John Lindt’s “Viewpoint” (12-14-2023) regarding the industrialization of Morro Bay makes a smart point: this coastal area of the County was industrially exploited for decades before Morro Bay became a city.
He makes another excellent point: “All those old fossil fuel facilities contaminated our soil, pumped lung-harming particulates and greenhouse gases into the air and polluted our marine estuary with wastewater needed to cool the plant … We should be glad to say goodbye to all that.”
That’s where my agreement with him ends. Dig a little deeper, and you’ll find wind energy is not so green. It’s not efficient. It’s not environmentally friendly.The companies are predominantly foreign-owned. The engineering is yet to be figured out on how to build, install, operate, and maintain floating turbines in the Pacific. Our ocean is a vastly different environment from the Atlantic and North Sea. It is 3,000+ feet deep, requiring football-size floating platforms to keep the turbines upright.
As in Europe, our utility bills will jump. Part of the State’s debt is money promised to the energy companies. The National debt is the same. The level of impact to humans and the environment demands deliberate, comprehensive analysis. Stakeholders are all of us: not just the owners and consultants making money. Not just the politicians who jump too quickly.
You can learn more at REACTalliance.org.
Margaret C. Carman
Morro Bay