Free Republic

Green Energy: Bypassing abundant supplies of environmentally friendly and reliable natural gas, the Bay State forces its utilities to buy energy from offshore wind farms. The tilting at windmills continues. It is instead found in the vast resources locked up in the Outer Continental Shelf, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas off Alaska and in the vast shale formations that bless the U.S. with an abundance of oil and natural gas. A nationwide boom in natural gas production is set to fuel nearly 900,000 jobs and add roughly $1,000 to annual household budgets by 2015, according...

Nstar ratepayers could see their electricity bills balloon by as much as $382 million over 15 years under a merger deal with the state that forces the utility to buy energy from Cape Wind — a power premium that dwarfs a one-time $21 million customer credit touted yesterday by the Patrick administration. “The merger has some good things in the early years, but once the Cape Wind contract kicks in, it will erase any savings that ratepayers will have gotten,” said Robert Rio of Associated Industries of Massachusetts, a group that represents some 7,000 employers. Gov. Deval Patrick wrangled a...

Gov. Deval Patrick yesterday announced that NStar [NST] — as part of its bid to merge with Connecticut-based Northeast Utilities — has agreed to buy 27.5 percent of the electricity that will be generated by the yet-to-be-built Cape Wind project. And by “agreed” we really mean “succumbed to unprecedented pressure from Patrick’s team, designed to ensure that the offshore wind project may some day, with enough government coaxing, actually break ground.”

New England’s power grid manager says it’s unlikely the long-planned Cape Wind offshore wind project will be producing electricity by mid-2015, raising the prospect of more delays in a project beset by them. Grid operator ISO New England made the determination about Cape Wind in a Jan. 3 report, explaining why it rejected Cape Wind’s bid to participate in a power market it oversees. The wind project was proposed in 2001 and has faced obstacles that have repeatedly forced its timeline to be extended. And last May, its efforts to win a federal loan guarantee were stalled partly because of...

BOSTON (AP) -- A federal appeals court on Friday overturned the Federal Aviation Administration's ruling that Cape Wind's turbines present no danger for local air traffic. The decision could further delay construction of the wind farm first proposed a decade ago. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia said the FAA misread its own rules when assessing Cape Wind, which aims to be the nation's first offshore wind farm. The court said the FAA did not adequately determine whether Cape Wind's 130 turbines - each 440-feet tall - would pose a danger to pilots relying on sight...

STAMFORD, Conn. (AP) - Giant windmills are popping up on farms, scenic mountain ridges, prairie grass and now an Indian reservation, dramatically changing the nation's landscape and spinning a debate about where they belong. Wind power grew rapidly in 2005, becoming more competitive as natural gas prices jumped and crude oil prices reached record highs. Improved technology, a federal tax credit and pressure on utilities to use clean energy sources helped fuel the growth from coast to coast. Officials in Atlantic City, N.J., in December dedicated the nation's first coastal wind farm. And last week, General Electric Co. announced a...

<p>Developers and government agencies are proposing 11 wind power projects across New England, from the mountains of Maine to the Boston Harbor islands, including some that would be among the biggest wind farms in the world.</p> <p>Most of the public attention - and controversy - has focused on two enormous wind farms that would be built in Nantucket Sound and several miles south of the island, raising concerns about the impact on coastal views. But energy officials say there are at least nine other new or expanded wind farms being planned, including two in Berkshire County, and researchers are studying the possibility of wind turbines on one or more of the Boston Harbor islands.</p>

Is John Kerry willing to increase the odds that U.S. troops will have to fight another Middle Eastern war just to preserve the pristine view from the millionaires' mansions along Nantucket Sound? If you were to apply Kerry's alarmist campaign rhetoric about energy policy to his own actions in regard to energy production, the conclusion would be: Yes, he is. But Kerry's not a warmonger; he's just a windbag. And never was this more apparent than when his environmentally correct energy policy ran aground on Horseshoe Shoal -- where a company specializing in clean energy production would like to build...

Mike Gallagher takes on RFK JR on FoxWTF is wrong with this guy? What a drama queen!

NEW BEDFORD — Environmentalist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. attacked the Bush administration, corporate polluters, the media and a misinformed public Thursday night in an impassioned speech about the erosion of U.S. democracy and the global environment. "Democracy and the environment are intertwined," said Mr. Kennedy, who spoke in front of a crowd that half-filled the Zeiterion Performing Arts Center. "You can't separate one from the other." Mr. Kennedy, who serves as a chief prosecuting attorney for the Hudson Riverkeeper and president of Waterkeeper Alliance, also teaches law at Pace University in New York, writes books and co-hosts a weekly show...

