PG&E Scores $6M for Northern California Wave Energy Project

Calm down Avery...

This funding is only the beginning of U.S. electricity-generation from ocean energy and it's only one renewable energy solution from the portfolio of projects being considered right now.

Ocean renewable energy is so early in development that I'm thankful that they are considering the environmental effects as they test and develop.

laurelk...

Since I don't live in California I'm much calmer than you might imagine, but thanks greatly for the non-soporific inducement.

If however I did live in that state and did some alternative energy net research, I would be livid. The reason is the rest of the world and the fact of higher standards elsewhere.

Elsewhere on our planet the glacial pace of Western Technology Development is seen as laughable, not as cautious and prudent use of dwindling financial resources, but as absurd and dilatory. It is understood as stalling by governments on behalf of megacorporations who...

A\ like things just the way they are and don't want to spend handy profits on radical seeming R&D or maintenance. Does the name Erin Brockovich ring any bells? And her relationship with PG&E was? Just checking...

B\ are delighted to stall innovation while ensuring that competitors with better ideas have no way to sell them. Words like Detroit, meltdown, Prius, hybrid, air car, advanced low-carbon (or better, NO CARBON) transportation, float past the advertorial mud.

In short, to me at least - it's same old, same old.

"We're seriously considering" tends to be a euphemism for a now-archaic long term policy of stagnation. A bad idea at a time where doing nothing while the situation deteriorates (remembering ever-helpful ENRON) is useless and expensive regression.

Do you live in California, laurelk? It might make a difference in your perception of urgency..Or not.

Think on't.

I live on the Mendocino coast in California where this is moving forward and I am very actively publishing a related blog to get the word out...not to promote it, but to encourage sharing of local information, concerns about the environment and as a stakeholder. I think this activity speaks for itself. Go see it: http://MendoCoastCurrent.wordpress.com.

laurelk,

As requested I visited http://MendoCoastCurrent.wordpress.com

Assuming you are not Susan Chambers, you should be. Her work is well focused and is commendable.

Susan's posts were far more consistent with public advocacy than are yours on Current. Her work contains more detail delivered with more zest.

She outlines clearly an array of policy conflicts (and mindless cross-purposes); deftly describes bureaucratic elbowing and turf snatching; cites megacompany ambitions with (presumably) political backscratching in the mix; remarks on the contempt (of local people dependent on fishing) for a scheme to put unnecessary equipment where no one actually recommends it.

It makes an interesting read.

Which returns us to what I found odd in the first place.

At the blog you 'advocate' instead what no one actually wants. You don't appear to appreciate or understand why no one local would want their concerns ignored or trivialized by press-release-style advertorials.

In response to my direct questions - you answered none. You say you think that your "activity speaks for itself."

We agree - it does.

But it is open to question whether it does so in your favor.

So far?

Advantage - Susan Chambers.