New York Times Editorial: Cape Wind and Mr. Salazar/Pressure Is Building on Disputed Wind Farm/Cape Cod Project Is Crucial Step for U.S. Wind Industry

New York Times Editorial: Cape Wind and Mr. Salazar
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: April 25, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/26/opinion/26mon3.html?th&emc=th


Interior Secretary Ken Salazar is expected to announce this week whether a controversial wind farm off the coast of Massachusetts can proceed. Given the country’s need for alternative energy sources — and the administration’s commitment to promoting them — it would be dismaying if he did not give the go-ahead.

Offshore wind farms are a common sight in Europe but not here. Cape Wind would be this country’s first — sending, finally, a signal to the world about America’s resolve to fight global warming and reduce its dependence on foreign oil.

This is not, admittedly, an easy decision. The project has endured nine years of state and federal reviews and ferocious opposition from local landowners on Nantucket Sound — including the late Senator Edward Kennedy — who hate the idea of having 130 windmills, about 400 feet tall, on the horizon.

In addition, and more problematically for Mr. Salazar, two Indian tribes have said that Nantucket Sound is of great cultural and spiritual significance to them and that building the turbines could disturb ancestral burial grounds on lands that were above water thousands of years ago.

Mr. Salazar’s own department is divided on the matter. The National Park Service believes the tribes have a case; the Minerals Management Service says the project should proceed.

Mr. Salazar could ease the blow for the Indian tribes with financial compensation. He could also promise that the wind farm developers, whose test borings have so far failed to locate any archeological remains, would collect further sediment samples before sinking foundations.

The criticisms of the project do not come close to outweighing its enormous promise. Cape Wind would be located in what may be the most propitious offshore site in America: shallow water protected from heavy waves; strong, steady winds; and close proximity to thousands of consumers and industries that would benefit from clean power. The secretary’s choice is clear.




Pressure Is Building on Disputed Wind Farm
By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE
Copyright by the Associated Press
Published: April 25, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/26/us/politics/26wind.html?th&emc=th


BOSTON — Political pressure continues to build on Interior Secretary Ken Salazar as he prepares to announce his decision this week on the fate of a proposed wind farm off the coast of Cape Cod, Mass., that has been stalled for nine years.

The governors of six East Coast states called on Mr. Salazar last week to approve the project, which is proposed by Cape Wind Associates and would be the nation’s first offshore wind farm. Turning it down, they said, especially on the grounds that it would harm the view from historic sites, “would establish a precedent that would make it difficult, if not impossible, to site offshore wind projects anywhere along the Eastern Seaboard.”

Their states — Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York and Rhode Island — all have offshore wind projects in the works. Four of the governors are Democrats and two, in New Jersey and Rhode Island, are Republicans, showing that views of Cape Wind do not break down along political lines.

Senator Scott Brown, Republican of Massachusetts, and Representative Bill Delahunt, a Democrat whose district includes Cape Cod, said in their own letter to Mr. Salazar last week that the project was fraught with conflicts.

An up-or-down decision, they said, would prompt years of litigation, so they encouraged him to try to forge a consensus among the stakeholders. That approach has proved problematic for several years and could take several more, given the intensity of interests on all sides.

Perhaps the most prominent opponents have been members of the Kennedy family, whose compound in Hyannis Port looks out on the proposed site. Senator Edward M. Kennedy called the project a special-interest giveaway and fought it until just before his death in August.

Senator John Kerry, the state’s other senator and a Democrat, has not publicly taken sides. When Mitt Romney, a Republican, was governor, he opposed the project.

The proposed 130-turbine farm would lie in Nantucket Sound about five miles from the nearest shoreline and would cover 24 square miles, about the size of Manhattan. The tip of the highest blade of each turbine would reach 440 feet above the surface of the water.

Mr. Salazar has said that he will announce his decision by Friday.







Cape Cod Project Is Crucial Step for U.S. Wind Industry
By TOM ZELLER Jr.
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: April 26, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/27/business/energy-environment/27wind.html?th&emc=th


More than 800 giant wind turbines spin off the coasts of Denmark, Britain and seven other European countries, generating enough electricity from strong ocean breezes to power hundreds of thousands of homes. China’s first offshore wind farm, a 102-megawatt venture near Shanghai, goes online this month, with more in the pipeline.

