Cape Wind walked its Final Environmental Impact Report, a mountainous slick four color promotional document filled with double-speak and corporate smoke and mirrors, straight past the People and plopped it, along with a big wad of promised cash, right onto the desk of the Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act.
APPROVED!
Did the Massachusetts Policy Act (MEPA) ever bother to read and investigate past the illustrations and one-liner hype? My guess is no. How could they? No one could read, research and comment on a 5,000 plus page document in thirty days, much less investigate all of the public comments and concerns in seven. It would take a University an entire semester to do that. But, no matter, MEPA had made up its mind way before that report hit the desk based on politics, making the gesture simply a formality.
And this isn't the first time Energy Management Inc/Cape Wind has bypassed the people. They also took their four-color slick money promising proposal for a dirty fossil fuel burning power plant past the people of Chelsea, MA, already suffering the highest hospitalized asthma and cardio-vascular disease rates in the State of MA, to the MEPA office. Approved!
Its a gold rush!
And without State and Federal regulations in place its a total 'free for all' out there with private energy developers, like Cape Wind, literally falling all over each other to claim millions of dollars in subsidies, tax breaks and public lands, before that door slams shut and the inconvenient facts are in.
What are those inconvenient facts?
Fact #1. Industrial Wind Farms will not reduce CO2 in our atmosphere, have any effect on the reduction of Global Warming nor will they reduce our dependence on foreign oil. Since wind blows intermittently, wind farms rely on fossil fuel plants as back up. Case in point, that diesel power plant proposed for the city of Chelsea, MA. Cape Wind knows the wind doesn't always blow so they are attempting to put their fossil fuel back up power plant in place which will spew sulfur, nitrogen oxide, and 37 tons of particulate matter into the atmosphere and straight into the lungs of the citizens and their children in Chelsea. For every 'clean green' wind farm there is a dirty fossil fuel or nuclear power plant backing it up.
Fact #2. Industrial Wind Farms like Cape Wind, in spite of their protest of agonizing years of Agency scrutiny and review, can not comply with State and Federal regulations. Why? The answer is simple. There aren't any. Regulations are only now being developed for off-shore wind farms and the Draft Environmental Impact Statements have not, as yet, been released.
Fact #3. Industrial Wind Farms will cause millions of bird, endangered species and bat deaths every year and this number will grow exponentially as wind farms do. Once again, the wind industry is smart. They have rushed for approval before the facts are in on the threats to wildlife based on studies and research paid for by their own industry. Of course, their findings show industrial wind farms in a favorable light. They are akin to the health studies done by the tobacco industry. But the truth follows in their wake. All over the world wind farms are killing eagles, migratory and nesting birds, endangered species and bats, just as smoking is causing cancers, emphysema and heart disease.
Fact #4. Industrial Wind Farms will have a catastrophic detrimental effect on our environment, precious open space, wildlife habitats and protected lands and seas. Industrial Wind Farms require miles of land and sea in order to be built. The developers must fell trees (which naturally suck CO2 out of the atmosphere, replacing it with life-giving oxygen), blast mountain tops, build roads, dig miles of electrical cables and destroy wildlife habitat in the process. Off shore wind projects like Cape Wind must not only clear land for its cables but they must dredge miles and miles of seabed to connect the underwater cables to their electrical platform killing and displacing all of the life that depend on it for its survival. This project, like all industrial wind farms has a huge foot print. Cape Wind will occupy 25 square miles of the Nantucket Sound. Do you know how big that is? It is the size of the Island of Manhattan, and its 130 440' tall wind turbines as large as 130 44 story tall skyscrapers, with spinning blades.
Fact #5. Industrial Wind Farms are not removed and the land and waters restored after the life of their projects or should they be abandoned by the operators. The average life of a wind farm is twenty years. To date, extensive research suggests no industrial wind farms have been removed as a result of decommissioning, they are left to simply rust and fall apart.
Fact #6. Industrial Wind Farms cause navigational and air traffic safety hazards and radar interference. Studies from the Department of Defense in the UK have shown radar interference at wind farms prompting our Department of Defense and FAA to issue its own studies.
Fact #7. Industrial Wind Farms have a detrimental effect on the health, safety, welfare, lives and livelihoods of those directly affected by them. Medical research has shown that people living near wind farms suffer debilitating illnesses directly correlated to the noise and constant flicker from wind turbine blades. Small already struggling commercial fishermen on Cape Cod are projected to lose 60% of their annual income should the Cape Wind project be built on the Horseshoe Shoals area of the Nantucket Sound.
