Buzzards Bay Wind Farm proposal!

[sawcutmill]

http://www.capecodonline.com/cctimes/buzzardsbay23.htm

[LeoinSA]

So with this :mad: face, I presume that NIMBY strikes once again.

[trull]

I grew up in Fairhaven and spent hours fishing and sailing on Buzzards Bay. I would imagine many people down there who now spend big $$ for waterfront property would consider this a wrinkle in their scenery. On the other hand, perhaps they would prefer oil spills that have occurred over the years and have tar balls washup on the shore. The Romney administration is quoted in the Standard Times has being "intrigued with the project" and supportive of wind energy. If the project can clear the hurdles relative to environmental and navigational concerns, why not?

[rbgarr]

As long as funds are set aside to dismantle the windfarm turbines and their base structures at the end of their useful lives then it would be okay with me. Abandoned powerplants are a huge eyesore. (I don't have confidence the funds would be there)

A Former Cape Cod resident

[Brian Palmer]

If you all don't like the look of wind farms on the horizon, I can show you some lovely abandoned coal strip mines and acid mine drainage polluted streams right here in Pennsylvania, courtesy of our current source of electricity. Perhaps some of our friends in West Virginia can show you the flat topped mountains and filled valleys from their experience with mountain-top removal coal mining that feeds the northeast electricity grid. Think about that the next time you fire up that 3-phase 220 volt table saw.

End of rant.

-- Brian

[Keith Wilson]

If you don't like the look of wind farms on the horizon, consider the aesthetic possibilities of nuclear waste storage sites as well. Lesser of the weevils, I say.

[Chris Coose]

So with this :mad: face, I presume that NIMBY strikes once again.

They could put up a mess of the things in my back yard.
We'd better be putting these mills up wherever there is wind. The options are continued dictatorship by dubbya and his international thieves.

[moTthediesel]

There is a very large wind farm nearing completion here in NNY, and several more under consideration. I guess, as with all things, ugly is in the eye of the beholder, but I think it's beautiful to see them all turning slowly in the wind.
Life is a series of compromises, and there are down sides to every form of energy generation. We all expect to see the light come on when we toggle the switch, and I think wind farms are one of the better ways of seeing that this continues to happen.
I would be happy to have one in my back yard.
moT

[Sailor]

I looked into it. $30 000 is a bit steep. better than paying NS power but not cheap enough to do it myself yet. One day

[JimConlin]

There's another wind farm project proposed for Nantucket sound. It's farther along and the remaining opposition seems to be limited to those whose homes overlook the bay and the politicians they give to, like our lame-duck governor and a certain senator.

This morning on the radio i heard that some of the people who've been opposing the Nantucket sound project think that one in the next bay over might be OK.

Make that NIMBYBIMN
Not In My Back Yard, But In My Neighbor's


Ian- what was that story about the senator and offshore drilling?

[Thad Van Gilder]

There is a wind farm a few miles from IVY in (I said In...) Atlantic City, NJ. I think they look really cool!!!!

And by the way, they have been pricing a new coal powered electric plant in that area, and price wise, wind power is dramatically cheaper over the usefull life of 25 years or so, verses the coal plant.

And how much did the last Nuke plankt cost just to build? not even it's running costs... just its initial costs?

-Thad

[Thorne]

Look at it this way, mayties -- better wind farms than tidal generators, eh? As for nukes or coal, won't even go there.

I agree that the wind farms can be an eyesore, but they seem to be the best alternative energy source for many locations. Went to Holland last year and both they and the Germans are replacing the older, smaller wind generators with HUGE ones -- vanes the size of semis or bigger. And neither of these nations are prone to make mistakes when it comes to either engineering or power sources...

[Milo Christensen]

About time the Northeast started to redress their enormous imbalance of energy consumption.

Windfarms are, IMO, quite interesting to look at.

Look out CA and FL, an offshore oil drilling platform is coming to an ocean view near you.

[johngsandusky]

My concerns are that offshore windfarms will be very expensive to build and maintain. Steel concrete electric components and saltwater make a bad mix. I also wonder how they'll fare in the first big noreaster or hurricane. On top of all that, they don't produce much electricity. I don't care how they look, I don't think they're a good idea at sea. A wind farm is planned off the south shore of LI too.

