After some ten years of what some folks would call shenanigans and poppycock, Cape Wind was finally approved by the Obama Administration.

However, one of the more serious claims against Cape Wind came from Cape and Vineyard Native American tribal members, since there’s the possibility that construction of the offshore wind project “will interfere with important sunrise ceremonies and potentially damage ancestral burial grounds in what was once dry land now submerged beneath the Sound.” Both the Massachusetts state government and federal government are attempting to compensate Cape and Vineyard Native American tribes for the potential disturbance to cultural resources and are attempting to offer plans to mitigate impacts to cultural resources. No formal deal has apparently been reached.

If Cape Wind is constructed, there will be 130-turbines, and “Cape Wind will produce 468 megawatts (MW) of electricity, about the same as a medium-sized coal-fired power plant.” Direct-drive technology could propel offshore wind turbines, which is “a technology that could help address concerns over cost and reliability of offshore wind.” However, Cape Wind is contracted to use use the gearbox and rotor technology.

Opponents of the offshore wind farm argue, amongst other things, that the turbines would ruin the scenic beauty of Nantucket Sound and harm aquatic wildlife and seabirds. However, Nantucket Sound receives heavy commercial traffic in addition to heavy touristic-type traffic. The anthropogenic footprint on the area is undoubtedly already huge. Furthermore, research shows that impacts to seabirds are minimal.

Given the United States’ need for energy and reliance on polluting nonrenewable fossil fuels (not to mention the recent Gulf of Mexico offshore oil rig disaster, a Brobdingnagian-sized environmental disaster, which will cost that region billions of dollars in economic loss due to the devastation done to ecosystem services), Cape Wind is an important step in the right direction that should have begun many years before.

Video: New Bedford may become wind farm’s HQ:

Video: Wind farm gets mixed reaction on Cape

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