Today’s Washington Times reports that President Obama and Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar will announce by April 30 whether or not backers of the Cape Wind Project off Cape Cod Massachusetts will be able to proceed with their project.
The project had been opposed by the late Senator Kennedy. Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick supports the project, Senator Kerry has been publicly noncommittal, and newly-elected Senator Scott Brown says he generally supports wind power, but does not support Cape Wind.
As a resident of Massachusetts who lives in an all-electric house, I have a few questions. If this wind farm goes forward, how much of the electricity in Massachusetts will it provide? How will it impact the cost of electricity for Masschusetts residents? What impact will it have on fishing off the coast of Massachusetts?
This project was first announced in 2001. It seems as if the answers to the above questions should be fairly easy to find, but when I did a ‘google’ search, I got a lot of entries and very little information. One of the points I did find was that because the consumer would have to pay for the construction of the wind farm, electricity rates would actually go up. I also learned that since only 3 percent of Massachusetts’ electricity is oil-generated, the wind farm will have no impact on oil imports. I also came across an article that explained that Denmark, a leader in wind energy, is moving away from wind and considering nuclear energy. Although wind energy is ‘green energy’ it does have some risks–there are concerns about how wind farms affect the bird population of an area.
It will be interesting to see how this turns out. I really don’t think I have enough information to form an opinion at this point, and I suspect there are many other people who feel that way.
The reason that Ted Kennedy was against the Cape wind farms was because of their effect on the commercial fishing community. Commercial fishing equals allocation plus area to fish. Wind farms completely destroy the second part of the equation. Wind farms take up lots of space, and to put them in areas necessary for commercial fishing (essentially closing those areas to fishermen) has a huge impact on these fishermen.It removes their area to fish. Currently, if you were to be shown the vast amounts of closed areas, and restricted areas, that fishermen deal with- if you saw them on a map- you would be astounded. These are huge swaths of productive and healthy ocean closed to fishermen already. Wind farms, oil rigs, etc, are just one more means to effectively close the area to fishermen who daily are risking their lives to provide this nation with food. I am not opposed to wind farms per se, nor to drilling for oil, but I believe they would be more effective and less instrusive if they were on land- especially in less populated areas, than on sea. Or at least not on fishing grounds. Over 80% of this country’s seafood is imported- that is the second largest trade deficit this country has. Less than 1 % of that is inspected when it crosses our borders, and of that 1% that is inspected, 50-60% of it is rejected for toxins and poisons. Wild caught fish in this country is one of the healiest and sustainable food supplies our nation has. To further obliterate it is unacceptable. Although I did not agree with Sen. Kennedy on many issues, he was one of commercial fishing’s strongest supporters in Congress. So, it does not surprise me that he took a stance against Cape Wind. Scott Brown has also been supportive of commercial fishing, so again it does not surprise me that he has come out against Cape Wind (but not wind farms in general- much like I have said above). Senator Kerry, who has been non-committal, is married to a woman who has strong ties to PEW Charitable Trust, which is an environmental organization that has tried its hardest to take down the commercial fisheries in this nation for many years, citing (false) claims of overfishing. (In te US, overfishing is illegal, and New England stocks are at their highest since NOAA started recording). While he has been supportive of commercial fishermen in many issues, it appears sometimes his information may be incorrect/misinformed when it comes to fisheries issues. But at least he has not come out for the Cape Wind project- I hope he hears from his fishermen constituents before he makes public comment.