CAPE WIND approved

Posted on May 1, 2010

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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RENEWABLE ENERGY: Cape Wind to negotiate deal with utility

Posted on December 3, 2009

Image: An offshore wind farm situated in the Baltic Sea near Samsø, Denmark.

The utility, National Grid, has offered to start negotiations in order to formulate a deal to purchase power from Cape Wind. At issue, is the cost of energy from the offshore wind project. If the deal is successful, it will help Cape Wind obtain funding.

If Cape Wind achieves final review, it has the possibility to become the United States’ first offshore wind farm. However, the project has been plagued with NIMBYism, politics, and most recently “the Wampanoag tribes of Mashpee and Aquinnah [claim] that Nantucket Sound should be included on the National Register of Historic places as a traditional cultural property.” More from the Boston Globe:

Yesterday, Governor Deval Patrick’s administration said the yet-to-be-built offshore wind farm has secured a long-term customer for its electricity: National Grid. It’s the kind of deal opponents had doubted the project could get.

“For Cape Wind, this is a tremendous step forward . . . [to say] yes, we can sell the power,’’ said Laurie Jodziewicz, manager of siting policy at the American Wind Energy Association, which today is wrapping up a two-day workshop in Boston on offshore wind power.

The agreement is one of several recent developments that could advance the project.

Key Massachusetts officials, including Democratic US Representative Edward J. Markey, have urged President Obama to push for federal approval of Cape Wind before next week’s United Nations climate summit in Copenhagen. World leaders could hammer out a blueprint for lowering greenhouse gas emissions and using more renewable power, such as energy from the 130 turbines Cape Wind wants to erect in Nantucket Sound.

Video via NECN

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CAPE WIND: Barnstable’s lawsuit against Cape Wind thrown out

Posted on May 9, 2009

According to the court, the timing to review this case was not proper, since the town failed to exhaust administrative remedies. Allowing for the exhaustion of administrative remedies is important, because the doctrine promotes administrative autonomy and judicial efficiency (if the agency resolves the matter, it will never get to court). From the Cape Cod Times:

The lawsuit claimed the Cape Cod Commission had exclusive jurisdiction over permitting transmission lines necessary for the proposed Nantucket Sound wind farm.

The commission refused to issue a permit for the transmission line portion of the project in 2007, citing a lack of information necessary to make a decision. Cape Wind then sought a so-called “super permit” from the state siting board that would include nine state and local permits, which prompted Barnstable’s lawsuit.

In an 11-page decision filed Monday, Barnstable Superior Court Judge Robert Rufo dismissed the town’s lawsuit because the siting board had not yet finished its review of the “super permit” request.

“Because the town has failed to exhaust its administrative remedies before (the siting board), this court lacks jurisdiction over the declaratory judgment claims and must dismiss the amended complaint,” Rufo wrote in his decision.

Related links:

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WIND POWER: Spain breaks wind energy records, embraces renewables

Posted on April 19, 2009

Europe continues to take a reasonable approach towards renewables such as wind power sans politics and paranoia. Despite some worries, acceptance seems to be connected to the utility of wind power—jobs and clean energy. At one point, wind turbines in Spain were generating 40% of Spain’s electricity.

El Hierro is an island of the Canary Islands (which are off the coast of Africa but part of Spain), and the small island hopes to by energy independent within one year. Although it’s a small island, the island represents an inspiring case study that can be translated to larger areas.

via the BBC News

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CAPE WIND delayed AGAIN!

Posted on December 14, 2008

This clean energy project has undergone a tougher, more detailed review and analysis than any coal, oil or gas power plant in New England

- Mark Rodgers, communications director for Cape Wind

Politicians being politicians

It’s amazing what we can have the political will to do and not to do. Despite a recent ballot question and public opinion surveys showing overwhelming support for Cape Wind, a Minnesota politician delayed the renewable energy project on what seems to be an insignificant issue or at least an issue that certainly could have been settled long before.

Cape Wind has been a very controversial project, but the renewable energy project shouldn’t have been so controversial. Certainly, legitimate questions need answers and studies conducted, but the concerns over Cape Wind or offshore wind power have been largely settled.

It seems that most environmentalists support Cape Wind, but Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a high profile environmentalist, has resisted the renewable energy project. Kennedy claims he is a supporter of “wind power, including wind power on the high seas” but he has argued, “[S]ome places should be off limits to any sort of industrial development.” In a 2005 op-ed piece for the New York Times, Kennedy argued that Nantucket Sound is too pristine to allow development and compared the area to Yosemite National Park. However, Nantucket Sound is no Yosemite National Park, since ferry boat operators, “who are among the leading opponents of the wind farm in Nantucket Sound have been flushing their toilets in it.”

Certainly, Cape Wind has turned into a circus, and as opponents continue to delay any action to advance the project, construction costs will continue to rise as global demand for raw materials and oil continue to rise. Cape Wind should have been built a long time ago. From the Cape Cod Times, MA:

When a pair of Alaskan legislators tried to block the proposed Nantucket Sound wind farm three years ago, Minnesota Congressman James Oberstar, the ranking Democrat on the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure at the time, stayed on the periphery.

Since then, the 18-term lawmaker has taken over as chairman of the powerful committee and has used his new-found influence to delay the final federal environmental report on the proposal from Cape Wind Associates LLC to build 130 turbines in the Sound, thrusting himself into the controversial project’s spotlight.

Yesterday, the Coast Guard, at the behest of Oberstar, agreed to delay a recommendation regarding the project until at least Jan. 15. The move pushes the final environmental report on Cape Wind by the U.S. Minerals Management Service (MMS) — the lead federal agency to review the wind farm and a division of the Interior Department — back at least a month from when it was expected to be released.

The Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure has oversight responsibilities for the Coast Guard, authority that puts Oberstar, 74, in a prime position to influence the review of Cape Wind.

In a Dec. 9 letter sent to Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the Minnesota Democrat called for a delay of a Coast Guard recommendation on the project to allow more time to review a Coast Guard-commissioned study on the potential effects of the wind farm on marine radar.

Europe has embraced offshore wind:

Netherlands

Photo source for attribution here and here

Denmark

Photo source for attribution here

England

Photo source for attribution here

On the Net:

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Tracking news regarding conservation, the environment, energy, politics, and technology

Tag Archives: Cape Wind

CAPE WIND approved

RENEWABLE ENERGY: Cape Wind to negotiate deal with utility

CAPE WIND: Barnstable’s lawsuit against Cape Wind thrown out

WIND POWER: Spain breaks wind energy records, embraces renewables

CAPE WIND delayed AGAIN!

This clean energy project has undergone a tougher, more detailed review and analysis than any coal, oil or gas power plant in New England