The Cape Wind guessing game: Take two

It's awesome that people are coming to their senses and realizing that wind generates so little power, so few jobs, and takes so much away from pristine landscapes/seascapes. Responsible siting is mandatory for all industrial power developments, including wind. Hope wind fails!

Cape Wind was the first thing I thought of at the new of Ted's passing.

So few jobs-worldwide wind employs 440,000 people in its infancy. And will contribute thousands of manufacturing jobs in the state. Perhaps you consider that "few jobs" but in my book that is a lot of solid high paying jobs. "Little power"-Britain alone is projecting 30% of its energy coming from wind and tidal power in the next 10-15 years. In the United States we just pushed past 20,000 megawatts and again this is an industry in its infancy. I urge all readers to do their own research. It is time that America and its citizens reclaimed the future and joined our fellow humans in Europe who take advantage of new technology.

greenym implies that every project needs to create a silver bullet style windfall of POWER and JOBS. perhaps they propose a field of bicycle generators powered by as many people as can be convinced to work out on them for minimum wage?

Wind power is mostly free after the initial investment in turbines and infrastructure for distribution and storage. Yes, the landscape (mostly offshore and out of sight) will no longer be "pristine". perhaps greenym should plow down his home and let the lot return to woodland at his personal expense....

...i thought that ecologists would be excited to take advantage of solar and wind power....i know there's more to it after everyone gets their paws in the pot, but the basics are simple enough...

If you think that the alternative to a small visual change from the wind turbines is no damage, think again. Anyone who's driven through certain parts of West Virginia and other coal mining areas knows what I'm talking about. We have to generate power somehow, or else live much more simply, or some of both, or maybe just die off. Burning coal, oil and natural gas are the usual alternatives. Coal is dangerous to mine, leaves a mess, and puts mercury and particulatis into the air, killing a certain number of people. It's true we have a decent supply for a while. Oil is getting harder and harder to extract, and has many of the same issues. Natural gas isn't going to last forever either.

Wind power is maturing and is getting to the point where the cost is not all that much more than conventional power. What's holding it up now is NIMBYism and the need for a more flexible electricity generation network. I'd be willing to live within a few hundred yards of a turbine myself. At that distance it would not be noticeable if I wasn't looking at it.

Fortunately, a way of dealing with the NIMBY's would also access a steadier resource that is often strongest when our electrical demand is highest. That's far enough offshore of New England to be over the horizon. More expensive to develop, but probably worth it. Of course it still makes sense to do wind turbines nearby as well.

I'm not sure about the legalities of putting a windfarm in State or US waters.

I'm not sure how efficient it is, or if it's worth the money.

What I am sure about, is that I'd like to try it, and learn about it. (And at the same time, build electric cars, encourage cycling, go solar, and yes, drill in ANWAR, while we're at it). I'm also pretty sure that it a wind-farm in the Sound will be considered more of a tourist attraction than an eyesore. Drive past the windmill in Hull and try not looking up and watching the blades spin. You can't. It's pretty cool. And it isn't that noisy, either. Build the darned thing already.

I think everyone who is pro-Cape Wind understandss that the opponent view it that they are happy to burn as much eletricity as possibly, as long as generation doesn't impact or inconvenience them. It's so sad that NIMBY selfishness can have such an impact on a progressive program.

Wind and Solar will assist the United States of America.

Period.

So Babs...if it going to add $4 bucks to your electric bill deal with it it in the short term. Forget the scratch tickets for a day.

It will pay off in the future as the scale increases. We need this. America needs this.

>Little power"-Britain alone is projecting 30% of its energy coming from
>wind and tidal power in the next 10-15 years.

If they achieve that, they will do so in a fundamentally uneconomical way.

Here's the simple fact:

The wind doesn't blow all the time.

There's two ways to compensate:

You grossly over build the national wind infrastructure...say enough to power 100% of the nation, on the hope that any given time 30% is actually working, and use a greatly expanded high tension transmission system to shift the power from place to place.

Or you maintain enough coal & nuclear to hold the load when the wind is slack. Which means you still have to staff and maintain those plants even if their electricity isn't needed right this minute.

Wind power would be the choice of somebody writing a novel about the farce of modern society.

What's the solution? We need to figure out how to tap the heat in this planet. Geothermal has a much smaller foot print then any competeting technolgoy -- hydro, nuclear, coal, wind, solar. Unlike wind and solar but like nukes, coal, and hydro it can be managed to produce what we need for power when we need it.

