Disappeared News

by Larry Geller

The Advertiser reports (Penguin Bank project called off, 4/21/2009) that Grays Harbor Ocean Energy Co. is giving up their project to put a massive wind/wave energy project in the middle of the Penguin Bank whale sanctuary

because a new regulatory process effectively blocks such developments, the company's president said yesterday.

Probably true, though the article states that the reporter could not verify that.

Another reason may be that they picked precisely the wrong spot for their project and were sure to be challenged had they gone forward. And finally, the company’s president might have seen a March 8, 2009 article in the Advertiser:

Besides the environmental obstacles, one of the biggest hurdles could be whether the company can reach agreement to sell the Penguin Bank power to Hawaiian Electric Co. [Grays Harbor president] Hamner said he has been told by a state renewable energy expert that HECO might not need all that electricity.

So yeah, why go ahead with this, especially if HECO won’t buy your electricity [this is an illustration of why Hawaii needs a good feed-in tariff].

Not that it’s terribly important, but the Advertiser again didn’t note that the Penguin Bank story was broken right here at Disappeared News last December. Heck, I don’t mind tooting my own horn sometimes (hint: there’s a Donate button in the left column of this page…).

Permalink posted by Larry @ 4/21/2009 11:44:00 AM