FAA finds Cape Wind project would cause radar interference

Give me a break. This is Ted the liberal lion Kennedy showing us how far his tentacles reach. These wind turbines should've been put up years ago

Anyone moron in favor of this windfarm is completely crazy! These things are the biggest waste of time and will produce next to nothing for electricity. If constructed they will end up being rusting junk towers covered will seagull crap in about ten years maybe less! The whole area wil be ruined and a few will have made money on it. Don't do it!

MA Liberals - NIMBY!!! Wah. No drilling for oil. Wah! No Nukes Wah. No wind.

I am a big proponent of wind power (long with solar, wave, tidal, etc.) and I had been in favor of Cape Wind. But upon further study and consideration, I believe that Nantucket Sound is the wrong location for this project.

There is no such thing as something for nothing. There is a cost to every endeavor, and wind power farms are no exception. The gains must be weighed against the loss. In this case I believe the loss outweights the benefit of the Cape Wind, as currently conceived.

Adrian, please get your head out of the sand. Wind turbines have been around for years and are successfully producing megawatts of power. Do you want to keep paying through the nose for foreign oil to run our generating plants?

Ray is right - Teddy doesn't want anything to block his view. Time for him to retire anyway.

Yeah so Adrian here apparently doesn't understand what a gigawatt is. The tiny nation of Denmark currently produces more than three gigawatts of power exclusively from wind farms, some of them currently 30 years old.

The fact is, Ray's right and our country dropped the ball on power production when I was four years old and never looked back (or forward?). Thirty one years of zilch. So now we've gotta scramble. What'll it be, Cape? A wind farm or a coal plant? Or maybe you'd like another reactor?

Wake up and smell the coffee, folks. We gotta make more power and this is the cleanest, least Cape-destroying way to do it.

Funny, they seem to work well in Europe......

"Anyone moron in favor of this windfarm is completely crazy! These things are the biggest waste of time and will produce next to nothing for electricity."

Actually Adrian, 400+megawatts - approx. 75% of the Cape's electric needs - is hardly "next to nothing".

And your style of characterizing your opponents - "morons" - wow, so sophisticated and substantive.

Please, tell us more. There’s so much we can learn from someone as articulate as you.

This project is a good example of why wind and solar will never be fully viable alternatives to coal, oil and natural gas. This project should probably be built in some form, the power can be used. But to get to a small percentage of Massachusetts power needs we would need thousands of turbines. Wind and solar simply take up too much space to be economic or environmentally sound to be the primary means we will provide the power we need. By comparison nuclear is much more environmentally sound.

Adrian,
Now what part of that statement can be backed up with facts?

“We support renewable energy, but it has to be properly sited.” - Audra Parker, a spokeswoman for the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound.
Of course! Let's site a series of wind turbines where there isn't any wind to turn the blades and create electric power. Wonderful idea.

Barnstable Municipal, Martha Vineyard and Nantucket Memorial Airports' officials as well as Hy-Line Cruises and the SSA have all been against this project from the beginning due to the risk they repeatedly state Cape Wind poses to public safety.

Wood’s Hole, Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket Steamship Authority SSA Cape Wind MMS Scoping comment to MMS:

"My name is Captain Charles Gifford, I am the Port Captain for the Wood's Hole, Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket Steamship Authority. I'm a U.S. Coast Guard licensed Master Mariner and an approved instructor at the Massachusetts Maritime Academy."

"The Steamship Authority annually makes 22,000 trips transporting close to three million passengers and over 600,000 cars and trucks to the Islands of Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket. It is our opinion that the 130 wind turbines planned for Horseshoe Shoals and Nantucket Sound has a potential for creating a significant hazard to safe navigation for our vessels and other users of the waterways."

National Air Traffic Controllers' Cape TRACON comment on Cape Wind to the USACE, states:

“The evidence of endangerment to all who travel by air sea over and upon Nantucket Sound is compelling."

"These things are the biggest waste of time and will produce next to nothing for electricity. " Adrian what is this based on? Everything I have heard is that it would produce a majority of the electrical needs for the entire cape region. It sounds like your arguements are missing a basis in fact and are hiding your real motives.....

The FAA report is nonsense...on HGH! There is not one scintella of factual data to support..."interference with air traffic control radar systems".

Wind farms, in my opinion, are analogous to the 'eight track tape' technology in the seventies. I do not support the technology; however, I do not oppose free enterprise, with investment money, paying to have these 'ugly duckilings' erected. I do not believe it is a long term solution...to anything.