But despite a decade of efforts, not a single offshore turbine has been built in the United States.

Experts say progress has been slowed by a variety of factors, including poor economics, an uncertain regulatory framework and local opposition.

When the Obama administration announces a decision this week on the most prominent project — Cape Wind, off the coast of Massachusetts — it could have implications from Long Island to Lake Erie. An approval from Interior Secretary Ken Salazar might well nudge the project to completion as the nation’s first offshore wind farm. On the other hand, some developers say a thumbs-down could gut America’s offshore wind industry before it ever really gets started.

“It is imperative that Cape Wind gets built — we need the momentum,” said Peter Giller, chief executive of OffshoreMW, an upstart developer with ambitions to build two 700-megawatt projects off the shores of New Jersey and Massachusetts.

At least half a dozen offshore wind projects that could provide electricity for hundreds of thousands of customers have already been proposed in the shallow waters off the East Coast and the Great Lakes. Even more are in the paper-napkin stage, including a project that would place a bank of turbines about 13 miles off the Rockaway peninsula in New York.

Although offshore wind farms are roughly twice as expensive as land-based ones, developers and advocates say offshore projects have several advantages. Sea and lake breezes are typically stronger, steadier and more reliable than wind on land. Offshore turbines can also be located close to the power-hungry populations along the coasts, eliminating the need for new overland transmission lines. And if the turbines are built far enough from shore, they do not significantly alter the view — a major objection from many local opponents.

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory has estimated that about 90,000 megawatts of electricity could be extracted from offshore winds in United States coastal waters less than 100 feet deep, the easiest and most cost-effective depths. Most of that potential lies in New England, the mid-Atlantic and the Great Lakes.

If the handful of American projects on the drawing board are built as planned, they would produce some 2,500 megawatts, according to the American Wind Energy Association, or about as much as two midsize nuclear power plants.

The Cape Wind project would place 130 turbines, each 440 feet tall, over 24 square miles of Nantucket Sound at a likely cost of more than $1 billion.

Opponents have argued that the venture is too expensive and would interfere with local fishermen, intrude on the sacred rituals and submerged burial grounds of two local Indian tribes and destroy the view.

“Cape Wind’s oversized costs do not represent a reasonable return on the public’s investment,” wrote Joseph P. Kennedy II, the former congressman and president of the Citizens Energy Corporation, a Boston nonprofit group, in a letter to The Cape Cod Times in February. Mr. Kennedy’s family owns property that looks out on the proposed wind farm site.

“Citizens Energy has been involved in alternative energy development for decades,” Mr. Kennedy continued, “but we do not include in our business model a plan to pick the public’s pocket.”

But proponents of the project, which include major environmental organizations like the Sierra Club and Greenpeace, point to a February study by Charles River Associates, a consulting firm hired by Cape Wind’s developers, suggesting that the project could save New England ratepayers $4.6 billion in energy costs over 25 years. They also say that the project has undergone two separate environmental impact analyses, neither of which found significant downsides.

The governors of six East Coast states — Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York and Rhode Island — last week called on Mr. Salazar to approve the project.

But even if Mr. Salazar gave the approval, opponents of Cape Wind would probably continue to challenge it in court and the company would still need to strike a deal with a utility to buy the power.

Jim Gordon, president of Energy Management, the firm heading the Cape Wind project, is weary but resigned. “It’s hard whenever you’re a pioneer trying to do a first of a kind,” he said. “We always recognized that this would not be an easy path.”

Despite Cape Wind’s struggles, a small but determined wind industry has emerged elsewhere, proposing several ocean projects off the shores of New Jersey, Delaware and Rhode Island, as well as freshwater projects in the Great Lakes near Cleveland and Chicago.

The industry got a boost last Wednesday when the Obama administration asked for formal expressions of interest from companies that might want to build wind projects off the Delaware coast.

Still, many hurdles remain.

