Oil companies, some politicians and commuters paying $4 for a gallon of gas might look at California's coast and think of crude oil pooled below the seafloor.
The state's North Coast, however, holds promise of another energy bounty.
In less time than it would take to fire up new offshore oil drills, waters off our coast could host floating wind turbines and undulating buoys driven by waves, producing abundant electricity for a power-thirsty state.
The Electric Power Research Institute estimates enough wave power can be extracted from coastal waters to account for about 15 percent of California's electricity production. Wind could provide up to 110 percent, according to a Stanford University study published last year.
Wind power off California's coast is now just a thought among power developers, and there are no concrete plans to erect turbines at sea. But optimism is fueled by NASA and university studies indicating wind over waters off picturesque Cape Mendocino is strong and consistent enough to become one of the nation's best sources of electricity.
Offshore wind and wave technologies are promising, but they're untried. They also raise concerns about potential damage to the coast's prized vistas and fish industry.
One proposal to draw electricity from waves off the Mendocino coast already has generated problems for developers, government agencies and coastal residents.
Moreover, the potential for wind and waves depends on someone building transmission lines to connect offshore power to the state's grid.
Northern California's biggest utility company, Pacific Gas and Electric Co., may be that someone.
Power in the waves
Out at sea, the ocean's surface ripples rhythmically, and the up-and-down motion can be harnessed to produce electrical energy, via bobbing buoys, jointed snakes and undulating tubes.
PG&E plans to capture some of that potential. It has preliminary permits for two projects – one off Fort Bragg and one off Eureka.
The Fort Bragg project, expected to yield 40 megawatts of electricity, would be "an undersea power plug," said PG&E project manager Bill Toman. It "would provide about 20 percent of electricity consumption of Mendocino County."
Toman added that wave energy now is "at a state of technological maturity that wind energy was at 20 to 25 years ago when the first wind machines went up in the Altamont hills, between Sacramento and San Francisco."
"They had a lot of problems," he said. "But there were several generations of design evolutions that occurred from that learning experience."
Current wave technology is mature enough for demonstration testing, Toman said.
PG&E would build the expensive transmission lines. The utility would select three or four developers to test their power generators.
Results will lead to "a decision about whether we would build our own wave energy farm," he said.
Mendocino coast residents are examining PG&E's plans with cautious optimism.
"Wave energy sounds like a good idea, as long as it doesn't harm the environment," said Bruce Lewis, a nature photographer and volunteer light-keeper at the Point Cabrillo Light Station. "Using the power of the waves seems like a better way of generating power than building oil platforms off the coast."
Others are wary. "When you first hear about it, you think, 'That's a great idea!' " said Jim Martin, director of the Recreational Fishing Alliance.
He's concerned wave power may interfere with fisheries. He wonders if electrical signatures from the devices also might disturb fish.
His biggest complaint right now, however, is that local fishermen and residents have had no say in the planning.
Martin is also associated with Fishermen Interested in Safe Hydrokinetics, or FISH. With local lawyer Elizabeth Mitchell, FISH is battling for a role in the planning.
A federal deadline has passed for gaining an official voice in the legal planning for the wave projects, alongside PG&E and federal energy regulators.
Mitchell has filed a request for a belated entree with the Federal Electric Regulatory Commission. She argues that an isolated community, with limited high-speed Internet service, and few residents who even know what FERC is, could not have met the deadline.
Call The Bee's Maddalena Jackson, (916) 321-1041.
