Click here to read an Op Ed from Chuck Kleekamp and Chris Stimpson of Clean Power Now that appears on Cape Cod Today comparing the new Blue H deepwater offshore wind power proposal with Cape Wind.

AT HEARINGS last week on the Cape Wind project, some of the witnesses spoke in a mountain twang that had no hint of Yarmouth to it. They hailed from coal-mining country in West Virginia and had come north to plead with New Englanders to find a renewable energy alternative to mountaintop-removal coal mining - a practice that is making a moonscape out of their countryside.

Note: Click here for this Boston Globe Editorial

Cape Wind President thanks supporters for their help

Thanks to everyone that has written a letter to the Minerals Management Service (MMS) or who gave up an evening to speak at the public hearings in support of Cape wind and a more sustainable future.
Note: Click here to read Jim's letter to supporters and his recent MMS Tesimony on Cape Cod Today

...This week's hearings should be the next step in a decisive green light for Cape Wind, which could supply power equal to three-quarters of the Cape's demand.
Note: Click here to read this Boston Globe Editorial

Abrand new feeling blew into town.

That's likely to be the thinking after a series of four public hearings - with the first today - on plans to create an offshore "wind farm" in the waters of Nantucket Sound off Cape Cod.

The most recent polling on the Cape Wind proposal, which would install some 130 wind turbines in the sound, shows that a great majority of residents of the Bay State have been getting solidly behind the wind farm. Most who live on Cape Cod have been getting on board, too.

Massachusetts has a real opportunity here, a chance to lead the way on clean energy. Cape Wind would provide the equivalent of three-quarters of the electrical power used by all of Cape Cod. Clean, green energy that would not contribute to global warming.  The winds that blow as a matter of course across Nantucket Sound would be put to great use - with little negative effect.

Note: Click here to read this Editorial in the Springfield Republican

...All of this means wind power will compete with conventional sources on a wholesale level and will always lower the market cost of generated electricity to the end customer. Indeed, the savings resulting from this displacement would accrue to electric customers, and are estimated by the Massachusetts Energy Facility Siting Board to be $25 million per year for New England customers.  While the price of electricity and its long term stability is important to many, perhaps the most significant consideration regarding the wind farm is the impact on our nation's energy independence and global warming.

This first offshore project will replace electricity from fossil-fueled power plants, avoiding the consumption of some 100 million gallons of oil, equivalent to 20 Bouchard barges like the one that ran aground in Buzzards Bay or five liquefied natural gas tankers like the one disabled off Chatham, all delivering fuel to generate electricity.  Likewise, it will avoid the emission of about a million tons of carbon dioxide, equivalent to taking 175,000 cars off the road each year. These are the real savings.
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Click here to read this My View by Charles Kleekamp and Chris Stimpson of Clean Power Now in the Cape Cod Times

By Mark Rodgers, Communications Director, Cape Wind

The long-awaited Minerals Management Service’s Draft Environmental Impact Statement on Cape Wind has been released. Unfortunately, project opponents have shamefully misrepresented its conclusions.

This is the fourth time that a federal or state agency has compiled a comprehensive review of Cape Wind. And like the previous three, the Minerals Management Service’s Draft Environmental Impact Statement verifies important public benefits of Cape Wind while finding negligible impacts from the array of arguments that the opposition group has thrown against this project for seven years.

Having abandoned many of its previous arguments, the opposition group has now focused its advertising and public relations campaign on the faulty claim that Cape Wind would greatly increase electricity prices. Oil prices have quadrupled and natural gas prices have doubled since Cape Wind was proposed in 2001. Where will these prices be over the next 30 years?
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Click here to read this Op Ed in the Cape Codder

Falmouth Enterprise Editorial (2/12/08): Mashpee selectmen recently sent a letter to the Minerals Management Service requesting at least a 150-day review period for the agency’s Draft Environmental Impact Statement on the proposed wind farm on Horseshoe Shoal in Nantucket Sound. The Minerals Management DEIS, a document mostly favorable to the 130-wind turbine project, currently has a 60-day review period, which began January 18. It’s not clear what Mashpee’s selectmen actually intend to do themselves during the comment period, extended or not. It is clear, however, that a long extension is exactly what the project’s major opponent wants. Save Our Sound, the parent organization to the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound, has been soliciting support for the extension and the Mashpee selectmen have obliged. Writing on behalf of the board, Chairman Theresa Cook said, “Allowing enough time for the proper review and comment on this particular DEIS is absolutely essential.” This raises the question of whether Mashpee selectmen would have believed a similar extension would have been essential had the DEIS been mostly critical of the project. We think not.

Twelve recent Letters to the Editor in regional newspapers.

...To offset the need for fossil fuels, large-scale renewable energy sources are required. Of all large-scale renewable energy technologies, wind energy is already proven and in use in dozens of countries around the world.

It is the road the lagging United States must take. Logically, China and India, themselves caught in the energy crunch, will follow.  We cannot dismiss possible future military conflict over fossil fuel resources. What we can do is concentrate on winds of energy, lest we encounter winds of war.

Note: Click here to read this Column by Solon Economou in the Cape Cod Times