Regulatory uncertainty has made offshore wind development a haphazard affair. It was only last year that the Interior Department approved final regulations for granting leases, easements and rights-of-way for renewable energy development in federal waters. Within three miles of the Atlantic coast, or on the Great Lakes, states have jurisdiction — and some have not even begun the rule-making process.

An even bigger impediment has been the high cost of building and maintaining turbines in a harsh marine environment, where equipment must be fortified to withstand crashing waves, hurricane winds, corrosive salt and, in the case of the Great Lakes, winter ice.

The current price tag for a fully installed offshore wind system is estimated at $4,600 a kilowatt, nearly double the $2,400-a-kilowatt price for a land-based system, according to the U.S. Offshore Wind Collaborative, a coalition of public and private organizations and institutions promoting the industry.

“The reason there are no offshore wind farms in the U.S. has more to do with the fact that there are plenty of land sites yet to be developed,” said Sam Jaffe, an energy analyst at IDC Energy Insights, a market research and consulting firm. “Why on earth would you go offshore, which is more expensive, when you still haven’t developed North Dakota?”

In Rhode Island, a $200 million, 28.8-megawatt demonstration project being developed in state waters by Deepwater Wind was tripped up late last year when the local utility, National Grid, declined to enter into an agreement to buy power from the project, citing its “unreasonable” cost.

After the governor, Donald L. Carcieri, intervened, National Grid agreed to buy the electricity for 24 cents a kilowatt-hour. But late last month, the Rhode Island Public Utilities Commission rejected the deal as too expensive for ratepayers, who would bear the cost.

By comparison, production tax credits and other incentives have driven the cost of land-based wind power to less than 5 cents a kilowatt-hour in some places, and that’s still more expensive than other sources like coal and hydropower.

Despite the upfront costs, proponents say offshore wind power is worth it if it can reduce the reliance on carbon-intensive sources of electricity like coal.

“People should be cautious of thinking that protecting the viewshed protects the place,” said Kert Davies, a research director with Greenpeace who has closely watched the Cape Wind venture. “The truth is that every model shows that the cape and islands and Nantucket are going to be drastically different places if climate change continues apace.”





Cape Cod windfarm gaining approval
by Jim Tankersley
Copyright © 2010, Chicago Tribune
April 28, 2010 10:49 AM
http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2010/04/cape_cod_windfarm_gaining_appr.html

The Obama administration has approved a long-delayed, highly controversial offshore wind project off Cape Cod, Mass., a source briefed on the matter said this morning.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar is set to announce the decision, to grant federal permits to the Cape Wind project, in Boston this afternoon. Interior officials declined comment this morning.

Mark Rodgers, spokesman for Cape Wind, said the company would decline comment until after Salazar makes his announcement.

Cape Wind proposes to string 130 turbines in Massachusetts' scenic Nantucket Sound and supply the majority of the power on Cape Cod and nearby islands. In a decade-long fight, the project has divided Massachusetts politicians, earned objections from the Kennedy family and most recently drawn opposition from local Native American tribes.

But Obama administration officials - and Salazar in particular - have made offshore wind-power a cornerstone of their push to boost so-called "clean energy" in the United States, and thus were widely expected to approve the project, which has the support of Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick.

The Boston Globe was the first to report the administration's decision today online.

Federal approval will put Cape Wind in line to become the first U.S. offshore wind farm - assuming it clears a flurry of lawsuits that are expected to follow the decision - and set the stage for similar projects along the East Coast and in the Great Lakes and Gulf of Mexico.

Shortly after taking office, Salazar began touting the potential for offshore wind to supply massive amounts of electricity, especially on the East Coast, where much of the nation's electric demand is concentrated.

Interior officials have set the federal government's first rules for offshore wind development and settled jurisdictional disputes that hampered previous project attempts. Salazar has made wind as much of a part - at least rhetorically - of his offshore energy development strategy as oil and gas drilling.

On Tuesday in Iowa, Obama toured a wind-turbine manufacturing plant operated by Siemens, which is set to provide the turbines for Cape Wind.

Bob Drogin contributed to this report.