Fact #8. Industrial Wind Farms present significant hazards to public safety. The US Coast Guard is concerned that it will be unable to perform search and rescue missions in the Nantucket Sound should Cape Wind be built. The rough waters and unpredictable weather have already cost many many people their lives. Not only is the Coast Guard concerned that it will have a diminished capacity to hoist victims into hovering helicopters but the helicopter and their pilots will now be threatened, as well, due to 130 440' tall structures with moving blades. All three airports on Cape Cod and the Islands, along with the ferries, that carry millions of passengers a year, have issued statements that Cape Wind will cause significant hazard to air and navigational safety.
Fact #9. Industrial Wind Farms when placed off shore pose oil spill threats. In order for an industrial off-shore wind farm to operate it must have an electrical service platform. These service platforms are filled with oil. Should a collision occur with an oil tanker, a fire break out in the transformer or accident due to natural forces like a hurricanes, this oil can spill into the water killing sea birds, fish and marine mammals while it spreads to the beaches, estuaries and coastal habitat.
Fact #10. Industrial Wind Farms are not our only choice for alternative energy. The Hydrogen Economy based on solar and biomass technologies is already in practice in many countries in the world and it is growing. It, unlike wind, is not intermittent and unlike wind (which must be used on the spot or it is wasted) can be stored in batteries for later use for our homes, buildings, cars and factories. It is safe, readily available, green and clean.
These are just some of the facts that the office of the Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act has chosen to ignore in its gold rush for money and political correctness.
Shame on them! They are being bought off with 10 million dollars (offered by Cape Wind to the State) in trade for the safety, say, beauty, natural resources and welfare of the People of the Massachusetts.
The Nantucket Sound might not be in your back or front yard but beware, the next Industrial Wind Farm may be on its way to a sanctuary or National Treasure near you. Will you be ready to decide what is fantasy, fact or fraud? And when you do, will your elected officials back you up or will they sell you, your community and precious natural resources out to a private developer?
For more information please see: National Wind Watch, Industrial Wind Action Group, Bat Conservation International, Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound, WindStop, Chelsea Collaborative, Save The Eagles, StopIllWind, Minnesotans for Sustainability, and Country Guardian
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Comments: 12
Dona, I'm a resident of that town on Cape Cod that hosts a power plant. Despite that, we pay some of the highest electric utility rates in the country, and for several years the power plant couldn't pay its property taxes to the town (the only reason the town fathers let it in town in the first place).
I'll admit, I'm in two minds about Cape Wind.
And the state environmental affairs office did zip to enforce the cleanup of Otis ANGB.
I have to disagree with you, because I come at this from a different perspective. I understand global warming as a terrible threat to the way of life of our great grandchildren, rather than a mild inconvencience or an imaginary process. It is easy to reject renewable energy because it comes with a price tag, but how do you propose to address the real threat of global warming without renewables?
As to deaths of birds, house cats kill more than that and nobody is proposing doing anything about the presence of house cats at millions of back yard bird feeders.
There are some hard choices facing us, and we are ducking those choices. We can no longer continue in this fashion. I have forced myself to accept the necessity of nuclear power to generate electiricty, because unlike coal it produces no CO2. I hate to ruin ocean views or doom migratory birds to collisions, but what choice do we have? We could all live without electricity, sure but that is not going to happen. Actually, with 300 million people in the USA dependent on modern technology for their survival, no we cannot live without electricty. And if we continue to depend on coal, we will lose 20% of Florida to rising sea levels from melting glaciers. That is a fact, not a fantasy.
I appreciate your perspective. But disagree with your implied conclusion that I do not support renewable energy. Please see my statement about the Hydrogen Economy.
I am not in agreement about human caused Global Warming. Global Warming and Global Cooling has been going on as a natural cycle on this Earth. That said, I do believe we are polluting out planet and that needs to stop. For over twenty-five years I have been involved in advocacy against our pesticide usage which also poisons and pollutes the Earth.
As to house cats killing birds. No argument there but I have written extensively about that subject. As have others. Cats are not wildlife and should be kept under owner's control just like dogs need to be.
Of course, this whole post is full of....................Hypocrisy.
I'm a Yank living in Scotland, where the 'Great Wind Rush' has assumed proportions that make the American counterpart seem relatively sane (for now).
