Posted on 10/07/2004 6:35:44 AM PDT by Radix
A provision quietly attached to a Defense Department spending bill earlier this week will take the wind out of a mighty wind-energy project on Cape Cod, project supporters say.
The amendment, filed by U.S. Sen. John Warner (R-Va.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, will delay indefinitely a proposed wind farm in Nantucket Sound.
``At a time when Americans are more concerned than ever about our reliance on overseas oil, it seems like a particularly bad time to put the brakes on developing a clean and local source of energy,'' said Mark Rodgers, of Cape Cod Wind Associates, which hopes to build the nation's first offshore wind farm.
The amendment - which prohibits the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers from approving offshore wind-energy projects without the OK of Congress - is the latest obstacle thrown in the firm's path. Last week, Pentagon officials decided to put off releasing a massive environmental review of the developer's proposal to build 130 of its 400-plus-foot-high wind turbines in a 24-square mile area off Nantucket Sound.
``An indefinite delay in developing that resource would be a step in the wrong direction,'' said Seth Kaplan, senior attorney with the Conservation Law Foundation.
The controversial proposal has created conflicting alliances of unlikely bedfellows. The Conservation Law Foundation is among 10 environmental groups that have come out in support of the privately developed project.
Joining Warner against the project are U.S. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy [related, bio] (D-Mass.), who also sits on the Armed Services Committee, Congressman William Delahunt [related, bio] (D-Quincy) and Bay State Gov. Mitt Romney [related, bio].
``Gov. Romney agrees that before we start developing the oceans, we need to proceed carefully,'' said Romney communications director Eric Fehrnstrom.
Warner has reportedly vacationed on the Cape for years and has two daughters who are summer residents of Osterville. Kennedy and his family, of course, spend summers at their family compound in Hyannisport.
As the debate has turned vitriolic, some project supporters are quietly accusing Warner and Kennedy of engaging in NIMBY behavior - though Not on My Private Beach may be more accurate.
Fehrnstrom says that's not fair. ``(Warner and Kennedy) wouldn't put a wind farm in the middle of the Grand Canyon or at the foot of Mount Rushmore, either,'' he said. ``Nantucket Sound is also a precious natural resource, and it needs to be protected.''
I just read in my latest issue of windpower monthly that the latest poll in England showed that 80 percent of the population is pro wind power and even more interestingly, 70 percent are pro wind even if it is very near their house. This with a huge propaganda campaign against wind going on right now in England. Another interesting fact is that when people have windpower developed near their town, they become even more pro-wind. It is still very rare and most people don't even know what a modern windturbine looks or sounds like or how much power it can produce at what price.
I've never been to the Dakotas but I hear that it is largely an erie wasteland. It is also known as the Saudi Arabia of windpower. Fully developing wind power in N.Dakota, Nebraska and Texas would produce all of the 3 Quads of electricity this country uses per year.
This is a very frustrating statement for me to keep hearing. I know what you mean but this statement is saying something else. To say unreliable you are saying that the turbines are in disrepair all the time. I know you know this is not the case.
When to comes to their worth, that is a measure of the value of the electricity vs the cost. Even if they had a capacity factor of 10 percent, if the cost of that power was very small, then the value is there. Today windpower is wholesaled at about 3.2 cents per kwhr which is quite competitive. Yes, it gets the PTC which is 1.8 cents. It is expected that in 5 years the PTC will no longer be needed.
You are right about the cost of distribution. That statistic about N. Dakota, Nebraska and Texas is only quoted too show how much energy we are talking with windmills vs the amount of energy used in the USA. After all the hurricanes we've seen this year, we can see that it would never make sense to put windmills in Florida.
We have to be careful to avoid the very human tendency to attach any moral significance to an inherently amoral realm. Not that you were doing it, but I see it often practiced on FR, for some reason. Assigning "goodness" or "badness" to a given technology makes no sense. You simply evaluate the advantages and disadvantages, and make a decision as to it's appropriateness in a given application.
There is nothing "good" or "bad" about windpower. It has it's advantages and shortcomings, like any other technology. It's disadvantages, as a baseload power source, are it's variability and perhaps the need to transmit energy over long distances, which leads to losses. On the economic downside, like solar, it is a diffuse energy source. That means you have to work harder to gather enough of the energy to make it economical on a large scale. On the economic upside, fuel costs are low, which helps in the long term. From a distributed source viewpoint, you could place an electricity source in locations where alternatives are costly and/or impractical. If you have an effective power dispatching system, you could use a number of distributed sources to fill in gaps in the supply curve if your system is experiencing shortages (although an efficient energy storage system would help on that score).
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.