By R.F. Kennedy, Jr. 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. Environmental groups have been enticed by Cape Wind, but they should be wary of...

General Electric, the U.S.-based industrial giant and leading manufacturer of wind-power turbines, is scaling back efforts to expand its presence in the offshore wind power market. The rationale: there is no meaningful offshore wind market to speak of – at least not yet. Given slower-than-expected industry growth, the offshore market may not mature as rapidly as many wind boosters once believed.

The president of an Arizona Navajo chapter hopes a picture will be worth a lot of hot air. The not-so-flattering painting of Joseph P. Kennedy II is on display at a Cortez, Colo., art gallery after a dispute over wind turbines on Navajo land. The 15-by-28-inch portrait depicts an angry Kennedy with wild eyes, a large gut and a finger jabbing the air. “It’s a parody,” said Edward Singer, the artist and president of the Navajos’ 1,500-member Cameron Chapter who met with Kennedy a year ago. “He was shaking, perspiring profusely, yelling, arguing and berating the Navajo community and I...

Reprinted from NewsMax.com Wednesday, May 31, 2006 4:12 p.m. EDTTed Kennedy: Build 'Wind Farm' Elsewhere Sen. Ted Kennedy has strongly opposed an environmentally friendly "wind farm” off the coast from the Kennedy compound in Hyannis. Now he supports building another wind farm – in somebody else’s "backyard.” A Boston contractor has submitted plans to construct a $750 million offshore complex of 90 to 120 wind turbine towers near Naushon Island and the towns of Dartmouth and Fairhaven to supply electricity to about 240,000 homes. While the Cape Wind project Kennedy opposed would have been "in view of some of the...

Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., has a new ally in his effort to torpedo an environmentally friendly "wind farm” off the coast from the Kennedy compound in Hyannis – the Pentagon. The Defense Department has begun a study to find out if wind turbine projects designed to produce energy could interfere with military radar – even though wind farms are already operating in military radar areas. The study is threatening not only the Cape Wind project off the coast of Massachusetts, but other wind farm projects around the country as well. The study was inserted in the 2006 Defense Authorization Act...

July 25— It's windy enough on Massachusetts' Nantucket Sound — the waters between Cape Cod, Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard — that it makes the Sound an ideal idea place for windmills that generate electricity. Wind farms are popular in Europe and California, and environmentalists like them because they're a relatively clean way to produce electricity. It's a reason Jim Gordon proposes to install 130 wind turbines 6 ½ miles off the coast of Cape Cod. But there's a problem. Although the Natural Resources Defense Council, and its attorney, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., support wind power (Kennedy says he's "strongly in...

Not Off My Back Porch Nation's First Offshore Wind Power Project Threatens to Block Kennedy's View and the Senator Isn't Happy By DAVID SCHOETZ March 30, 2007 — - A major battle in the politics of alternative energy has moved to a final phase in Washington, and a senator named Kennedy with a waterfront view and a bone to pick awaits. Friday was a good day for Jim Gordon, the man hungry to build America's first offshore wind farm off the Cape Cod coast. The state environmental office -- one of a battery of local, state and federal agencies reviewing...

(CNSNews.com) - One of the nation's most beautiful seaside resorts is the site of a battle over a wind power project that has drawn opposition from famous liberals like Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy and former CBS news anchorman Walter Cronkite. They oppose the project even though it espouses one of their favorite goals - renewable energy alternatives. Although the New England energy company Cape Wind Associates has won an important victory in federal court on the controversy, a group devoted to preserving the Nantucket Island landscape near Cape Cod, Mass., has a pending lawsuit challenging the Army Corps of Engineers'...

The $700 million project in Logan County will be the third-largest in the nation, producing 400 megawatts with 267 turbines. Developers broke ground Wednesday on a $700 million wind farm in northeast Colorado that will be the nation's third-largest wind generator. FPL Energy and Invenergy Wind will develop the 400-megawatt project, which will yield enough power to supply about 120,000 homes. Xcel Energy will buy the facility's entire electric output. Combined with purchases from three other wind farms, the Peetz Table project will allow Xcel to meet the requirements of Colorado's renewable-energy standard seven years early.

It turns out the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., was right in opposing a wind-energy project in Nantucket Sound, but for all the wrong reasons. There's a lot of that going around — so much, in fact, that it increasingly appears there is no wrong reason for opposing wind-energy projects. Sen. Kennedy, a lifelong Hyannisport, Mass., resident, professed to be a supporter of so-called green energy. But when a 130-turbine wind-power proposal turned up in his watery playground off the Kennedy family's Cape Cod compound, he balked. With Sen. Kennedy safely in his grave and the remaining Kennedys apparently...

