[editor's note, by Jerome a Paris] Okay people, I ponied up and dropped the title. Now please recommend so that we can have a meaningful debate on this topic.
This may sound like a pretty harsh title [Robert F. Kennedy Jr is a lying, deceitful, pathetic NIMBY SELL OUT] about someone who is known as a great defender of the environment and environmental causes, but, believe me, it is fully justified in view of his nasty, slimy, unsubstantiated Op-Ed yesterday in the New York Times (An Ill Wind Off Cape Cod).
I commented it briefly yesterday in my diary, but as I read it again, I got more and more annoyed, and felt that this hitjob deserved a more thorough refutation.
So here it is.
Update [2005-12-17 9:7:7 by Jerome a Paris]: I now see via the comments that an obviously well read diary on this topic came out yesterday: The Real Reason RFK JR. Opposes the Nantucket Wind Farm by angry young man. I apologise for the repeat diary, but I will leave this diary as I think this topic deserves all the exposure it can get.
AS an environmentalist, I support wind power, including wind power on the high seas. I am also involved in siting wind farms in appropriate landscapes, of which there are many. But I do believe that some places should be off limits to any sort of industrial development. I wouldn't build a wind farm in Yosemite National Park. Nor would I build one on Nantucket Sound, which is exactly what the company Energy Management is trying to do with its Cape Wind project.
Nothing reprehensible in that paragraph, but I could not help being reminded of people saying "I am not racist, but..." and going on to explain why coloured people or Jews are doing nevertheless behaving "inappropriately" or worse...
Unfair, maybe, but it is exactly what's coming.
Environmental groups have been enticed by Cape Wind, but they should be wary of lending support to energy companies that are trying to privatize the commons - in this case 24 square miles of a heavily used waterway.
Technically, they will be "privatising" about 500 square meters altogether - i.e. the bits of sea actually occupied by the turbines. It will be possible to navigate around and near them, just like onshore, it is possible to keep on using the land "occupied" by a wind farm" for agricultural or other ground-based activities.
This what an offshore windfarm looks like (this one, the Horns Rev farm, offshore Denmark, consisting in 80 turbines of 2MW each):
And because offshore wind costs twice as much as gas-fired electricity and significantly more than onshore wind, the project is financially feasible only because the federal and state governments have promised $241 million in subsidies.
Well, offshore wind would cost twice as much as gas-fired electricity if gas prices fell back to what they were 10 years ago when all the gas-fired plants were planned before thye were built. Sadly, as I have extensively chronicled in my diaries here, natural gas prices have gone up somewhat since then, making gas-fired power pretty damn expensive, and effectively killing it off for now. But of course, most electricity in the USA (half) is generated by coal-fired plants, and it would somewhat kill any argument to compare a wind project (the main real complaint about it is that it is ugly) to polluting coal.
As to the $241 million of subsidies, as far as I can tell, that's what any wind project of that size (420 MW, producing something like 1,200 GWh/y of electricity) would get under the existing federal tax support scheme (the PTC), which offers a tax relief of 1.8c/kWh over 10 years. Is Robert Kennedy arguing that wind power should not be supported at all?
He of course does not mention the pollution cost of the power plants that would be no longer needed, nor the subsidies that the hydrocarbon sector gets, and which helps artificially lower the price of hydrocarbon-fuelled power.
Cape Wind's proposal involves construction of 130 giant turbines whose windmill arms will reach 417 feet above the water and be visible for up to 26 miles. These turbines are less than six miles from shore and would be seen from Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket.
This is what the Horns Rev wind farm, a comparable wind farm in terms of size and number of turbines, actually looks like from the shore, 17km (10.5 miles) away:
And this is from the shipping channel, about 5 miles away:
(More views and maps can be found here)
Hundreds of flashing lights to warn airplanes away from the turbines will steal the stars and nighttime views. The noise of the turbines will be audible onshore. A transformer substation rising 100 feet above the sound would house giant helicopter pads and 40,000 gallons of potentially hazardous oil.
Flashing lights stealing the stars and views? These lights will be no more visible than the thousands of seaboard lights from houses, cars, public lighting, etc..., or the various lights on ships at sea. As to the idea that the windturbines will be heard onshore, this is so laughable that outrage is not even warranted. Modern wind turbines are barely audible when you are standing at their foot (and that's from personal experience). With the sea noise as background, I doubt they will be audible even on site, so hearing them 10 miles away is just not a serious claim - it's a blatant LIE.
