Born free, as free as the wind blows
Posted April 29, 2010 at 6:49 am 
Filed in: 43 years after Andy Williams recorded the song whose first line is excerpted above — and 10 years after the NIMBY battle over the Cape Cod wind farm began, the Administration yesterday approved America’s first off-shore wind farm. See the Juliet Eilperin’s WaPo coverage, “Offshore wind farm near Cape Cod, first in U.S., gets federal approval here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/28/AR2010042804398.html?hpid=moreheadlines.
As Eilperin notes, the approval “could pave the way for significant offshore wind development elsewhere in the nation.” Wind energy is a source whose fuel is essentially free — as free as the wind blows, as it were. Capital and maintenance costs do of course exist — and as Homer and the rest of the Simpsons learned on Sunday night, it only produces electricity when the wind is blowing.
Integration with the grid is therefore an important next step in fulfilling the promise of wind, but the promise is big. The previous Administration found that wind had the potential to deliver 20% of the nation’s electricity (roughly today’s contribution from nuclear) by 2030, assuming that transmission and other barriers were overcome. Read that report here: http://www1.eere.energy.gov/windandhydro/pdfs/41869.pdf
Eilperin reports that in ”approving the Cape Wind project, a group of 130 modern windmills in Nantucket Sound that would start generating electricity by the end of 2012, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said he would “strike the right balance” between energy development and protecting the area. Some opponents of the project said it would endanger the habitat for seabirds; others decried the visual impact of the turbines, as close as five miles from shore.”
Well, as we have been harshly reminded in the last few weeks, we have no impact-free energy sources. Many don’t have sympathy for East Coast rich people seeking to keep their ocean views pristine while Appalachian miners lose their lives. As Eilperin quotes the president of Cape Wind, Jim Gordon:
“Every energy project has some impact. This was never about a choice between Cape Wind or nothing.”
Of course, some rabid enviromentalists do think nothing is an option. They believe that we can conserve our way to the future — or maybe we should just go without a little energy once in a while. My advice to them: move to Venezuela and see what that’s like. As the WaPo also reports today, even though Hugo Chávez “still hails what he calls his “21st-century socialism” as the answer to the American-style capitalism he calls an abject failure” and even though oil prices have been averaging record levels, Venezuela can’t keep its lights on.
“Every day for the past three months, government-programmed blackouts have meant the lights flicker and go dark in a city that once bustled with commerce.” Bet they wouldn’t be too worried about the “visual impact” of wind turbines five miles away!
Let’s end on a positive note, though, and remember that yesterday’s action by the Obama Administration, assuming it holds up in court, now opens the door to “at least 11 other U.S. offshore wind projects in development, off Delaware, Massachusetts, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Rhode Island and Texas.” How to keep the lights on here with minimal impacts on humans? To quote a little hipper songster, at least part of “the answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind.”
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