That means we only need one infrastructure, built to the right size.

Not the overbuilding or duplication of different technologies required by wind or solar.

World-wide wind power actually generates considerable amount of power. For some countries in Europe this is a major source of electrical power for them. With the exception of a few areas in the United States, this country is way behind in this field. It is also ironic that some people of Cape Cod would be so against wind generators when the Cape was once filled with windmills. It is the Cape’s history to have wind generation; this is only today’s version.

Here I thought history was supposed to teach us. Every time one special interest group or another blocks one project or another because of a personal agenda, the price for the original project increases each year of delay. Nothing was really accomplished except advertisers made a lot of money. The first consideration should always be for the 'greater good' not a few elected politicians.

Cape Wind is good for Massachusetts, is good for our nation, and is good for the planet.

It is tragic that Ted Kennedy did not live long enough to understand the magnitude of his mistake and recant his objections to Cape Wind as another great American Walter Cronkite did. As soon as Walter Cronkite realized he had been duped by the lies of the coal and oil special interests he called a press conference to withdraw his opposition to Cape Wind.

The US Army Corps of Engineers calculated that Cape Wind will save $25,000,000 a year to the New England rate payer, it will prevent 5,000 asthma attacks a year, in fact it will annually save $54,000,000 in health cost from bronchitis, asthma, and premature deaths, and will generate 500 construction jobs and as many operation and maintenance jobs many for fishermen whose boats will be needed. In Europe (Nysted Denmark) at a similar project millions of dollars worth of muscles are harvested at the turbine structures and thousands of tourists take boat rides among the beautiful turbines.

What are we waiting for?

cape wind is another centralized large scale power plant, with the same money we could have more cost effective vertical axis wind turbines on every school and hospital, creating the same amount of energy closer to where it's used, creating more jobs. Lets lead Massachusetts! We've been making giant propeller turbines for hundreds of years, the technology has evolved, vertical axis is the future. I live in the wind capital of europe, trust me, you will see vertical axis wind turbines everywhere in ten years, they will charge your car, they will power buildings they will be everywhere!

Other than being a citizen, hopefully responsible, of the Commonwealth, I have no personal stake in the wind farm, one way or another. But it seems to me that assuming safeguards for birds can be implemented, the major objection to the wind farm is aesthetic. And the realistic practical alternative is more coal, which has a good deal more than simply aesthetic objections, spread out over a great deal more of the country.

If the wind farm doesn't work, the parts above the sea can be readily dismantled, taking care of the aesthetic objections. And if it does work, then there is less irremedial damage from coal mining, plus a strong potential for replication elsewhere and for improved technology that would reduce costs and/or improve efficiency.

Cape wind. Hmm... Remember when Teddy single-handedly poo-poohed the idea of an offshore Cape windfarm because, as he so eloquently put it, "That's where I sail!!" Yup, clean, efficient fuel versus Ted's oceanic playground, and guess who won?
RIP Teddy. Quite a legacy you've left.

The passing of Ted Kennedy opens new doors for the current governor.The governor wants to get the Massachusetts Wind Energy Siting Reform Act through the legislature as fast as possible before local residents realize the legislature is giving legislative powers to the governor forever.
The beneficiaries of the Massachusetts Wind Energy Siting Reform Act are likely to be those citizens with disproportionate influence and power in the political process, including large corporations and development firms.
Massachusetts, through the new legislation, chooses to redefine property rights through the Wind Energy Siting Reform Act.

The Wind Energy Siting Reform Act will transfer power from towns, legislators, and the courts to the executive branch, giving the governor and his successors unprecedented power to determine the future landscape and economy of every community. This is similar to the 40B housing laws .

The Wind Energy Siting Reform Act is an assault on our rights.

Having local energy supplies that mitigate global Fossil Fuel supply chain disruptions is a good thing.

Having local energy supplies that have a minimal to no impact on the environment short or long term is a good thing.

Is Cape Wind or wind power in general the entire answer: no. Is it a piece of the puzzle that we need to include in New England's overall energy solution, YES!

If you consider the long-term effect of CO2 in the atmosphere (over 100s-1000s of years) and how quickly windmills can be built and taken down and their possibility of offsetting CO2 emissions, I think it's a no-brainer.
Now that Kennedy has popped his clogs, let's build these things!

