Why (Some) Surfers Are Against Offshore Wind Farms

A few weeks ago, in a small but packed room in Waimanalo, on Oahu’s east shore, a woman in her 60s stood up and asked, “If you don’t want this to happen, raise your hands.” Almost everyone in the room raised their hands.

The meeting was organized by the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, also known as BOEM, to get community input on the idea of ​​building an offshore wind farm off the coast of Windward, Oahu, in the Kaiwi Channel between Oahu and Molokai.

There’s no official design or proposal now, but the idea of ​​an offshore wind farm has met resistance. “It’s very clear today that people are very passionate about how they feel about our ocean waters and their cultural significance, their recreational uses, all of that,” said Ann Marie Kirk of the Save Kaiwi Coalition.

The Waimanalo community mirrored coastal community opposition to offshore wind farms in Australia. Many of the protests were led by surfers. In August 2023, the Australian federal government announced the creation of six offshore wind energy zones across the country – Newcastle, Illawarra, Gippsland, Portland, Bunbury and Perth. The new Labor government has set a target of 82 per cent renewable energy by 2030. Hawaii, meanwhile, has set a target of generating 100 per cent renewable energy by 2045.

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To do this, governments will need wind farms, and offshore projects are the most effective. But many surfers don’t seem to want them. In the Illawarra region of Australia, a crowd of 1,000 gathered, including a group of 150 surfers who organized a protest paddle. The Sandon Point Boardriders, one of the most successful and vocal local clubs, led the way.

“We don’t want our coast to be ruined, we don’t want animals to be hurt, we don’t believe that the information is true, it could ruin my daughter’s future,” Patricia Elkerton, whose seven-year-old child joined in the paddling, told local news.

Many of the proposals raised threats to wildlife—particularly whales, dolphins, and birds—as well as possible impacts on waves. Those potential threats have been largely debunked. “Wind farms have been blamed for an unusual wave of whale strandings on America’s eastern seaboard, but when scientists looked more closely, they found that studies of nearby wind farms had nothing to do with the deaths,” said surf and sustainability journalist Kirk Owers. “Nearly half of the whales studied had injuries from boat strikes.”

Studies in the UK, where the North Sea has the largest scale and most wind farms in the world, also found no threat to marine life. Most scientists, as well as Greenpeace, Sea Shepard and the Surfrider Foundation, agree that ocean warming and acidification due to climate change pose a much greater risk to whales than wind farms.

Some surfers also raised the idea that waves would be negatively affected. “If the turbines are floating structures (which was considered for Oahu), either rise and fall with the waves, or the waves simply wrap around them. It wouldn’t matter if the turbines were only 1km offshore, it wouldn’t affect the waves reaching our beaches anyway,” said Professor Rob Brander, also known as “Dr Rip”, a coastal scientist, beach safety researcher and science communicator.

Most opponents also cite visual pollution as a major drawback of wind turbines. It’s a valid argument. You can’t help but notice man-made structures in the ocean. Although Newcastle and the Illawarra have been home to coal, steel and gas industries for decades. Surfers in both cities have spent their lives with huge coal and steel ships on the horizon. Look at any shot of Ryan Callinan smashing Merewether and you’ll see a line of ships blocking the horizon.

In Hawaii, it’s more understandable that locals and surfers have been tainted by the technology. Onshore wind turbines on Oahu and the controversial Kahuku wind farm have had a checkered history. Kahuku residents have said the 568-foot turbines are too big and too close to their homes, and that there was a lack of consultation. The Lalamilo Wells onshore wind farm on Oahu and the Kamaoa wind farm, built in the 1980s, were among the world’s earliest and largest, but both were decommissioned by 2010. That was because Hawaii’s remote power grids and fierce winds caused fluctuations in electrical frequency and voltage. Early adopters didn’t get the results they promised.

But Hawaii needs a solution for its energy. In 2023, only 31% of the state’s total generation would come from renewable sources, mostly solar. But the state uses nearly nine times more energy than it produces. Oil accounts for about four-fifths of Hawaii’s total energy use, the highest share of any state.

As with most issues, there are many perspectives and thoughts on the future of offshore wind farms, but given the ongoing search for more renewable energy sources, the topic is not going away any time soon.

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