Wind Power Said A Boondoggle In Mass. : Environmental Disaster

This is the first part of a larger article on wind power from Wisconsin Energy Cooperative magazine, that targets the costs and (benefits?) of wind power - it's long in it's entirety but lays out what is happening in Massachusetts and around the country.

More to come.

Thar She Blows! Offshore wind: Green dream or white whale?

David Hoopman WEC

For 10 years, America’s first offshore wind energy project has navigated the perilous regulatory channels of Boston and the Potomac, shadowed and stalked by some whom, it can fairly be said, would otherwise be champions of renewable energy.

Cape Wind cleared federal regulatory hurdles this spring. It will spread 130 wind turbines, each 440 feet tall, across 25 square miles of Nantucket Sound between Cape Cod and Martha’s Vineyard. Federal documents issued April 28, when U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar signed off on the project, say the array is expected to yield an average output of 182 megawatts, about three-fourths of the electrical demand from Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard, and Nantucket Island.

Frustrated in the decade-long quest to sink a harpoon into the project are the Kennedy family, the late Walter Cronkite, and former U.S. Senator John Warner (R–VA, retired 2009), owners of homes and vacation properties in sight of the planned wind farm. At press time, at least nine potential plaintiffs were contemplating whether to take their shot in court, eyeing allegations that the project and its regulatory approvals violate the Endangered Species Act, the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, and other federal environmental laws.

Groups that said they might file lawsuits included local government and fishing clubs; two Wampanoag Indian tribes; the Animal Welfare Institute; Californians for Renewable Energy; and the Oceans Public Trust Initiative, affiliated with the Earth Island Institute.

Announcing his April decision to let the project proceed, Salazar said, “The need to preserve the environmental resources and rich cultural heritage of Nantucket Sound must be weighed in the balance with the importance of developing new renewable energy sources and strengthening our nation’s energy security while battling climate change and creating jobs.”

But the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound, a center of relentless opposition since the beginning, dismisses talk of environmental improvements. The alliance cites at least two factors: fossil-fueled generation running constantly as backup for when the wind stops blowing and the existing system of limits capping power-plant emissions “in which neither Cape Wind nor any other new generating source would reduce emissions below the cap in the long run.”