“I sat with my wife’s family for my birthday dinner at Goleta Beach. Everyone marveled at the view. I could not help but say: now imagine it covered in hundreds of Eiffel tower sized machines.”
Two candidates. One ocean. Opposite answers.
Three hundred turbines across three hundred and seventy six square miles of federal water off Morro Bay, anchored in some of the richest marine habitat on this coast.
Co-chair of the Congressional Offshore Wind Caucus. Helped create an offshore wind working group in 2019. Called the lease sale historic, and criticised the federal cancellation.
The wrong place for this, and the engineering does not close. Cancel the leases. Keep Diablo Canyon open, put reliable baseload first, and then build what actually adds power.
What is actually planned
The largest floating wind farm on earth is in Norway. It has eleven turbines. The lease off Morro Bay covers three hundred and seventy six square miles.
Taller than the rock the town is named for.
Morro Rock stands 581 feet above the water. The towers of the Golden Gate Bridge stand 746. Each wind turbine planned for this coast is about 900 feet, roughly half again as tall as Morro Rock.
That is a single machine. The lease covers three hundred and seventy six square miles of ocean.
Carbajal called this lease historic. That is what historic looks like next to Morro Rock.
Morro Rock 581 ft. Golden Gate Bridge tower 746 ft. Turbine height as reported and not fixed by any filed plan. Lease area and distance: Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.
Visual simulation, not a photograph. Turbine count and dimensions are not yet fixed: no Construction and Operations Plan has been filed for any of the three Morro Bay leases. Area and distance: Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. Leaseholders: City of Morro Bay.
This is not an attack on renewables
Offshore wind was meant to solve something real. Cleaner power, less imported fuel, and a coast that stays liveable. Those are good goals, and the people pushing them mostly want what the rest of us want.
But the numbers have to work. Three gigawatts of nameplate capacity sounds enormous. Offshore wind runs at about a third of its nameplate, so Morro Bay would deliver closer to one gigawatt on average.
That is less than half of what Diablo Canyon already produces, from a plant that is the largest private employer in San Luis Obispo County.
Operating today
About 1 GW average
What Carbajal has said
Carbajal has been consistent about this project for years, and he has said so in his own office’s words. Read it in full and judge for yourself.
Carbajal built the caucus for it
He helped create an offshore wind working group in 2019, and serves as a co-chair of the Congressional Offshore Wind Caucus.
Carbajal called the cancellation sabotage
His office titled its statement “Carbajal Statement on Trump Administration Sabotage of Morro Bay Wind Energy Area,” after the federal government paid 120 million dollars to cancel one of the Morro Bay projects.
Two ways to decide this
Not an energy problem. An engineering problem, decided by people who are not engineers.
Carbajal called this historic. Ask him to come to Morro Bay and say so.
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