That’s how the press normally plays it, but to my surprise the New York Times ran a story this week headlined Efforts to Harvest Ocean’s Energy Open New Debate Front that suggests all may not be well on the green-energy front. It seems that fishermen aren’t wild about running into huge buoys that draw energy from the tides and waves.

Until now, all the press coverage of extracting energy from the tides has seemed to be instant approval. There are no greenhouse gases, no radioactive waste, no smoke in the air; the perfect answer to our energy needs. They almost say, “We love this coastline, where incredible power thrusts waves and tides against the rocks day in and day out. We love the sound of it, the shapes it has carved, the fact that the resurgence of that water keeps everything pristine. But if you want to come along with huge commercial ventures to extract some of that energy that made the coast the way it is today, and diffuse some part of the rest, well, why not? If you’re going to label it green or ecological, of course we’re in favor of it!”

Or rather, they just say they’re in favor of it, with no thought to the concept that the energy in the sea is part of what makes the coast what it is. I’m not sure that they’re wrong, but it sounds about as intelligent as the Russian engineers who built the Aswan Dam without any understanding of how important all that silt in the river was to the communities down stream, or just how rapidly their reservoir would shrink when they stopped the silt from washing to the Med.

The real killer in the debate is almost certain to be the impact on views. Here on Whidbey, the mussel rafts in Penn Cove have led to anger from homeowners who paid tens of thousands of dollars for their unspoiled views. On the Pacific coast of Oregon and Washington, most of the waterfront is public property so we won’t see quite the same fight, you can still expect a stink.

So far, I haven’t seen word one about what the impact of this sort of thing is actually going to be, particularly when scaled up to a meaningful level. And if they don’t scale it up to a meaningful level, what’s the point?

If I were king, I’d just tell them to figure it out in Finland or Korea first, mess with our Pacific coast only after we actually know what we’re doing.