Wind-farm backers call on Kennedy, Romney Conservation group wants state leaders to rethink their opposition to project in light of favorable report. By DAVID KIBBEOttaway News ServiceBOSTON - The Conservation Law Foundation has called on Gov. Mitt Romney and Sen. Edward Kennedy to reconsider their opposition to the Cape Wind project in light of favorable findings in a draft environmental impact statement released yesterday. Romney and Kennedy have spoken out against the proposal to put 130 wind turbines in Nantucket Sound. But Conservation Law Foundation president Philip Warburg said wind energy would help Romney's plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions...

FloDesign Wind Turbine, a maker of wind turbines that resemble jet engines, pulled in a $34.5 million second round of funding. The venture capital infusion was led by return backer Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield and Byers and had participation from new investors Technology Partners, VantagePoint Venture Partners, and a Goldman Sachs managed investment fund. FloDesign also announced on Wednesday that it named Lars Andersen its new chief executive. Mr. Andersen takes the position from Stanley Kowalski, who will continue as vice president. Mr. Andersen was previously president of the China operations of Vestas, the world’s largest manufacturer of wind turbines. Mr....

BOSTON A leading opponent of the controversial Cape Wind development proposed for Nantucket Sound has come out against a pending move to kill the project in Congress. And there’s a twist. The call for withdrawal of the so-called Young amendment, which would ban wind turbines within 1.5 nautical miles of ferry and shipping lanes, comes from the nephew of one of Cape Wind’s key political adversaries, Sen. Ted Kennedy. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an environmental lawyer and staunch public critic of the 130-turbine Cape Wind project, has written a letter to members of a congressional conference committee denouncing the move...

The Federal Aviation Administration is saying “not yet” on the proposed wind farm project for Nantucket Sound, issuing a “Notice of Presumed Hazard” Feb 13. “Initial findings of this study indicate that the structure as described exceeds obstruction standards and/or would have an adverse physical or electromagnetic interference effect upon navigable airspace or air navigation facilities,” the FAA notice issued Feb. 13 reads. “Pending resolution of the issues described below, the structure is presumed to be a hazard to air navigation.” As a “presumed” hazard, Cape Wind will have the opportunity to show the project does not exceed FAA thresholds....

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar is headed to Boston Wednesday to make an announcement about a controversial wind farm project on Cape Cod that could put the Obama administration at odds with one of the president's biggest supporters: the Kennedy family.

The senior senator from Massachussetts, Edward Kennedy now finds himself in something of a political dilemma. At stake is a proposal to build a massive wind turbine farm - right in the middle of historic Nantucket Sound near Cape Cod, the so-called `Cape Wind' project. As usual, such a project will bring ruination to the landscape and the seascape but this is the logical outcome arising from the pro-Kyoto policies that Kennedy himself has promoted. So first, Kennedy the environmentalist speaks - "I strongly support renewable energy, including wind energy as a means of reducing our dependence on foreign oil...

The battle over the venture -- dozens of public hearings and nine years long -- has split members of American Indian tribes and pitted some of the nation's wealthiest people against each other. Liberals have squared off against fellow liberals. The most notable opponent was the late Sen. Ted Kennedy, whose family compound would have a view of the wind farm. The late Walter Cronkite also raised objec

The United States faces a clear choice of pushing forward quickly to refine solar, wind and other renewable energy sources or continue to ignore the less obvious costs of reliance on oil, coal, and nuclear energy, Robert Kennedy Jr. told a group of environmentalists Sunday afternoon. In discussing other costs that are often ignored, Kennedy cited the process of transporting coal from West Virginia. The government spends millions of dollars per mile to fill thousands of miles of road in the state with 22 inches of asphalt, Kennedy said. "Coal claims to be cheap but is probably the most catastrophically...

Amid the maelstrom of controversy over the nation’s first offshore wind farm, one truth is as plain as the proposed 440-foot turbines in Nantucket Sound are tall: Its energy will be very expensive. That’s not just compared with power from coal and natural gas, but with renewable power from other sources. Once the 130 turbines begin rotating, the energy produced will cost up to 50 percent more than energy today from some land-based wind farms and twice as much as some hydroelectric dams. The cost will increase customers’ monthly electric bills about 2 percent, and for many that is too...

Boston Globe / July 31, 2010 >> Attorney General Martha Coakley’s office, signed an agreement in May to purchase 50 percent of Cape Wind’s 130-turbine's power, at prices more than double the current cost of electricity from fossil fuels...Snip & fast forward… Coakley -- whose office recently negotiated a 10 percent reduction in how much Cape Wind and National Grid can charge customers for wind-generated electricity -- submitted official justification of her rate settlement. The report includes "redacted" words, numbers, sentences, paragraphs and charts. It even blanked out a question asked of an energy expert hired by Coakley's office --...

