The US government proposes to lease wind energy businesses in a region roughly 17 miles off Morro Bay to provide more electricity than the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant's 2,200 megawatts.
The proposal specified commercial ships and the US Navy as active in the 376-square-mile area, which required negotiation with the Navy Secretary. It has also alerted fishermen in Santa Barbara and other harbors, the Santa Barbara Independent newspaper reported.
Increasingly powerful wind turbines, with a wingspan of two-and-a-half football fields, are reaching the height of the Statue of Liberty. Some of them are being tested in Denmark and the Netherlands and can power 18,000 European homes.
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management is conducting the first of several environmental reviews in the US (BOEM). No leases have been sold yet. Companies will utilize buoys to determine weather and wind conditions, along with bathymetric (underwater topography) investigations, as the big floating turbine building projects move forward with development and approval, including environmental studies.