[B_B]

john,
yours are valid concerns, however:
-northern Europeans have had offshore windfarms for 20+ years; one hopes the engineering issues have been sorted out.
-expense is always an issue, one of the reasons they put them offshore is the expense associated with purchasing land rights onshore. A cost mitigating factor is that the wind is not impeded by buildings, land undulations etc.
-the largest producer of wind turbines has several in the Caribbean where they've survived many hurricane seasons - my spouse worked for a co. that did wind energy in Cuba and I had the opportunity to climb up a VESTAS unit which had withstood Hurricane Andrew (IIRC) which devastated Florida in the early '90's. Also the windfarms in northern Europe are by no means immune from strong storms.
-'they don't produce much electricity' - based on what parameters? per unit, per dollar capital cost, per dollar operation + maintenance costs....
Overall Wind farms can be quite cost effective, given their inherent imitations.
-They may not be a good idea at sea, but they are a better idea at sea than they are in populated areas on land. The main reason for this is that both onshore and offshore winds are settled and uninterrupted ('clean') when the reach the turbines and they can be placed with enough density to make operations and transmission costs more reasonable on a per/kwh basis.

[crawdaddyjim50]

Offshore platforms are fine by me. The media doesn't tell you they are located 50 plus miles offshore. Over the horizon. Can't see them.

Sad truth is there is trillions of barrels of oil sitting in the shale inbetween Co. and Ut.

[LeoinSA]

Sad truth is there is trillions of barrels of oil sitting in the shale inbetween Co. and Ut.
Not quite plural, according to this entry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_shale). But even a trillion is quite a bit.:D

Apparently the problem with oil shale is the cost of recovery, not so much in dollars - though it is expensive in that measurement too - but in terms of energy returned on energy invested. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EROEI)

So while there is a HUGE resource (16,000 sq mi) of oil shale in the Green River Formation, how best to use it in a safe, environmentally resonsible manner is at best problematic.

Back to wind farms. Prior to being exiled to my current location, I lived in the shadow of this project (http://www.rnp.org/Projects/stateline.html). And like other posters, I too think that those huge slowly turning blades have a beauty and grace of their own. Does it bother me that my view of the barren hills has changed? Nope. Beats all the heck out of other means of producing power that are much more environmentally degrading, both in the short term and long term.

Bottom line for me? I understand that petroleum will be more expensive as the easily recovered deposits are used up. I am not convinced that nuclear power is viable - both in terms of immediate and centuries long dollar costs. Hydroelectric is problematic in many places - and there aren't too many places in North America where a new dam can be built. Coal is certainly abundant. But burning it seems to be, well, shall we just say, problematic for lots of reasons.

So is there a rational plan out there to wean America off of oil and do so in a responsible manner that allows us to maintain our comfortable lifestyle? Yes. It's a PDF (http://www.eurotrib.com/files/3/060518_EA_2020_v5_FINAL.pdf) if you care to read it. The primary author of this report frequently writes about energy, economics, and international geopolitics here (http://www.eurotrib.com/).

Best to all and may we all have a stable and secure energy future.

[ishmael]

I can understand not wanting a wind farm troubling my horizon. Why not place them on land? I wouldn't object to a quiet windmill churning away in my back yard.

[John Bell]

Go nukes.

[Ian McColgin]

Wind development politics are great fun. The days when wind people were brown-rice-granola-natural-fibre engineer rebels whose children were all breast fed and whose women could play the zither are about three decades gone. The movers are now all just like other energy wildcatters. The Buzzard's Bay project is promoted by Jay Cashman, major Republican player, related to Teamster leadership, and huge developer used to getting his way.

Energy development is for profit, after all. And it takes a certain bull-in-the-china-shop type to deal with the levels of risk, competition, and all that goes with the exploitive-extractive industries.

Anyway, our junior senator is firmly on the fence on the Nantucket Sound project. Maybe he thinks it would be fun to slalom the turbines in his annual Falmouth to Nantucket marathon windsurf.

Of the governor candidates, the most liberal, Duval Patrick, is for it. Everyone else opposes.

Frankly, the NIMBY idiots whose MacMansions blight my view from the sound are on poor aesthetic ground when they claim the turbines will hurt their view.

Even though the Northeast is an electric exporter at this time, with a bit more capacity than we need, the wind farms make economic sense. Even the subsidies which are way less than the petro-industry gets are worth it. To my mind the only issues are case-by-case environmental.

I favor embedding decommissioning costs but ever since the Reagan administration we've not required that of nukes so should we fairly require it of a more benign technology?

Pristine wilderness my butt. Nantucket Sound and Buzzard's Bay are miracles of nature resisting but not with complete success the depredations of humanity around the edges and industrial strength rape of the biomass in the water.

[ishmael]

So, what about putting them on land?

[rbgarr]

On the Sheepscot River here there are two eyesores of worn out power plants, one nuclear, one coal. I wish the costs to tear them down HAD been included in their original business plans, Reagan or not.

Money was spent to demolish the Thomaston Prison when it was closed so why not something like a powerplant. It's not like it can't be done.

