventures that are underwriting these experiments in energy production will be willing to scrap or even slightly diminish their deployed investment if it’s already installed, producing electricity, and providing return on investment. Even if the monitoring shows that the array has eliminated fishery access to a productive crabbing ground or flattened a previously dependable surfing wave, these arrays consist of expensive equipment that will be expensive to deploy and maintain. In my experience as an environmental professional, developers are almost always willing to do damage in one form or another and simply incur an expense such as the payment of “in lieu fees” or “compensatory mitigation.” These compensatory arrangements enable the developer to absorb a cost they can turn around and pass on to their consumers, rather than avoiding the damage their development proposal will cause, or by diminishing the project or undoing it after-the-fact. While a compensatory approach might work with local commercial interests where the compensation involves buying out the fishers and crabbers, how do you compensate for the elimination of something so valuable that monetary evaluation would be trivial? Like a surf spot?

tres_arboles is tuned-in, but remains unsure of the answers to these questions. Hopefully, the values underlying these questions will be respected by FERC and the wave energy development community, before everyone gets glassy-eyed over the prospect of clean, renewable energy.

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