The answer is energy diversification. 100% of any one thing does not seem efficient, from an economical or an ecosystem stability perspective.

Diversify the energy sources to match the landscape of the region.

re: wind changing landscape - How often do people really notice the ugly telephone poles and cell towers? These, to me, have changed the landscape drastically, but we've grown accustomed to them, and likely don't even think about them anymore.

re: wind doesn't blow all the time - I've heard this argument many times. People feel they need to see these turbines spinning rapidly all the time to make themselves feel that the equipment is justified. The key is that WHEN they spin, they are pretty efficient; we want them to spin slowly (safety and less energy wasted) and they store energy (much like when the sun isn't out for solar panels).

re: geothermal - I think it's a good thing to use for diversification. I need to research a bit more, but I think just like any resource, we need to be cautious about saying that 100% of any community can rely on this solely. Capturing naturally vented heat from the earth is one thing, but removing unvented heat may be another.

Come on folks, wake up! When will you libs come to your senses and see that this is an UNPROVEN technology! I don't want my tax dollars funding yet another experiment destined for failure (the biggest failed experiement being the B. Hussein Obama administration). True energy independence should rely on what ACTUALLY WORKS. Drill for domestic oil and we will no longer have an energy crisis, its that simple!

>It is the Cape’s history to have wind generation; this is only today’s
>version.

It is our history to farm.

But there is a profound difference between small, diverse farms and industrialized agriculture. Wind driven grist mills can hardly be compared with large scale, industrialized landscapes.

People seem to continue to fail to grasp the scale that is needed for wind to be a practical power source. We're talking tens of thousands of these windmills. What's novel and interesting as a windmill here, a couple there takes on a different aspect when it's immense farms of them.

There are better ideas out there -- that would provide power on demand, produced near where it's needed, for lower maintenance costs. It's called geothermal.

Rather then waste our money on inefficient windmills, we should be developing this far superior technology. Yes, it's not as cheap and quick to implement in the short term -- but the long term economic, cultural, and environmental benefits are all in it's favor.

Geothermal has a smaller footprint on the surface of the earth, it minimally interacts with areas that other living creatures use, it can be scheduled and controlled to meet our demands so we do not have to over-build or build duplicate infrastructure to meet our power needs, and it can also provide district heating & cooling for urban areas with much greater efficiency then electrical based solutions.

This is not a quest for the perfect sacrificing the "good enough." Wind power is not "good enough" it's just wasteful.

But hey, who ever let facts get in the way of beliefs?

VoteGOP is again spewing idiocy. Wind power has been more than proven in Europe. The only reason why you don't want to use it is because we haven't reached the population density tipping point that pushed Europe to wind investment.
Please stop commenting on issues you don't understand. It's not helping your credibility to comment on every article using inaccurate statements.

I have a solution. It has been said in the past that Cape Wind would provide enough electricity to power the cape and the Islands. So what we do is give a Deadline: in 10 years we are cutting the cables from the mainland that provide much of this power. You can build a coal plant with it's smokestacks, a Nuke Plant, or some wind turbines. Let the residents decide what they want in there backyard. I have a funny feeling that a Wind Farm will look a lit better...

In the trials and tribulations of our desire to be energy independant the real solution comes down to what does the most good in the cheapest manner with the least damaging effects to our longterm health, the environment and our survivability. My kids and theirs deserve a world they can afford to live in comfortably. If wind power is the next most plentiful energy source we should embrace it and that goes along with geothermal and solar and the likes. Fossil fuels pollute and kill and the only reason they don't go away is because the powers that profit the most make it difficult to change. We only have ourselves to blame

Hey Whatadope!, you're not too bright, are you? If you believe what those socialst Europeans are doing then you're clueless. Europe doesn't matter anymore and we shouldn't follow their lead into the abyss! Our president B. Hussein Obama is doing a fine job at that already, he doesn't need any more help.

I understand the wind issue just fine, thank you very much. Wind power is a joke, a total joke. We MUST drill for oil and it's LUDICROUS that these liberals in charge are so dead set against doing the OBVIOUS thing which is to increase DOMESTIC oil production. Then we won't have any more summers of $4 gas. The whole thing about our supply of oil being finite is way overblown. We've got an insane amount of oil sitting in the Alaskan arctic and all we need to do is break ground and start drilling!

Clean energy from wind, the selfless sacrifice and the example set by those in a famed tourist region: The Dream Will Never Die.