Underwater Standoff.

The city of San Francisco has gone to FERC to block PG&E’s request for preliminary permits to build two wave energy farms off the coast of Mendocino County.

San Francisco, which wears its support for local clean energy projects on its sleeve, is arguing that, if PG&E gets its permit, it will set off a wave (pun intended) of speculators who will tie up choice wave farm locations and actually prevent development of bona fide projects.

Preliminary permits give holders up to three years to conduct a feasibility study and the right of first refusal on the permitted location for an actual project.

The proposed PG&E project consists of two 40 MW wave farms consisting of eight to two hundred wave generators each.

Given that San Francisco is in the process of dumping PG&E altogether, this fight could get nasty and make for good regulatory theater. However, that would only obscure the fact that wave energy is quite possibly a major league boondoggle that might not even make it off the drawing board if the environmental community poses serious opposition due to the impact on the fragile marine ecosystem.

PG&E, San Francisco Battle Over Wave Energy [Green Wombat]