Floating offshore wind has enormous potential to provide clean renewable energy to the north coast (it’s our best hope) and to the rest of northern California. The Humboldt wind area alone will be able to power up to 2.7 million homes. Because the winds blow almost all the time including at night, wind energy is a perfect complement to solar and has a very high “capacity factor” – the ratio of actual electricity produced to the theoretical maximum. By 2045 offshore wind is expected to provide 25 gigawatts of clean renewable energy toward the California goal of 100% in 2045. Of course clean renewable energy is valuable in itself – unlike fossil fuels it doesn’t pollute, it is much cheaper and it is not subject to geopolitical supply restrictions. Most importantly, though, it will contribute significantly to mitigating the climate crisis with its fast developing dangers of extreme weather, sea level rise, ocean acidification and threats to almost all animal life. If we are committed to action (and lucky) we will reduce greenhouse gas emissions quickly enough to avoid tipping points that might send the earth spinning into uncontrollable warming.
We hope you will come to a presentation by the Harbor District on Tuesday July 23rd 5 – 8 pm showing what the heavy lift terminal will look like when completed. The meeting is at the Sequoia Conference Center, 901 Myrtle Ave, Eureka (note the location differs from regular meetings). It includes free pizza and drinks!
There will be a chance for the public to comment and ask questions. We hope you will support floating offshore wind in Humboldt for the reasons listed above. (Many others can be found at: https://www.northcoastoffshorewind.org/). Specifically it would be helpful to support a fully “green” (electrified) port. The Harbor District has committed to this, but the devil is in the details. Please also support decision-making processes that include representative from tribes, Samoa residents, and other community stakeholders. We want local communities to benefit from the wind development and the best way to ensure that is for them to be engaged in the process.
More about the proposed project can be found here: https://humboldtbay.org/humboldt-bay-offshore-wind-heavy-lift-marine-terminal-project-3.
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From Coalition for Responsible Transportatiom
Also on Tuesday, the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors will vote to put a new sales tax on the November ballot. The county has been saying the tax will be primarily to fund county roads, but CRTP and our allies have been working hard to make sure some of the money goes to support public transit as well.
The Board of Supervisors will be discussing and voting on the tax measure on Tuesday at 10 am, in the Supervisor’s Chamber at the county courthouse in Eureka. You can make comments either in person or by phone. Click here for more information on how to participate in the meeting.