Interview: Cape Wind Controversy

  • The proposed Cape Wind Project in Nantucket Sound is upsetting to some of the resort area residents (Source: Les Salty, at Wikimedia Commons)

The first offshore wind power
project expected to go online
is in Nantucket Sound near the
Cape Cod, Massachusetts resort
area. Some of the residents
of the region are rich and powerful.
They don’t want 130 wind turbines
ruining their view. Lester Graham
talked with the CEO of the Cape
Wind project, Jim Gordon, about why
the wind farm couldn’t be installed
over the horizon and out of sight:

Transcript

The first offshore wind power
project expected to go online
is in Nantucket Sound near the
Cape Cod, Massachusetts resort
area. Some of the residents
of the region are rich and powerful.
They don’t want 130 wind turbines
ruining their view. Lester Graham
talked with the CEO of the Cape
Wind project, Jim Gordon, about why
the wind farm couldn’t be installed
over the horizon and out of sight:

Jim Gordon: Well, first of all, hopefully, in the next ten, fifteen, or twenty years we’ll be able to bring wind turbines further off-shore, and they’ll be commercially and technically viable. But, right now, if you look at the off-shore wind farms in Europe that are commercially and technically viable, those projects are being built in near-shore, shallow waters, lower wave regimes. So, it’s really what’s driving the selection of the Cape Wind site is that it has some of the best wind resources on the East Coast, it’s outside of the shipping channels, ferry lines, and air flight paths, it has a reasonable proximity to bring the transmission line to the shore, and it has shallow depths and a low wave height. And, with all of this, it’s 13 miles from Nantucket, 9 miles from Edgar Town on Martha’s Vineyard, and 6 miles from Hyannis. So, if one were to go to the nearest beach and look out on the horizon, it would have to be a very clear day for you to make out tiny specks on the horizon. People want this project built, because they recognize that our energy security, climate change, sustainable economic development, the clean energy jobs that go with a project like this are important. And, we have to live with trade-offs if we’re going to transition to a more sustainable energy future.

Lester Graham: I wonder what you think of the Kennedy’s, who have been so active on the environmental front, fighting your proposal.

Gordon: You know, I have a lot of respect for Senator Kennedy, and our hope is the more he reads about Cape Wind, and the more he looks at and his staff looks at the final environmental impact statement from the federal government that was extremely positive, as well as the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. I mean, I’m hoping that the more Senator Kennedy thinks about this project, and looks at how it’s going to address the urgent energy, environmental, and economic challenges facing Massachusetts and the region. You know, I’m hoping that he’ll come around and support the project.

Graham: How do you think what happens with your project will effect other off-shore proposals?

Gordon: I think that this project is going to set an important precedent. If a project like Cape Wind – which has run this exhaustive regulatory gauntlet, and has shown that the public is in favor of it, and that it’s passed muster – if this project is not approved, I think that it’s going to set a terrible precedent. I think that other developers that are looking at moving away from coal or some of the fossil fuels to tap our abundant off-shore wind resources, I think that they’ll have some real second thoughts about investing the enormous amount of time and resources that it takes to get one of these projects in the water.

Graham: Jim Gordon is the President of Cape Wind, the off-shore wind project proposed to be built there in Nantucket. Thanks for your time.

Gordon: Thank you, Lester.

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