I (we) ask that you consider what has happened in the last 53 days. The most recent government estimate suggests that the Gulf oil disaster is spewing the equivalent of one Exxon Valdez every 5 to 12 days with no definite end in sight. You do the math. Our country is facing an environmental disaster of unknown proportions and characteristics. And no, a wind farm couldn’t have prevented that. But at least it will take a tiny step or two in the right direction.

As New Englanders await a decision in Massachusetts on a bitterly contested proposal to build the nation’s first offshore wind farm, the State of Rhode Island is forging ahead with its own project in the hope of outpacing — and upstaging — its neighbor. Crucial to its strategy is dispelling worries that economics will trump the environment, or the broader public good. Instead of having a private developer dominate the research on potential sites, as Massachusetts has, Rhode Island embarked on a three-year scientific study, to be completed in August, of all waters within 30 miles of its coast. It...

Energy: The government says wind power could supply the eastern half of the U.S. with a fifth of its electricity by 2024. Just don't try building wind farms where someone might see them. A claim is contained in a new study released by the Energy Department's National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and technically it might be true. But we've heard these overblown predictions before, and experience around the world with heavily subsidized alternative energy has not worked out well. The area in question, called the Eastern Interconnection, is a grid extending roughly from the western borders of the Plains states through...

Great IBD Editorial Regarding My "Cap and Tax" Article Yesterday at 7:20pm The political death of Sarah Palin has been greatly exaggerated. In a devastating op-ed in the Washington Post, Alaska's governor exposes the cap-and-tax fraud that has nothing to do with earth's temperature and everything to do with government control of the economy. She also exposes the stealth socialism ambitions of the Democratic left and once again points out the availability of abundant "shovel-ready" resources under America's soil, off America's shores and even in America's rocks. Judging from the reaction from Sen. Kerry and the political arm of George...

Palin Vs. Kerry (And MoveOn.org) By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Wednesday, July 15, 2009 4:20 PM The political death of Sarah Palin has been greatly exaggerated. In a devastating op-ed in the Washington Post, Alaska's governor exposes the cap-and-tax fraud that has nothing to do with earth's temperature and everything to do with government control of the economy. She also exposes the stealth socialism ambitions of the Democratic left and once again points out the availability of abundant "shovel-ready" resources under America's soil, off America's shores and even in America's rocks. Judging from the reaction from Sen. Kerry and...

Politics: John Kerry, replying to an op-ed Sarah Palin wrote on cap-and-trade, suggests the Alaska governor "check the view from her front porch." What she sees from there, senator, is energy wealth going to waste.The political death of Sarah Palin has been greatly exaggerated. In a devastating op-ed in the Washington Post, Alaska's governor exposes the cap-and-tax fraud that has nothing to do with earth's temperature and everything to do with government control of the economy. She also exposes the stealth socialism ambitions of the Democratic left and once again points out the availability of abundant "shovel-ready" resources under America's...

BOSTON — The Federal Aviation Administration says the 130 turbines planned for the Cape Wind project could interfere with air traffic control radar systems. The FAA said in a report Friday that the rotating blades on the 440-foot tall turbines could cause unwanted "clutter" in the systems. But the agency also said an upgrade to the radar facility at Otis Air Force Base could fix the hazard.

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama's enthusiasm for alternative energy is being buffeted by two political forces on opposite sides of plans to build the nation's first offshore wind farm off Cape Cod.

Yr humble correspondent recently provided a run-down on the Cape Wind Project, a private initiative to construct a 130-tower windfarm in Nantucket Sound. As it happens, offshore Massachusetts has the combined advantages of being ideally suited to wind power, while being relatively close to population centers. It has the distinct disadvantage of also being relatively close to Nantucket Island, Martha’s Vineyard, and a small but politically-influential compound at Hyannis Port. He-he-he. One of the last official acts of George W. Bush as President was to give the project the go-ahead; the final Environmental Impact Statement was published last week; it...

For all the hype about the Bush Administration's oil-and-gas energy bias, one of its last official acts was to give the go-ahead to what could be America's first offshore wind farm -- thus enraging more than a few self-deputized environmentalists. Such are the ironies of the wilderness of mirrors known as the Cape Wind project. For the last seven years and counting, the green entrepreneur Jim Gordon has been trying to build a fleet of wind turbines in federal waters near the upscale seascapes of Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket. The site seemed ideal, given the stiff ocean breezes...

