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Manipulation, hype and floating offshore windmills

August 24, 2026

Offshore wind energy protest in Morro Bay

OPINION by MANDY DAVIS

Sad to say, we are living in a time of incessant manipulation, subterfuge and downright hype at the hands of our politicians and their favorite corporate donors and glad-hand buddies. Here, in the land of “energy opportunity” the Central Coast of California, we have been the recipients and guinea pigs of political and corporate hype and it’s time that someone pointed the obvious out and just said no!

As many of you know, three of the companies holding offshore wind leases for future floating offshore wind development in California have backed out of their leases and taken a partial repayment of their lease monies and have promised to invest in other more immediate energy ventures.

They have all voluntarily and logically opted to back away from a lease that obviously held little opportunity for future investment return, and have collectively realized their folly and divested from a highly speculative industry based on technologies that have not yet been developed and proven (floating offshore turbines and sub stations in 4,000 depth water). Each and every one has been partially reimbursed for an unrealized project and have taken considerable losses in the process, and even one that has not yet taken the money and run, Equinor/Atlas Wind, has stated, “We have no plans to pursue further (new) offshore wind projects in the United States.

Still, our local pro-offshore wind California politicians – Salud CarbaJal, John Laird and Alex Padilla – have gotten their shorts all wadded up over this “disappointing” turn of events. In an effort to garner public outrage and make a “green hero’ of themselves they have publicly and vociferously railed against this lease fund return and have attempted to manipulate the public by claiming that the Trump administration was taking billions of taxpayer money to buy off the leases and to pressure them into capitulating.

Nothing could be farther from the truth!

The reality is this: Offshore wind in the United States is proving to be expensive, too speculative and fraught with all kinds of potential issues that no amount of public agency capitulation and state bias will mitigate.  Yes, I am talking about the California Energy Commission and the California Coastal Commission.

Additionally, even though offshore wind is finding fewer and fewer supporters in the upper echelon of our state political system, Padilla and his cronies California Attorney General Rob Bonta and California Energy Commission Chair David Hochschild have initiated a costly lawsuit ($120 million) claiming the feds don’t have the legal right to refund the lease money.

They do and they have, and chances are the other two leases in California will go by the wayside soon. A bad investment made on incomplete and faulty information and a dependence on subsidies is just that – a bad investment.

Floating offshore wind has no future in this state.

Lets see clear to start letting our politicians know that we will not be manipulated by a misrepresentation of a situation and use of inflammatory politics to garner attention and support. It’s high time we let our state know that continued support for an industry dying a slow and excruciatingly painful death that will not provide the energy our state needs in the near future is unacceptable.

It’s time to tell our local politicians and the California Energy Commission to stop advocating for and issuing grants for ports to support a non-existent industry, as is the case with Port San Luis.

As engaged and informed citizens we can stop being manipulated by disingenuous politicians, exploitive labor leaders, clueless “environmental” NGOs, and greedy corporations and call them on their hype and hubris. Floating offshore wind will not work in California and it’s time they got a freaking clue!

Contact REACT Alliance for more information on this incredibly important issue. The future of our coastal communities, its pristine environment and beauty, and our thriving coastal economies are relying on your participation to stop offshore wind off our coast. To get even more crucial information, join us at 2 p.m. on Nov. 7 at the SLO Botanical Gardens for our forum – “It’s All Just Smoke and Mirrors…exposing the offshore wind hype.”

You have a voice. You have a choice!

Mandy Davis is the president of REACT Alliance and a Morro Bay resident. REACT Alliance is a local organization established to educate and inform the public about the issues involved with offshore wind.

 


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14 Comments

Oh, I’m commenting again because I was informed by someone who lives on the salt water and is following this issue very closely, he says that the media is not accurately reporting on this windfarm issue. His information is that only one of the three lessees has backed out while the two others are marching forward. This concern is for those who want to protect the marine life and thwart the profiteers, who will fund all levels of government at the expense of the rate payers. We laugh at the public forums who chant affordable housing, well get accustomed to the chant for affordable everything. It is my personal opinion is that we are paying at the fuel pumps for much more than fuel and that will be the case for all energy sources because of our energy addiction. There is a known fact that we will pay plenty to avoid work, the guarantee for this business strategy.


1

The dismantling of the floating offshore wind project is the single largest movement to save California from becoming a failed economy, this boondoggle would have made the high speed rail (now medium speed rail) look like a bad impulse purchase.

To rely on one huge unreliable wind farm, floating twenty miles offshore is unfathomable and think of the cost over runs using the train as an example.

