On Thursday, the Humboldt Bay Harbor District, which manages the port, committed to using electricity instead of diesel to power the terminal’s machinery. The net-zero emissions goal will be implemented as the harbor develops a terminal where giant offshore wind turbines will be built.In the coming years, Humboldt Bay is expected to be one of the leading ports for the deployment of floating offshore wind turbines on the West Coast. But that requires a new terminal built from the ground up.Matthew Simmons from the Environmental Protection Information Center said a green terminal is a no-brainer, since California has already set green-energy targets in the coming years.“If we were to build it all out with fossil fuels today, and then have to undo it and rebuild it all with electricity in 20 years, that would end up costing quite a lot more," Simmons said. "So building it right the first time is gonna save us money in the long run.”Keep Reading
The Regional Wildlife Science Collaborative for Offshore Wind (RWSC) released a historic research plan that sets priorities for all stakeholders to fully avoid, minimize, and mitigate any harms to wildlife caused by offshore wind energy development in much of the U.S. Atlantic Ocean. The new plan is the first of its kind in establishing a collaborative regional approach to study potential effects of offshore wind on birds as well as marine mammals, sea turtles, bats, fish, and ocean habitats along the East Coast.Read More
A tiny government organization with authority over a major wind project off the Humboldt County coast is voting tonight on a proposal to keep the port green.The Humboldt Bay Harbor District is proposing to draw up a strategy to keep emissions as minimal as possible at the port, where plans call for assembling 1,100-foot turbines to be tugged 30 miles offshore.It’s not yet clear what all that will take, particularly given challenges with transmission and distribution capacity in the region. An engineering firm is figuring it out. But local environmental organizations, residents, tribes and labor have made clear they’ll insist on it, said Jennifer Kalt, executive director of the nonprofit Humboldt Waterkeeper.“We have this renewable energy project, and we don’t want a fossil fuel-spewing port to go with that,” Kalt said.
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A new report from the Schatz Energy Research Center at Cal Poly Humboldt evaluates potential scenarios for electric grid transmission development to support floating offshore wind along the northern coast of California and the southern coast of Oregon. The scenarios include onshore and offshore (undersea) transmission systems, with interconnections ranging from 7.2 to 25.8 gigawatts of generation capacity. The study encompasses multiple possible wind farm sites between Coos Bay, Oregon and Cape Mendocino, California, including the two currently awarded lease areas located 20 miles off California’s Humboldt Bay, and two Draft Wind Energy Areas near Brookings and Coos Bay, Oregon.
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As a 20-year Manila resident and a member of the Peninsula Community Collaborative (PCC), I feel the winds of change blowing and am paying close attention to the offshore wind projects slated to come to Humboldt Bay.Humboldt Bay and its offshore waters are becoming an integral part in the reduction of our reliance on fossil fuels. Currently, our harbor district is in negotiations with Crowley, a logistics and maritime service company based out of Jacksonville, Florida, to develop land in Samoa into a marine terminal. This port will be an industrial manufacturing plant that builds and ships out various components of offshore wind turbines. Wind components will eventually be shipped out to wind energy farms off of Humboldt shores and throughout the coasts of California and Oregon.
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