Cape Wind, Breezing Through State Approval

Courtesy of EV World: The Future in Motion at www.evworld.com


Supporters of the nation’s first potential renewable energy wind farm, Cape Wind, have been receiving mixed messages for the past week regarding the project’s future.

On Friday, March 30, 2007, supporters of Cape Wind felt a real sense of accomplishment when the state’s secretary of Environmental Affairs, Ian Bowles, officially signed off on the project. Opponents of the project were fuming and said that Governor Deval Patrick’s newest renewable energy priorities played into the state’s approval. Bowles, however, insists that politics had no place in the decision and told the Cape Cod Times “We decided it on the merits, straight up.”

The pros of the project more than outweigh the cons. With a local alternative energy source, like 130 wind turbines working in an optimal location like Nantucket Sound, the Cape and Islands could receive about 75% of its electricity from Cape Wind. The Department of Energy said the New England coastline has “the strongest, most sustained winds” in the country. This would certainly cut energy bills down by more than half; not to mention reduce greenhouse gas emissions, create more jobs on the Cape, and make a national leader in renewable energy out of the state of Massachusetts.

Supporters of Cape Wind hope to soon benefit from the alternative energy source and were more than happy to hear this news and that with federal approval of the project, construction will begin next year and be completed in 2010. Opponents of the wind farm, on the other hand, were outraged… but not for long.

Last night, April 5, 2007, the federal agency, Minerals Management Service, which is in charge of given the go-ahead for the Cape Wind project announced that they are going to release the final decision later than originally decided. The date has been pushed back from April 2008 to the fall of 2008. According to a statement from the agency in Washington D.C., the internal review process has taken longer than expected.

Lucky for the opponents of Cape Wind, they gained a few extra months of inhaling polluted air and using up as much fossil fuels as they possibly can. But it’s just inevitable; the turbines are coming eventually.

Sorry Senator Kennedy, I think you are just going to have to stomach these hideous, barely-visible smudges on your horizon line from your compound in Hyannisport.