Wind farms are springing up in Midwestern fields, along Appalachian ridgelines, and even in Texas backyards. They're everywhere, it seems, except in the windy coastal waters that lap at some of America's largest, most power-hungry cities. That's partly because the first large-scale effort to harness sea breezes in the U.S. hit resistance from an army led by the rich and famous, waging a not-on-my-beach campaign. For almost eight years the critics have stalled the project, called Cape Wind, which aims to place 130 turbines in Nantucket Sound about five miles south of Cape Cod. Yet surprisingly, Cape Wind has largely...

Once upon a time, Ted Kennedy could count on his daily dose of veneration. The right wing hated the Massachusetts Democrat, but progressives honored him as a defender of old-school liberalism. In a remarkable turnaround, liberals are now heaping scorn on the 73-year-old senator. Young audiences boo at his name, and the leftish "Daily Show" on Comedy Central makes fun of him. The source of unhappiness is Kennedy's efforts to kill an offshore wind farm on Nantucket Sound. Cape Wind was to be the first such project in the United States and a source of pride to environmentally minded New...

Really funny stuff. http://youtube.com/watch?v=LEaOkhWOZ1A

There’s a foul wind blowing off Cape Cod. The clean-energy project known as Cape Wind makes more sense than ever, what with the mess in the Middle East and the earth getting warmer by the minute. But resistance to the proposed wind-farm — which would place 130 windmills in Nantucket Sound and provide up to 75 percent of the Cape’s energy at any given time — proves that it really isn’t easy being green. Since Cape Wind was first proposed in 2001, the project has made plenty of powerful enemies (see the sidebar “Enemies in High Places”), including Ted Kennedy,...

Massachusetts’ highest court has upheld a decision facilitating construction of an environmentally friendly "wind farm” that Sen. Ted Kennedy had opposed. The decision on Monday allows construction of 18-mile-long transmission lines to bring electricity from the Cape Wind project – a collection of energy-producing wind turbines – to shore. The Supreme Judicial Court affirmed a May 2005 decision by the state Energy Facilities Siting Board that was challenged by a group opposing the Cape Wind project, Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound. If it receives needed federal approval, Cape Wind would become the nation's first offshore wind farm. The developer seeks...

Ted Kennedy has reportedly dropped his long-running blocking of the turbine wind farm that was proposed for Nantucket Sound in 1997. The turbines were estimated to be able to supply Cape Cod with most of their electricity needs. He is reported to have said that he will allow the Coast Guard to decide whether it should be built. The Coast Guard decides such things? Call me cynical, but it seems more likely that he has secured assurances rom others that they will block the wind farm for him.

WASHINGTON -- Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska yesterday denied cutting a special deal with Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts to block a proposed wind farm off Cape Cod. Stevens cast his opposition to the Cape Wind proposal as an issue of states' rights. In a speech on the Senate floor, Stevens said Kennedy went along with his proposal to hand Governor Mitt Romney, a Cape Wind opponent, the power to veto the project. Environmental groups have accused Kennedy of reaching a backroom deal with Stevens to block Cape Wind, but Stevens said he wants all states to have the...

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration and two influential senators weighed in Friday against a provision that would block a 130-turbine wind farm off Cape Cod, where some of Washington's most powerful have vacation retreats. The wind farm, which would be located in Nantucket Sound about six miles off shore, has been a focus of controversy for five years. Developers won favorable environmental reviews and hoped to have it completed in 2009. A provision tucked into a bill authorizing activities for the U.S. Coast Guard would give Massachusetts' governor a veto over the project, although the turbines would be located in...

WASHINGTON -- Rich, oceanfront residents of Cape Cod do not want their view of Nantucket Sound faintly obstructed by offshore protrusions of a proposed wind farm. So, they have hired high-priced lobbyists to kill Cape Wind, a project providing an environmentally sound source of energy. Their most important ally in this venture is a fellow wealthy Cape Cod landowner, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy. Opposition to America's first offshore wind farm seems a peculiar posture for the liberal lion of the Senate. The self-indulgent squires of Cape Cod likewise seem a strange set of friends for Teddy Kennedy. He is also...

Fans of U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy have long argued that he has fought the good fight ... But today, he is defending the indefensible: special interest legislation, tucked into a Coast Guard authorization bill, that would give Gov. Mitt Romney the power to veto the proposed Cape Wind energy project, even though it would be in federal waters. The project... more than five miles offshore of Cape Cod. The equivalent of burning 113 million barrels of oil per year. Proponents of Cape Wind say it is an important source of alternative, renewable energy, and it has the backing of such...