NEWPORT, Oregon — On a cloudy morning in late August, Burke Hales sat on a boat a mile off the coast of central Oregon, pointing to a sandy beach along the forested shoreline. There, the Oregon State University professor of oceanography said, the first major wave energy test site on the U.S. mainland will connect undersea cables to land — and eventually to the local electrical grid.
“This is the highest wave strength, probably the most energetic, of any test site out there,” he said, as the large waves known to pound the Oregon coast rocked the boat.
Oregon’s coastal waters are proving crucial to advances in two forms of renewable energy: wave power and floating wind turbines. The way electricity is traditionally generated is a major contributor to climate change, so clean alternatives are essential to addressing it.
Wave energy is at an earlier stage than floating wind, but its potential could be great. Marine energy, a term researchers use to refer to power generated by tides, currents or waves, is the world’s largest untapped energy source, according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. The Biden administration announced Monday that it will invest more than $112 million to boost the design, manufacturing and testing of wave energy devices.
Work on floating wind turbines is already further advanced, but still in an early stage and is encountering resistance.
The only way to build offshore wind on the West Coast is with floating turbines. The ocean is too deep to attach traditional turbines to the seafloor, said Mark Severy, a research engineer at Pacific Northwest National Lab who works to address challenges to offshore wind development in the U.S.
So far, there are only a handful of floating offshore arrays around the world, mostly small pilots in Europe and China, testing the technology to pave the way for larger projects. The largest is Hywind Tampen, 11 turbines that will supply electricity to oil and gas fields in the Norwegian North Sea. Floating wind has not yet been built in the United States.
California has awarded the first-ever leases in the US to develop commercial-scale floating wind farms by 2022. The federal government has authorized the national first floating offshore wind research lease to the state of Maine in August, and Oregon’s commercial lease sale is next month. These are areas where the wind blows fast and hard, meaning that a single turbine can generate more electricity than in areas where the wind is not as strong.
In Oregon, resistance from tribes, fishermen and coastal residents highlights some of the challenges facing offshore renewable energy.
The opposition focuses on the US government’s plans for floating wind energy in two 790 square kilometre areas off the southern coast of Oregon.
The two areas identified by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) are located 32 miles (52 kilometers) offshore from Coos Bay and 18 miles (29 kilometers) from the town of Brookings, near the California state border.
Some in those communities are concerned that the construction will harm marine life, marine habitat, culturally significant areas and ocean views. Although the wind zones are miles from land, the lights used to illuminate the turbines at night would be visible from shore, a BOEM visual simulation.
Two coastal counties will ask voters in November whether they oppose floating offshore wind development. And the Confederated Tribes of Coos, Lower Umpqua and Siuslaw Indians — whose culture is tied to the ocean — sued the federal government prior to the upcoming lease sale.
BOEM says it has been in talks with tribes. But tribes in Oregon and California have expressed their frustration over what they call a lack of consultation.
John Ogan, natural resources director for the Coquille Indian Tribe on the southern Oregon coast, said that during meetings with the federal government, tribe members were “spoken to without any substantive response to our issues, concerns or requests for information.”
“We have sacred sites,” he said. “Tribal people will never see a sunset the same way they have in the last 10,000 years.”
The Oregon wave energy test site has not generated similar resistance. Hales, the Oregon State professor who serves as the lead scientist for the site, attributed that to researchers who worked with fishermen to identify the site’s location early in the permitting process.
Wave energy test sites allow companies to deploy devices they’ve designed into a real-world environment to see how they perform. While the PacWave South site in Oregon isn’t the first wave energy test site to be connected to the nation’s electrical grid — the U.S. Navy has one in Hawaii — it will be the first to be connected to the continental U.S. electrical grid.
There are approximately 40 operational grid-connected maritime energy projects worldwide, according to the PRIMRE data portal developed by three national laboratories on behalf of the U.S. Department of Energy, or DOE. Some float like buoys or sit on the seafloor. Some resemble submerged wind turbines.
Hales estimates that the Oregon test site’s maximum capacity in the winter will be 20 megawatts, where waves can reach up to 20 feet. That’s enough to power about 2,000 homes.
One of the reasons why wave energy is still in its infancy and cannot yet compete with wind, solar and geothermal energy is that it is a challenge for companies to develop projects that can withstand the toughest conditions at sea, where the waves or currents are strongest. And then to convert those waves into electricity in an efficient and affordable way.
“A big part of this operation is survivability at sea,” Hales said. “We’re putting metal devices in salt water. They’re generating electricity. Being able to do that without getting extensive corrosion is a big risk.”
Companies also need to consider how devices would affect marine life, he said. Gray whales, sea lions, seals and seabirds are abundant along the Oregon coast.
Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek has worked to ease tensions over wind development in her state, acknowledging that the federal government’s process for its development “hasn’t started off on the right foot.” But she said the state must explore renewable energy options — including floating offshore wind — to meet its climate goals.
“In Oregon, we are working toward clean electricity, 100 percent clean electricity, by 2040. That means we have to do more than we are doing now, and we have to put new options on the table. And that means offshore floating wind as a possibility,” she said.
“This is an opportunity. It is also a challenge,” she added. “But we have to try.”
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McDermott reported from Providence, Rhode Island.
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