To the editor: Wave motors are an outdated story right here in California (“First onshore wave vitality challenge within the U.S. launches in Los Angeles,” Sept. 10). Earlier than that lovely seaside city of Manhattan Seashore acquired its current identify, of us known as the world Potencia, or “energy,” after an Eighteen Nineties wave motor plant that didn’t dwell as much as expectations.
Throughout the subsequent decade in 1907, Henry Huntington constructed his large Pacific Mild and Energy Firm plant in north Redondo Seashore on the border with Hermosa. The plant burned oil to supply electrical energy to run his huge railroad empire.
That very same yr, on the south finish of Redondo, Fred Starr of San Francisco constructed a wave motor which, he claimed, would produce as a lot energy as Huntington’s plant and be soot- and smoke-free.
Had the Los Angeles Wave Energy and Electrical Firm been successful 118 years in the past, local weather change may not be occurring at its present charge. However, just like the tasks in Potencia 4 miles to the north, the Redondo Seashore wave motor was a disappointment.
Let’s all hope the Eco Wave Energy is successful.
Douglas Thompson, Hermosa Seashore