As to the oil, I am not sure what this refers to, but I suppose the same claim can be made about any diesel-powered ship navigating in the waters. So let's forbid all motor navigation on the water!
According to the Massachusetts Historical Commission, the project will damage the views from 16 historic sites and lighthouses on the cape and nearby islands. The Humane Society estimates the whirling turbines could every year kill thousands of migrating songbirds and sea ducks.
See the pictures above for the views from similar distances. The claim is not serious. As to the birds, that canard comes up every time we discuss wind power, so now I have all the links handy to dismiss what, again, is a spurious and malicious claim.
Wind power: birds, landscapes and availability (I)
See also these discussions in other diaries:
http://www.dailykos.com/...
http://www.dailykos.com/...
http://www.dailykos.com/...
http://www.dailykos.com/...
See also what bird protection groups have to say:
American Bird Conservancy
Audubon Society
And Robert Kennedy should probably try to ban cat, windows, buildings and fuel oil transport in the area if he wants to do anything about bird mortality:
Migratory birds and other wildlife are suffering the effects of an oil spill that polluted the waters of Massachusetts' Buzzards Bay. A barge carrying more than 4 million gallons of fuel oil hit an unknown obstruction, causing 98,000 gallons to leak.
The April 27 [2003] incident resulted in a 13 mile long oil slick, setting into motion a rescue operation to save impacted wildlife in the surrounding area. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service decontamination specialists and biologists are at the heart of the effort.
Each year Cape Wind will generate as much electricity as it would take an oil burning power plant burning 113 million gallons of oil to produce. But who cares about the transport of that oil in the same waters?
Nantucket Sound is among the most densely traveled boating corridors in the Atlantic. The turbines will be perilously close to the main navigation channels for cargo ships, ferries and fishing boats. The risk of collisions with the towers would increase during the fogs and storms for which the area is famous. That is why the Steamship Authority and Hy-Line Cruises, which transport millions of passengers to and from the cape and islands every year, oppose the project. Thousands of small businesses, including marina owners, hotels, motels, whale watching tours and charter fishing operations will also be hurt. The Beacon Hill Institute at Suffolk University in Boston estimates a loss of up to 2,533 jobs because of the loss of tourism - and over a billion dollars to the local economy.
Again, spurious and silly arguments. "Perilously close" is 1 mile away, and with all these blinking lights that outshine the stars, visibility should not be an issue, right? And believe it or not, wind turbines appear on radars...
As to the loss over tourism, I'd be curious to see a serious justification of this. In all places where onshore windfarms are located, they have been a boost to local tourism, as people are - rightfully so - attracted to the spectacular vision of the slow moving turbines. I don't see how that would be different at see, quite the opposite. I have no doubts that there will be special tours just to go sightsee the wind farm as soon as it is built (and probably even during its construction).
And of course, the Beacon Hill Institute has the name of a right wing think tank, and it indeed is a self-acknowledged one:
Grounded in the principles of limited government, fiscal responsibility and free markets, the Beacon Hill Institute engages in rigorous economic research and conducts educational programs for the purpose of producing and disseminating readable analyses of current public policy issues to voters, taxpayers, opinion leaders and policy makers.
Strange bedfellows...
Nantucket Sound is a critical fishing ground for the commercial fishing families of Martha's Vineyard and Cape Cod. Hundreds of fishermen work Horseshoe Shoal, where the Cape Wind project would be built, and make half their annual income from the catch. The risks that their gear will become fouled in the spider web of cables between the 130 towers will largely preclude fishing in the area, destroying family-owned businesses that enrich the palate, economy and culture of Cape Cod.
Does Robert Kennedy seriously think that the "spider web of cables" of the project will be left unprotected on the seabed? The project company is not going to go repair these cables every other day. They will be buried, obviously. Just another blatant lie. And again, the turbines occupy a few square meters of the sea, and I seriously doubt that they will prevent fishermen from fishing around them.
Many environmental groups support the Cape Wind project, and that's unfortunate because making enemies of fishermen and marina owners is bad environmental strategy in the long run. Cape Cod's traditional-gear commercial fishing families and its recreational anglers and marina owners have all been important allies for environmentalists in our battles for clean water.
