My Word | Self-sufficient Humboldt County Could Solve Climate, Energy Dilemma – Times-Standard

If we don’t cut greenhouse gas emissions, we’re in for even worse climate damage, and Humboldt’s story can show us how. But it will be a challenge to keep the lights on. Fortunately, local stakeholders can help us shift our energy consumption from fossil fuels to clean electricity.

Climate awareness led the RCEA board several years ago to mandate all clean and renewable electricity by 2025. Currently, there is no chance that this mandate will be implemented. Despite excellent work, RCEA staff simply failed to deliver on the council’s mandate.

The county and its so-called climate action plan are also woefully inadequate.

Each of us has as much responsibility to support solutions as to object. One responsibility is to accept the economic and engineering realities that limit solutions, or to allow for new ones. That is why Humboldt must be open to options that it has ignored so far.

One reality is that we will not stop using energy for comfort and mobility, needs that are currently met by climate-changing fossil fuels. A return to horses and buggies would not be so bad, but unlikely. A clean electricity economy would be better.

Clean and renewable electricity faces NIMBY (Not In My Backyard) opposition. For example, the Board of Supervisors rejected Terra-Gen’s proposed wind farm on the Ferndale Ridge, ensuring that RCEA would not meet its stated goal. Wind power is the only possible way to get enough clean, renewable electricity here.

It takes years and investor confidence to build any new power plant, along with transmission. Humboldt’s rejection of earlier wind proposals will make potential investors wary.

This is particularly true for floating offshore wind, whose effectiveness around the world is at best unproven. Even their proponents agree that 2035 is the earliest possible date for floating offshore wind. And they are more expensive than any other clean source of electricity, so they would contribute to higher electricity bills.

Anyone who has stood near a modern operating wind turbine has experienced noise and vibrations that are at best irritating and at worst hazardous to health. So the turbines should be located where no one lives, such as on a ridge, on a beach or right on the seashore. Further floating wind turbines would saturate the water around them with noise that would scare off fish and mammals.

Terra-Gen’s proposed site above Ferndale was Humboldt’s best location for a wind farm and was the right scale for Humboldt’s needs. But the opposition, including my eco-NIMBY friends, complained that the turbines were ugly bird killers.

Complaining about the precious views, these eco-NIMBY friends are rejecting future wind turbines visible from the beach. And they are not alone. California tribes also oppose wind energy in general. If they are willing to reconsider, supervisors and tribes could help solve our climate energy dilemma by promoting turbines on the beach or just offshore. All our grandchildren would thank them.

For their sake, I hope California achieves its goal of reducing fossil fuel use. Then clean electricity will replace fossil fuels as heat pumps are installed and electric transportation is adopted. However, Humboldt’s existing transmission network to the main California grid limits electricity imports.

So as electricity loads grow over the next decade, we will need to generate clean and renewable energy locally, just as the RCEA Board wanted.

Solar energy offers some hope as climate change makes Humboldt sunnier. But solar energy appears in the summer at noon when we don’t need it. So electricity needs to be stored, probably in batteries, to be used on winter nights when we need it. Because of this discrepancy, PG&E asked the Public Utilities Commission to issue a NEM3 ruling that makes it uneconomical to build new solar modules.

History reminds us that Southern Humboldt once showed how to be energy independent. Forty years ago, hundreds of solar-powered homes were operating off the grid. The most troublesome part was the lead-acid batteries, but the technology is better now.

In this way, Humboldt County could once again demonstrate true energy independence, rather than relying on the formulaic claims of large foreign corporations for offshore. But to achieve this, energy independence requires cooperation, using the best of old and new technologies.

To keep the lights on, contributors would need to involve the tribes, the Board of Trustees, RCEA, the Schatz Lab, and my friends in the NIMBY movement.

Can this diverse group agree on an appropriate path forward? It’s a long shot, but possible if everyone first acknowledges each other’s position. So couldn’t we all compromise to save our grandchildren’s future?

John Schaefer is an Arcata resident and engineer with more than 40 years of experience in renewable energy and electricity.