Cape Wind Farm Project To Be Approved

Green energy will be coming to Massachusetts.  According to Breitbart.com today, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar will approve the nation’s first offshore wind farm to be built in the Nantucket Sound off Cape Cod.  The wind farm will have 130 turbines. 

According to the article:

Cape Wind says it can generate power by 2012
and aims to eventually supply three-quarters of the power on Cape Cod,
which has about 225,000 residents. Cape Wind officials say it will
provide green jobs and a reliable domestic energy source, while
offshore wind advocates are hoping it can jump-start the U.S. industry.”

Theoretically this is a great idea.  The question becomes how it will work in actual practice. 

One of the issues in the debate on this project was how it would affect the ocean view from Cape Cod.  According to the article:

The project is about five miles off Cape Cod
at its closest proximity to land and 14 miles off Nantucket at the
greatest distance. According to visual simulations done for Cape Wind,
on a clear day the turbines would be about a half-inch tall on the
horizon at the nearest point and appear as specks from Nantucket.”

Two Wampanoag Indian tribes protested the construction of the wind farm because one of their sacred rituals requires an unblocked view of the sunrise over Nantucket Sound.  The article also stated that the wind farm would be built on long-submerged tribal burial grounds.  

Meanwhile, the Boston Herald reported today that Paul Kirk (the man who was the replacement Senator for Ted Kennedy for a short time) stated that Senator Kennedy would be saddened by the approval of the wind farm.

The Boston Herald also reported today:

“Without providing specific details, Salazar said project developers
will be required to undergo more marine and archaeological reviews and
take steps to reduce the turbines’ visibility from the shore. He also
said the project would be reduced in size from 170 to 130 wind turbines
– a “change” that surprised many because the size of the project had
been reduced long ago. Salazar said the conditions are “stringent,” but the project’s nine-year review has been thorough.”

Regardless of how you feel about this project, it will tell us a lot of things about the feasibility of future wind power.  New England (and its coast) have a lot of wind.  If wind power can be an alternative to our current energy sources, New England is where it will be successful.  Putting up the Cape Cod wind farm is similar to the Wright Brothers testing their airplane at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.  Kitty Hawk is always windy–if the airplane was going to fly at all, it would fly there!  If wind power is going to work at all, it will work off Cape Cod!