Right. Let's not fight people that are against environmentally sound projects, because that would be bad for the environment. "WTF?" is all I can say.
There are those who argue that unlike our great Western national parks, Cape Cod is far from pristine, and that Cape Wind's turbines won't be a significant blot. I invite these critics to see the pods of humpback, minke, pilot, finback and right whales off Nantucket, to marvel at the thousands of harbor and gray seals lolling on the bars off Monomoy and Horseshoe Shoal, to chase the dark clouds of terns and shorebirds descending over the thick menhaden schools exploding over acre-sized feeding frenzies of striped bass, bluefish and bonita.
I urge them to come diving on some of the hundreds of historic wrecks in this "graveyard of the Atlantic," and to visit the endless dune-covered beaches of Cape Cod, our fishing villages immersed in history and beauty, or to spend an afternoon netting blue crabs or mucking clams, quahogs and scallops by the bushel on tidal mud flats - some of the reasons my uncle, John F. Kennedy, authorized the creation of the Cape Cod National Seashore in 1961, and why Nantucket Sound is under consideration as a national marine sanctuary, a designation that would prohibit commercial electrical generation.
All of us need periodically to experience wilderness to renew our spirits and reconnect ourselves to the common history of our nation, humanity and to God. The worst trap that environmentalists can fall into is the conviction that the only wilderness worth preserving is in the Rocky Mountains or Alaska. To the contrary, our most important wildernesses are those that are closest to our densest population centers, like Nantucket Sound.
And I thought it was "among the most densely traveled boating corridors in the Atlantic", with major "navigation channels for cargo ships, ferries and fishing boats" nearby? Consistency in arguments? Nah. Why bother?
There are many alternatives that would achieve the same benefits as Cape Wind without destroying this national treasure. Deep water technology is rapidly evolving, promising huge bounties of wind energy with fewer environmental and economic consequences.
NIMBY, NIMBY, NIMBY.
Scotland is preparing to build wind turbines in the Moray Firth more than 12 miles offshore. Germany is considering placing turbines as far as 27 miles off its northern shores.
As it were, windfarms can be located further offshore in the Baltic and North Sea because these are shallow water areas, and even that far off, depths are less than 20 meters, currently the maximum practicable depth to build the turbines. But even at such distances, the economics become tricky, as distance increases significantly the cost of the elctrical cable and the transport losses.
If Cape Wind were to place its project further offshore, it could build not just 130, but thousands of windmills - where they can make a real difference in the battle against global warming without endangering the birds or impoverishing the experience of millions of tourists and residents and fishing families who rely on the sound's unspoiled bounties.
NIMBY, NIMBY, NIMBY.
And it's not like the Kennedy family is using its good name just to spew that bullshit in the Op-Ed pages of the NYT, they are also trying to get a bill through Congress that would specifically block this project:
A plan to build what could become the first large offshore wind farm in the United States would be effectively killed by a proposed amendment to a Coast Guard budget bill now making its way through Congress, people on both sides of the issue say.
The amendment, offered by Representative Don Young, Republican of Alaska, would prohibit new offshore wind facilities within 1.5 nautical miles of a shipping lane or a ferry route. That would rule out construction of the installation, proposed for Nantucket Sound. The budget bill awaits action in a House-Senate conference committee.
(...)
Greenpeace, the American Lung Association and other organizations endorse the plan as an important step in reducing pollution and global warming.
(...)
Christine Real de Azua of the American Wind Energy Association, a trade group, said Mr. Young's amendment was not the way to address those objections.
"It's 'behind the closed doors' kind of government which is really not in the public interest," she said.
If Mr. Young "were really worried about safety issues," she said, "he would be worried about oil rigs which are allowed within 500 feet of a shipping channel."
Ms. Real de Azua and Mark Rodgers, a spokesman for Cape Wind, said that in Denmark, the country with the most experience with offshore wind farms, there were installations only about a quarter-mile from major shipping channels into Copenhagen Harbor and about a mile from a major channel in the Baltic Sea. Those shipping lanes handle far more traffic than Nantucket Sound, they said.
The Kennedys should be ashamed of themselves.
Note: the project company (Cape Wind) have their own, much more detailed, rebuttal on their website. I have only used their website to find technical data on the project and not to get any arguments.