WHO IS KILLING OFFSHORE WIND? —— by Steve Nadis
After six years of legal wrangling, the Cape Wind project proposed for Nantucket Sound earned environmental approval from the state of Massachusetts. Although that’s an important milestone for advocates of clean power, a federal review is still pending and all bets are still off. Meanwhile, a well-funded coalition called the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound, which has been battling the project since the beginning, will not go down without a fight. The Alliance represents a bunch of rich people on Cape Cod (including Ted Kennedy and family), many of whom claim to be in favor of offshore wind so long as they don’t have to see it. That attitude is part of a broader problem in this nation of hypocrites. Everyone says they’re in favor of environmental protection. But they’re not willing to make any changes or sacrifices when it comes to their own precious lifestyles.
Posted by
at
22:25:43
If you go to the Care2 website & Search for “windpower Cape Cod” you’ll see I slice up the whole project. I Worked for a NH windpower co. GREAT idea for some locations.(ie: So. CA pass)
Off-shore in deep salt-water in a busy maritime traffic area is not 1 of those locations.
$$$cost+$$Maintenance far > than $electricity produced in it’s “lifetime”. I shudder that they’re going ahead w/it.
[Stop hittin a nerve, there, Snake. geez!:]
It seems this is another of those issues that we don’t see eye to eye on…
I’ve also heard a lot of pros and cons about the Cape Wind project. While I don’t give a damn about the residents’ aesthetic concerns, I have heard some valid criticisms:
– the turbines are not invulnerable to high winds and tides. One medium-sized hurricane or a nor’easter might be enough to destroy them, which would be a hell of a lot of time and money wasted;
– the wind speed off our coast is extremely variable. In other places where they’ve built wind-farms, the wind is more dependable.
– when you balance the amount of power the wind-farm will likely generate against the high costs of building, maintenance, and replacement (since damage and deterioration are inevitable), it may not be very cost-effective after all.
– wind-farms installed in other areas of the country have caused many unforeseen environmental issues, including killing of birds, altering wind patterns, increased erosion, and noise pollution. It IS a much cleaner source of power than coal or oil, but it doesn’t come without side-effects. In some places, those side-effects don’t matter much. In the middle of a heavily populated and environmentally sensitive area like the waters off Cape Cod, they might matter a lot.
I’m as concerned as anyone else about finding clean sources of power. But I’m also wary of having a solution rammed into place in the name of saving the environment, then discovering it causes more problems than it solves.
What’s your take, Snake? Any good information that would counter my concerns?
Many of the points I brought up, GM. A nice high, isolated pass in the Berkshires wouldn’t get swept w/salt spray, you wouldn’t need a diving team to reweld a tower bent by a “1939 successor” (or drunk midnight capt’n), you could “rewire” a f__ of a lot easier after a lightning hit…
List goes on & on, but suffice to say- U.S. Windpower left NH’s Mt Monadnock in ‘77 w/ a great 3-blade design, put a sh_load up there in CA, catching the daily Santa Ana’s, & never looked back! New England is indeed an incubator of great ideas. (Did you know TEXAS is #1 in windpower production! & growin’ :O ‘mazin!)
We got Trees We got Rivers We got Snake What More dya want?
Thanks for the plug, MP, though this blog hardly qualifies as a New England resource. Gatemouth, you ask good questions. The fact is, all kinds of energy generation/conversation ought to be done right, regardless of whether the resource is renewable or not. The experience with offshore wind in Denmark and other European countries has been encouraging. This project, as with all power plants, will have some drawbacks. My sense, however, is that the advantages do win out in this case. Studies have shown, for e.g., that bird kill shouldn’t be a huge problem. The pollution from coal-burning plants would have a much more adverse impact on wildlife. I’m not going to try to go through the whole list. The main point, as I said before, is that these kind of questions need to be asked whether you’re talking about nuclear power plants or wind turbines. Cape Wind has been studied extensively for many years; my take is that the pluses definitely outweigh the negatives. And we’ve got to start somewhere if we’re ever going to make the switch toward a renewable/sustainable energy economy.
They’re funding it privately & I agree that stalling it on the basis of asthetics is not valid. It’s like saying the solar panels on roofs are an “eye sore”, when these roofs
(& tel. poles, etc) are all an ‘odd’ sight for anyone who was here 500 yrs ago. Actually, windmills were a big part of the landscape back in the 1800s right up through the Rural Electrification program.
If the Feds give it their ’stamp’, as they will if the recent Court decision on CO2 is any indication of current attitude, then good luck to ‘em!
I still say it’ll end up being a $ failure due to excessive ongoing maintenance costs, & unforseen acts of God…& man. Relocate such a plan to a high, rural pass not TOO far from an existing HiV power line & send Joey out in a small 4WD to replace a bearing, tie down the rotors (4 a ‘cane) or reset a breaker.
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