1 Windmill generates 1 to 3 megawatts (depending on the wind).
1 Reactor generates 1000 megawatts (they vary: Link).
1000 Windmills = 1 Reactor (most plants have several reactors)
The Cape Wind project is as follows: "The wind park will consist of 130 wind turbines, with a total maximum output of 420 megawatts." Cape Wind Link
A spit in the bucket IMHO. Not worth the damage to the fishing industry, tourism industry, and bird migration.
Unless we pave the earth in windfarms...
Whether wind farms are useful is irrelevant. Liberals constantly attack BIG OIL and NUCLEAR PLANTS. They constantly attack the AUTO INDUSTRY for polluting (while they drive the SUVs). In short, they attack every major source of energy.
Let them suck wind for awhile. But I do like the other poster who said cut the power to the region and let them find their own power. The bleedin' heart hypocrites deserve it. And drown the closet liberal Romney in the sound while they cut the cord.
I agree that wind farms are not practical solutions to energy shortfalls. At best they are occasional augmentation to a power grid system that is already supporting its peak demands..
Nonetheless, we cannot have nuclear because of Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. We cannot have hydro because it dams the rivers and purees the fishies. We cannot have coal because it pollutes. We cannot have oil because it pollutes and we have to buy it from Venezuela or Saudi, or somewhere else. Solar works even less efficiently and less predictably than wind. Just what are we supposed to do for power?
I love watching the lefties in Massachusetts dancing around this issue like they have meaningful counter arguments. It is a big game of NIMBY, and it is the eco-dolts who are making the biggest noise about it.
It is not a Massachussette issue, per se. The "land" on which the wind farm will be built is federal. The net impact on fishing will be a net positive. This is like those "artificial reefs" they sink off the coast of Florida from time to time. Fish love these things. Fishing will likely increase in the area in and around these wind farms. (The drilling platforms in the Gulf of Mexico have had a positive impact on that fishery.)
There is almost no way you will be able to see these things from land. So they will not interrupt the millionaires' views from their "summer cottages" (all 100 or so of them) along Nantucket's south shore. For the most part haze limits the visibility there, anyway. And on those rare clear days, there will be small white specks, discernable on the far horizon. It isn't like someone is building an oil refinery a mile away.
Bird migration isn't going in that direction. Look at a map. The flyways go much farther west than that. There is nothing to the south of Nantucket....just open ocean for thousands of miles.
And as for tourists....there is no tourist that I can imagine who is going to say..."Gee...I was going to go to Nantucket/Martha's Vinyard, but since they built those unsightly wind generators way out there where I can barely see them from shore, I guess I will just go to Salisbury Beach, instead."
There will be no impact on Nantucket's tourism because of this.
Your arguments about the minimal contribution of wind power to the grid is correct. But no one represented that it would contribute more than it will. Besides, it is a private venture. If they make money on it...good for them. If they lose money on it, the limosine liberals can take solace in their "I told you so's" and "It serves them right's".
I agree 100% with you. But as a way of reducing the fuel oil used at the Cape Cod power plant it would help. Sadly a large % of the energy used in New England comes from Canadian hydroelectric sources.