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Offshore wind is a bad idea for San Luis Obispo County

October 28, 2025

OPINION by ELLIE RIPLEY

The offshore wind proposal for San Luis Obispo County is not powerful or reliable enough to carry the load to support and sustain the electric grid.

Offshore wind is an enormous and costly undertaking. Integrating the wind power with the grid is no simple or straightforward task. It’s not just plug and go.

Offshore wind would have to travel some distance to interact to synchronize with the grid to maintain 60 hertz to match the grid.

Then what? When the wind ceases to blow or when it blows too much and causes the turbines to shut down then this process must start all over again.  We need availability and sustainability twenty-four seven not just now and then.

To add to the disdain of this proposal, which is entirely dangerous, destructive, disastrous and extremely costly to the entire Central Coast, all who call this beautiful, sensitive area home will be deeply impacted.

 


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If only there was a way to bring the power in cables to land and store it so it can be up or down converted when needed. Kind of like taking a 120volts AC at 60 hz and converting to 5-18 volts DC and putting in a small device that you can communicate with while on the go. If only.


-1

The best a Lithium BESS can perform is at 93% efficiency by way of grid following asynchronous inverters. So your solution of massive storage wastes electricity and overloads transmission lines during charging and removes stabilizing rotating inertia. The biggest grid forming inverter in California is just 6MVA and there is no communication network between the grid forming inverters that are currently online. Failure to meet realtime demand with dispatchable synchronous generation is stupid leading to a Spain-like cascading outage.


1

My wife claims to suffer when I spill wind.


3

This is being built in Albuquerque:


https://www.krqe.com/news/albuquerque-metro/billion-dollar-fusion-facility-coming-to-albuquerques-mesa-del-sol/


I’ll take fusion or fission over windmills any day of the week… Same for a field of solar panels.


One item I have not seen mentioned here is maintenance. Anyone who either lives near the sea or who has worked in the maritime industry knows how brutal the environment can be. Ever tried maintaining a ship? It’s a CONSTANT battle, and one that will ultimately be lost, likely the same out come for windmills on the ocean…


22

You know what’s a worse idea? Offshore oil drilling. Wind is clean. Nobody suffers from a wind spill.


-30

What a load of ignorant FUD nonsense.


-25

Offshore wind is a bad idea for all of California not just SLO County.


32

Since I didn’t notice any listings of credentials after Ms. Ripley’s name, I will assume she doesn’t have a degree in engineering or oceanography and that she is speaking on an issue she has no immediate experience with. She has no idea how such machines work so her opinion has zero basis in reality. But my brother and uncle both died for her right to express it and I will not criticize her for speaking out on something she feels strongly about. I just wish she would present a few more details about how wind power is “dangerous, destructive, disastrous and extremely costly to the entire Central Coast.” Seems like people with an opinion often have similar feelings whenever new technology is introduced.


-17

So, she’s not allowed her opinion? That very antifa of you.


7

We honestly do not know whether she understands or not how the machines work, maybe she does not hide behind credentials, as so many of late do… Notably, none were provided with your post.


While there is certainly complexity in their design and materials with which they are constructed, it does not require a degree in electrical engineering to understand the basic premise behind their operation, that being, wind imparting motion to a shaft via blades, that shaft driving a generator for electrical power. We’ve been doing the same thing via mechanical means to drive pumps and similar for nearly 150 years.


Since we are bringing up the military (the family business in my case, all the way back to the Revolutionary War), unfortunately, I’ll never be able to forget where I served so that you could share your opinion here and not to mention so many friends who are not with us, most by their hands as they felt they were “bad” people…


While I was out there, protecting the beauty of that section of coastline where I grew up was definitely at the forefront of my mind, for I was given a first row seat to what happens when the teeming hordes are allowed to devastate a locale with sheer numbers.


Ironically, wind turbines are “nuclear powered”, albeit indirectly from the energy our planet receives from the sun, which drives much of our atmospheric activity.


I suspect the real issue here is that there are so many people, particularly in the State of California, and they all need energy. Energy for data centers, energy for electric cars, washing machines, air conditioning if you live in the valley… I just don’t believe building a field of windmills on an ocean expanse is going to solve that problem, and one only wonders what problems will be created.


7

I know the author, Ellie Ripley personally. She worked at Diablo Canyon for 23 years and has expert knowledge on the topic and more than enough experience to speak with authority.


5

The green scam has been buried by FACTS. Well, to those that are open to such factual awareness.


No to wind and solar, yes to proven energy means.


31

Solar has been well proven. Other wind applications and especially some of the newer designs, which does not include the one proposed here, have also been proven reliable. Offshore wind is a disaster that would forever change our coastlines and not in any acceptable way. But solar has been our friend so far. Check out the Carrizo Plains installation, which has proven low maintenance, highly productive, and very environmentally friendly. We have to transition off of fossil fuels. Period. But choosing an alternative needs to be done for the right reasons, not just because it is not fossil fuel. The current proposed debacle is being put forth by a fossil fuel company and that is how they are managing to bully us thus far, even though we strongly oppose. Need to get straight who is again attempting to screw us.


-7

I agree, and would add that the state PUC is screwing us we need more competition in our power market and less protection.


5

Having been inside the Cal Valley Topaz plant many times, I can tell you, that “maintenance” is not a big word out there. Right now, it is impossible for that facility to go full power. I doubt it could go 60%. Broken panels, fire damaged wiring, critter chewed components, hub stations off-line, can’t go into certain areas because of endangered species at times across the calendar.


You want to put panels on your house, or a windmill in your backyard? Go for it. Likely a wise decision concerning a single entity power needs, like a house (just hope you have enough batteries to cover the few days of rain or storm, when your system cannot generate).


Making solar or wind a part of the grid? That’s an expensive lesson in failure, environmental damage, and greed. I point to the massive Ivanpah solar collector. It was hailed as the great savior of California power needs, with innovative solar heated molten salt, providing the heat needed for running the huge electricity producing turbines……except it needed giant diesel generators to work, at all.


And don’t ask the opinion of airline pilots that happen to glance down at the wrong time, when thousands of mirrors redirect the sun into the cockpit. However, I understand the daily BBQ’s on-site, revealed that Eagles and Falcons, fried in flight by the directed mirrors, are tasty with ketchup.


2