Using the FAA

I am so tired of hearing from the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound. It's the worst case of "not in my backyard" I think I've ever seen, and while they claim to support renewable energy (big of them, huh?) their insistence that it be "properly sited" is laughable. I assume their idea of "properly sited" is a site somewhere that doesn't impact their view, say maybe off the coast of Mississippi. Wind power is a proven technology and has been for many years (ask the Dutch) so the idea that this project's benefits don't out weigh the negatives is simply incorrect. Massachusetts needs to be a leader in this area as much as our country needs to move in this direction.

Well spoken, Adrian, and ohhh so true!!! Take it from me, I've seen it. Everything new is not necessarily positive. More often the opposite.

Cape Wind is like the Hindenburg, a disaster waiting to happen. This has to be the 10th black eye Cape Wind has given to the wind industry. Now the wind cult will call the FAA a NIMBY. Lets save Massachusetts the $40+million a year in handouts and kill this project once and for all. Wind Turbines Cause Radar Interference and in the middle of 400,000 flights a year is deadly.
After five years of strong objections by the Barnstable, Martha's Vineyard, and Nantucket airports and others on the safety of the 400,000 flights per year over Nantucket Sound, on Friday the Federal Aviation Administration formally issued a Notice of Presumed Hazard for the Cape Wind project.
Cape Wind is proposing a 44-story, 25 square-mile wind project ( The size of the island ofManhattan)_centered under the flight paths between Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard, and Nantucket. Opponents to the project assert those wind turbines would affect FAA radar sites in North Truro, Nantucket, and Otis Air Force Base that provide ATC service for aircraft in the area.

The FAA apparently agrees. The NPH finding states wind turbines can cause radar interference, and reduce the probability of detecting small aircraft. Problems for primary and secondary radar coverage identified by the FAA include beam distortion and clutter, which reduce the probability of detecting small aircraft.

Based on a recent aeronautical study of the proposed project's turbines, the FAA has found that each of the 130 structures "exceed obstruction standards and/or would have an adverse physical or electromagnetic effect upon navigable airspace or air navigation facilities." ...Life and Death navigation hazard, twice the cost of electricity. $70,000,000 a year in tax handouts, 40,000 gallons of oil in a 10 story transformer in the middle of this steel forest. It is time to kill this project and move on with some real solutions. The FAA report is available at www.windstop.org

hmm .... details always enlighten

EMF/EMI/ELF interference can furthur propgate during harmonic accumultive occillation (constructive interference). The 'farm' will act as a resonator. It's focus will 'shift' as wind direction shifts. This is a cause/opportunity for other EM problems as well (human/biological).

In addition, 84 miles of cable laying jet-plowing to attach towers (destroys approx. 10 acres / 10 feet of benthos habitate ref. MADEP 1999 Lewis Bay FO cable) = 22,232,000,000 sq feet = 510,384 acres =797 sq miles destroyed (5 yr++ > ??? recovery) = 15+ X 50+.mile DEAD ZONE as all turbidity < 0.5 micron (30 - 50%) clogs gills. This will kill most if not all clamming, oystering, scallopping. crabbing and lobstering on the South Cape (Falmouth to Chatham). The MMS report barely covers this phenomena with a 'who knows'.

I could go on with opinions but I felt facts speak best.

The details certainly do enlighten, Sci-Man, while this developer has done an incredible job of keeping most in the dark. His NIMBY attacks have obfuscated the facts. Nantucket Sound is an Essential Fish Habitat, spawning ground, and a migratory flyway with endangered species present that this for- profit, private developer would convert to a DEAD ZONE.

Cape Wind supporters should know that the lead federal regulator, MMS, reports: “Given the estimated COST OF ENERGY IS $122/MWh, TWICE THAT OF THE CURRENT MARKET AND THIS IS AFTER THE FULL BENEFIT OF TAX AND RPS INCENTIVES, the prospects of entering a long-term purchase power contract would seem low.”

Twice the price of current energy would yield a public safety hazard.

"In a July 8, 2008, letter to the FAA raising concerns for the safety of Visual Flight Rule (VFR) aircraft as well as radar interference for ATC systems, the three local airports jointly stated "while we all believe strongly in the need for renewable energy, the placement of a 25 square mile wind plant in the middle of three of the busiest airports in the state, in some of the most unpredictable weather conditions on the East Coast, poses an unacceptable risk to both our aircraft operators and passengers."

Gee, and the 400,000 flights across the Sound don't bother you? We need the clean energy, folks, to help the environment and the planet.