Pacific Offshore Wind Development: Community Desire in a Just Energy Transition

Abstract

Floating offshore wind development on the US Pacific Coast has arrived as the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management has completed the first lease auctions to allow developers to build new clean energy sources off the coast of California. The United States, and the international community, have set ambitious goals to build renewable energy and phase out fossil fuel use between now and 2050. Socioeconomic well-being is centered in the whole-of-government approach to offshore wind development. Utilizing a just transition framework has created new development requirements such as Community Benefit Agreements, and Project Labor Agreements, that try to keep development money in communities through job creation, workforce development, and climate adaptation and mitigation projects. Interviews were conducted in Coos County, OR and Humboldt County, CA to understand the desires of local communities and what would be needed to create lasting and meaningful benefits for the area. Communities loved the environment, their families, the culture, and their rural lifestyle. They hoped development would provide family-wage jobs, an economic anchor industry, more affordable housing, and reduce poverty and homelessness. A just transition can be achieved by turning community desires into the metrics of success for community benefit agreements. Co-creation of community benefits, as a form of procedural justice, must center the communities vision of their future on the unique characteristics that give them pride and a deep love for the area. The success or failure of offshore wind development will be measured by whether the desires of the community are realized or left unmet.