[chucksw]

Here in Oregon we reduced the Trojan nuclear tower to rubble. The ratepayers paid for all the dismantling costs and the electric company was making money on the deal. I am in favor of wind power and nuclear if they can figure out a way to deal with the nuclear waste. But why don't they consider putting power generators out in the gulf stream and taking advantage of tidal energy? That has way more potential than windmills, and it's underwater, too.

[George Roberts]

This week The Wall Street Journal had an op-ed piece about ocean wind power in the Northeast - written by a venture capitalist. He was asked for money for ocean based wind farms in the past and recently. Venture capital requires 20% returns.

His opinion was that 10-20 years ago wind power with government incentives would have returned the 20% his firm demands. And the power was cheap enough to be bought.

Now. THe cost of steel and other materials is higher. The cost of maintaining ocean based wind machines is high and the repair season is short. The generated power is too expensive to be bought. And the rate of return is 3% if you count government incentives and negative if you do not.

While I would like wind power to prevail, I would not invest in ocean based wind power.

[ssor]

There are some successful wind farms in West Virginia. Some people hate them, some people don't care, Many people that don't like them invent reasons that wind farms shouldn't be.

[G Jacobson]

Well, it's easy to say since it's not going in my backyard, but we have to get power from somewhere.

From my perspective, ecology concerns trump aesthetic concerns. Windpower seems to be one of the few power sources with virtually no adverse environmental effects. Even out here in the hydro-powered NW, it is rapidly gaining in popularity. Sure, we don't have to worry about air pollution or strip-mining, but turning on the light switch is effectively "grinding fish" in the hydro-dam turbines.
I would gladly gaze at a windfarm if it meant saving endangered salmon.

Besides, the aesthetic appeal or revulsion of a windfarm is largely a matter of personal choice. Personally, I find modern wind turbines to have a simple elegance to their form, and great beauty in their function. It makes me wonder about the thoughts of the first Dutch peasant to see their neighbor build a windmill. Would they have believed windmills would be the a favorite subject of artists and photographers to this day?

[Ian McColgin]

I don't know if the WSJ article to which George Roberts referrs is the same as the article in the Cape Cod Times by Bill Koch. Koch states that he was solicited to invest - his compainy is in the energy business - and decided it was not a good risk.

Koch is a very colorful charactor who made his fortune larger by successfully suing his siblings. He had a celebrated break-up and property argument with a mistress and backed the America Cubed America's Cup campaign.

He is also now the President of the Alliance to Save Nantucket Sound, the collection of wealthy shoreside mansion owners opposing the windfarm.

The Alliance got off to a rocky start with some public statements that went beyond hyperbolie to out right lies. They also had some directors who did some criminal internet monkey business to harm the Cape Wind project.

Those people are now gone. The Alliance's chief environment scientist is a person I know and whose integrity I trust. And Koch, while flambouyant and completely cutthroat in business, does not stoop to unlawful acts or lies.

I think but can't recall for sure that in the CCT version, Koch disclosed his Alliance affiliation but it did not stand out. If it's also his article in WSJ, that needs to be noted. Anything he writes comes from a distinct anti-windfarm point of view.

[Ken Hutchins]

There have been several wind farms built in New England during the past 30 years, most were built with or subsidised with taxpayer money and most have failed due to mechanical problems, poor maintenance and financial problems.
Based on that history a wind farm on the water with greater problems of maintenance and installations costs is not a good idea. If they cant make it feasible on land it will never work on water. Aslo delapidated non operating wind farms are a disgusting sight.
Here is a link to wind farm information.
http://www.eere.energy.gov/windandhydro/windpoweringamerica/ne_history_windfarms_more.asp

[Norm Harris]

The last two paragraphs of the CC Times article, quoted below, suggests one alternative. Wherever possible, large built up commercial, Industrial and public complexes could install wind generators that would reduce their draw from the grid. Since these complexes already exist, the visual impact would be much less offensive than a major wind farm installation. In the same vane, these same installations could install solar collectors that would reduce the draw from the grid.

The end result would be to reduce or eliminate the growth of dependence on hydrocarbons and coal, and speed up the optimization of alterative sources. Personally, I think that the long term and permanent solution is distributed power production.

"Patriot Renewables recently installed a wind turbine generator on the campus of Massachusetts Maritime Academy in Buzzards Bay, Childs said.

"The academy's turbine is expected to generate 25 percent of the school's power needs. That represents about $200,000 each year in electricity bills, he said."

[JimConlin]

Wherever you look in the energy business, there are subsidies. I'll spare the long rant. Any subsidy to the wind power would only even the playing field.