I saw the devastation the storms of 1983 caused to harbors, breakwaters, piers and marine facilities. Now lets talk about great Alaskan earthquake and tsunami of 1964 yes it happened once and may repeat off the coast of Washington on the Cascadia earthquake fault is a 700-mile fault line off the Pacific Northwest coast capable of producing megathrust earthquakes with magnitudes up to 9.0. This fault has a history of significant seismic activity, including the notable 1700 earthquake, which had an estimated magnitude of 8.7 to 9.2.

Putting all your eggs in a floating wing driven basket is a piss pour idea.


13

NO TRACK rail systems is a direct path to failure.


Never forget the hundred+ billion of TAXPAYER MONEY that the DemocratDSA grifters siphoned off (to date).


4

All resources, air, water and energy are to be extremely costly so that we can accommodate MORE PEOPLE. Just accept this, you fund a fortune in mitigation so that we can have clean air to breathe and all water fixtures in your house is required to use less water. Now the cost of energy is off the charts and more to go. The first excuse will be to build a power plants that morph into the local power company’s liability, thence an operational cost that the rate payers will be required to fund.


I remember going to a fish camp in Mexico and the propeller driven generator tied to the end of a stick was charging a battery which powered an inverter so that the camp could watch the soccer game on TV. How resourceful and when done they returned the borrowed parts back into their vehicle. Cute but it’s not in our culture to live like that and they certainly did not have to deal with any regulatory agencies.


Replicating and perfecting that power plant, times millions, for public distribution is an extremely high maintenance liability, expensive and short lived. Our future should never be a political decision. Our science and multifaceted engineers will need to sign off, together with the financial minds. The politicians only get 1 of the 3 votes.


14

You lying, two faced Liberals. Do as I say. Not as I Do . Where is the “Moral Outrage” for your double standards. You people make me so sick . I want to throw up in my mouth .


19

Have you smacked a Libocrat today?


0

Tell China to take their windmills back… we are not falling for this…


38

Talking to these fools does no good. They need to be removed from office. To do that we need “Real” secure elections held in 1 day, requiring proof of citizenship with ID’s, in person voting with mail in allowed only in special situations. No ballot harvesting allowed!


33

You mean like America always voted before the PLANNEDemic? I simply cannot understand why so many Americans have forgotten in just 5+ years. Or, why they just listen to what they’re told by DemoNcrats without any pushback.


NO MORE MAIL IN BALLOTS, EVER!


#NEVERVoteDemoNcratDSAAgain


15

States in the southwest basin of the U.S. (Arizona, Nevada and California) need to cut water from the Colorado River by at least 20%. The Danube River in Europe is drying up at an alarming rate. Desertification in North Africa has created dire consequences, exacerbating famine and immigration pressure on Europe. Wildfires rage across the globe. July was the hottest month on record.

Scientists have proven time after time that fossil fuels are at the core of this problem.

The U.S. response? Drill, baby drill. Let’s not attempt to mitigate the problem with new technology such as offshore wind. Way too scary for the Nimbys in Morro Bay who supposedly care so much about the coast but say nothing about offshore drilling and pipelines that have historically degraded the environment. And the nuclear crowd think they have the answer despite the fact that Diablo sits on top of not one, but two earthquake faults.


-41

Please point out anywhere along the California Coast a location that has permanent evidence of “historically degraded environment”. I’ll bet you can’t. Even along the Santa Barbara Channel where the 1969 Union Oil Platform A oil spill occurred, please identify a location of “degraded environment”. There aren’t any because the spill underwent both human mitigation and the processes of natural recovery/restoration. Natural recovery and restoration that fully restored the affected ecosystems & environment, as Nature has the inherent tendency & ability to ALWAYS do.


Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant DOES NOT SIT ON TOP of earthquake faults. The minor faults are offshore, about 6km distant in the case of the Hosgri Fault and about 600m in the case of the Shoreline Fault which has been evaluated as negligible risk and not a threat to site safety of DCPP. By the way, DCPP has been built to withstand a M=7.5 quake on the Hosgri Fault. There are, however, numerous Central Coast cities that sit directly on top of earthquake faults including San Luis Obispo, Los Osos, Santa Maria, Grover Beach, and Paso Robles among others. Have you ever directed your alarmist concern for those locations where people are very likely to be injured or killed in the event of a strong quake involving those underlying faults???


6

Well said. New, clean nuclear technology is the future, if we can finally get over the Three Mile Island taint that still lives among the aging hippies and feel-good “environmentalists” who, ironically, refuse to “save the whales”, birds and sea life from the wind monsters! Go figure.


67

The cleanest of the clean energy.


14

Keep up the great work!


59