A wave farm off the Orange County Coast at San Onofre is facing concern that it may be dead in the water. The proposal needs Federal Grant money to proceed and those funds have not been forthcoming.
The proposed wave generators would have produced 3,186 megawatts of electricity in renewable and low toxicity energy generation.
An Orange County entrepreneur’s controversial proposal to build one of the nation’s first hydrokinetic wave farms off San Onofre State Beach isn’t quite dead, but it’s definitely treading water.
Federal regulators this month terminated the licensing process for the project after Chong Kim, general manager of Fountain Valley-based JD Products, told them that without federal grant money or a business partner, he could not prepare baseline information and conduct the studies necessary to apply to build and operate the generators.
“Based on the information you provided … it is clear that you are not able to proceed with the licensing process at this time,” the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission wrote in a March 9 letter to Kim, a retired engineer.
Surfer groups were concerned that the wave generators would reduce the gnarlyness of the Trestle waves. Environmental groups were also concerned that these wave generators would have an ecological impact. More than likely both of these conditions are true to some extent.
The fact that clean energy can not even get off the ground because there is insufficient investment is alarming in the least. All but those with their heads in the sand or those profiting from unsustainable fossil fuels can see this. The environmental impact of the wave generators is minimal compared to the looming catastrophe before us. I'm not only seeing the climate change issues as part of the catastrophe. If we do not change our ways of existing such as getting to work, powering essential services such as hospitals, and maintaining food distribution networks that are not dependent on ever more costly and decreasing supplies of fossil fuels our society will soon have more problems than which starlet is in rehab.