To date we've had literally hundreds of applications across the UK; and in nearly every case (ie, over 99% of the time) strenuous objections have been raised. Despite this, 96% of applications are approved. So much for 'democracy'!
Some facts:
To date, not one UK fossil fuel plant has been closed, or even throttled back--despite two thousand turbines now operating. I have to wonder where the supposed 'CO2 emissions savings'--that big selling point we hear around the world, echoing as if from the throats of thousands of parrots--is being realized. Were I you, I'd ask my state officials precisely how they expect to realize such savings. Which fossil fuel plants do they plan to shut down, exactly? When? And if, as one post here states, MORE fossil fuel plants are to be built to backstop this idiotic project, then you could ask why this is the case.
We all know the absurdly inefficient nature of windfarm generation. Not just in the UK, but in Denmark and Germany, the two most 'wind-electricity' intensive nations on Earth, wind power has not resulted in any reduction in fossil-fuel plant use--none. That being so, clearly the whole thing is an abject scam--a Potemkin Village which allows politicians to feel good while siphoning taxpayers euros, pounds or dollars into the bank accounts of a few developers.
I think, too, that we all know, in the US, and in Europe, that this mania is so huge that facts make no difference. Everything we know about wind energy's uselessnes has been copiously researched; even the primary German electrical utility (EON) admits that wind is dreadfully inefficient and doesn't actually provide any net contribution. And yet the public is ignored. I've not seen such a collusion between idiot politicians and greedy, lying developers for many years, and I believe their audacity is fuelled by the belief that they can 'get away with it'. Of course, the entire global warming issue provides a convenient excuse for developers (oddly, these selfsame companies either didn't exist a year or two back, or else had never expressed the slightest concern about 'global warming'. Strange, that).
I submit that, to date, wind farm opponents have been 'too nice'. We protest, spend lots of money, get steamrollered like Wiley Coyote in the cartoon, pick ourselves up, shrug in resignation, and get on with our lives while we are forced to pay tax from our hard-earned incomes to subsidize the destruction of our own environment. Think on that, and when you are really angry--the kind of anger that settles into a cold resolve somewhere deep down--start to think about how you can hold the politicians and companies accountable henceforth.
If your laws are like those of the UK, your political cretins probably enjoy immunity from prosecution for their decisions made in an official capacity--but perhaps not Worth a quick bit of research, perhaps? Malfeasance in office, or some such?
Even if your political morons ARE immune, you could demand that any planning permisison include riders which stipulate that, if the wind farm doesn't live up to its claims, the utility/developer must pay some sort of pro rata penalty--not to the state, but to communities within X miles radius; or better yet, they must reduce their charge per kilowatt hour, pro rated for the amount of electricity produced versus the amount it was claimed would be produced, on a monthly or annual basis; that way, everyone benefits--except the developer/utility, of course.
One could examine the entire planning process and demand reviews for any possible conflicts of interest, corruption, etc--any legal means by which one can hold the decisionmakers to strict legal account.
Ditto for the developer and utility. Document every violation of environmental law, safety laws, etc.
I'm sure a little thought will provide many possible ways to turn the screws on your politicians and business interests--always in strict accordance with the law, of course. One principle of 'non-violent' resistance is that you don't give up; even if Cape Wind gets its approval, there are still plenty of legal and legitimate ways to strike back.
I suggest you pick up a copy of Gene Sharp's 'Waging Non-Violent Struggle'; it outlines a whole series of measures and strategies for fighting back against any form of oppression--and I would argue that the cavalier attitude of our various governments in face of objective fact is a species of oppression. Certainly their decisions have no democratic legitimacy, and that alone justifies strenuous resistance--always legal, and always peaceful, of course.
Good luck; please feel free to contact me if you'd like to talk.
Eric
Wind farms don't close factories, but solar will? Ideal Solar flux at 9AM is two thirds that of midday light - so no blackout/greyout periods for solar? Presently we can still use the alt eng is only 1.3% total supply argument, but in the future the 1.3% will increase dramatically making comparative supply irrelevant. Nevertheless, this is not a failure of wind, but of brilliant politics.
Biomass efficiency 7-10% (for hydrogen) - worse that monocrystalline silicon photovoltaics, that have been out for well over ten years.
We must diversify. During the day solar, wind, geothermal, & tidal. Nighttime: wind, geothermal, & tidal. Supplement with biomass when necessary. Regular powerplants don't seem necessary... Batteries/Hydrogen (Ultracaps - hopefully) for Energy Storage.
Check out global dimming.
Ryan