Cape Wind Associates is planning on building as many as one hundred and thirty wind turbines in the Nantucket Sound. The project is expected to cost in excess of nine hundred million dollars.

The Governor under pressure from local wealthy residents has threatened to block the building of thewind farm. In a move to avoid this possibility US Senate and house leaders have removed language within the bill that would give Governor Mitt Romney the ability to block the project.

The wind farm has a huge potential. The initial estimates state that the wind farm could produce enough electricity to provide over seventy percent of Cape Cod, Nantucket and Marthas Vineyard power. At maximum capacity it would produce over four hundred Megawatts and have a sustained ability to produce one hundred and twenty five megawatts.

Local residents believe the wind towers will be an eyesore and could also pose a threat to migrating birds.

It appears the battle for the wind farm will continue. The ultimate question is does the production of Alternative wind energy out weigh the rights of the local residents.

With the political power and financial firepower of local residents the proposed wind farm might get shot down. Time will tell the regulator commission is set to make their final decision in 2007.

Related:
Cape Wind

As renewable energy goes in the USA, Cape Wind is making a breakthrough that is long overdue.

Ever since the first energy crisis back in the 1970s, the US has been forced to play a role in foreign politics that just costs ever more. And not just money.

In the field of sustainable energy, the second law of thermal dynamics plays a big role in how we calculate energy consumption.

It is hard to get around entropy unless we follow the natural laws, set down by the earth itself.

Some calculate energy in cubic meters of earth, cubic meters of water, or even the more conventional methods of calculating and tracing energy consumption in kilowatt-hours and money.

It really depends on whose calculations one wishes to use. But most people see things in terms of money. And rarely, oh so ever rarely, cost is also measured in terms of health.

Scientific dogma is greatly responsible for the ever-abusive expenditure of non-renewable energies, and the particular dogma is almost coming up to its 400^th year anniversary.

It was René Descartes, a young Frenchman in service at the time with the troops of Duke Maximillian of Bavaria, on the night between the 10^thand 11^th of November 1619 who dreamt of the New City of Science that gave birth to our current way of looking at reality and medicine.

New ways of looking at science are far overdue as this established City of Science and Cartesian way of thinking set down by Descartes is greatly overpopulated with giant discoveries far too big to work together; we need of a new vision of science.

Science is just now, after almost four centuries only beginning to realize that everything is interconnected. That may sound like metaphysics, and it is, but what is important are the results of that way of looking at reality.

Sustainability is deeply seeded in the scientific theory of systems that sees the world as a whole, one thing interdependent on itself and one another.

According to Supplying Cape Cod’s Electricity – The True Cost of Electricity:

In the average year, pollution from power plants cost Massachusetts residents 78,000 lost workdays, 441 premature births, 104 hospital emergency room visits and 8,800 asthma attacks.[1]

Coal dust kills 2,000 US miners yearly, and since 1973 the federal black lung disease benefits program has cost $35 billion

Health and environmental costs bring the total price for coal-based energy to $0.055 to $0.083 kWh.[2] In comparison the cost of producing electricity from wind energy has steadily declined by more than 80% since the early 1980s.[3]

Sources:
[1] The Particulate-Related Health Benefits of Reducing Power Plant Emissions, Abt Associates, 10/2000
[2] Science Magazine 8/24/01
[3] American Wind Energy Association

When looking at our current system of energy spending in those terms, the political implications are outraging and only the cool headed can keep the conversation going without losing control.

There are good reasons for changing Cape Cod’s current energy supply toward a more sustainable, clean and environmentally friendly alternative such as Aeolic energy in the form of wind farms.

By depending more on Cape Cod Wind farm, the demand on polluting industries in the state will be drastically reduced, thereby lowering automatically levels of pollution and making the air safer.

The USA currently has a foreign policy around energy products that is greatly controlled and manipulated by the providers of non-renewable energies in use today.

Progress would come to a stand still if foreign providers began to boycott left and right, and without progress, nobody would be able to survive for long, accept those with their own reserves of energy.

This makes the economy, the government and the population, dependent and indirectly at the mercy of other countries and other cultures with different ideals and interests.

But changing over to new energies that we can rely on, without having the prices inflate astronomically, staying at a stable and fixed price, is neither easy, nor something people are willing to accept due to more than 300 years of Cartesian thinking.

It takes a large amount of scientific investigation with case study after case study by teams and networks of highly qualified professional research developers to convince the scientific community that something needs to change.

Finally these new concepts need to be handed out to the mainstream in 30 second media bites until the politicians can get wind of them, then it finally becomes an accepted truth.

And that process takes time. Cape Wind is a project by Energy Management Incorporated a company that has been preparing this breakthrough for over the course of more than 28 years.

Clean energy, low cost, sustainable, good for the environment and good for kids.

What are the drawbacks?

Some skeptics, enjoy looking at the rotten parts of the apple, almost if it was their favorite thing in the world to go around pointing at the bruises.

Although an apple can be tasty, even with rotten parts, skeptics are the legacy of Descartes, and thus we must listen to them too.

In a hurricane, would one of those blades coming spinning into my house if I live on the beach? In a hurricane, hopefully this skeptic was notified by the authorities prior to the incident, evacuated previously and has insurance.

Yes, they are safe. Windmills like those in Cape Cod have been used on many other wind farms around the world have been time tested to work efficiently and safely.

If there is a problem, like any other energy plant, the 24 hour monitoring crew will be able to fix it in a jiffy. In the event of an emergency, the wind generator will immediately stop the blades, which then will feather safely in the wind.

For those who think they are a blemish on the horizon, nothing can be done, because many of the supporters of the Cape Cod Wind program think they are just dandy looking.

Architecture in its essence is about making works of art for civilization to benefit.

Cape Cod Wind has done enough research to blend beauty, cost effectiveness and detailed engineering into one elegant work of art.

Cape Cod Wind is an example for other states in the courage to lead with sustainable energy concepts and trail the path toward progress and independence.

More Information:
Cape Cod Wind
(Boston Office)
75 Arlington Street, Suite 704
Boston, MA 02116
Phone: 617-904-3100
Fax: 617-904-3109
E-mail: info@capewind.org
Website: http://www.capewind.org/
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