UK Goes Forward With Offshore Wind

Here's a brief article,
Wind Farms Go to Sea; Boost for Green Power , Gaby Hinsliff, the Observer (7/13/03) describing
the UK's plans for expanding offshore wind development. The article notes that environmentalists welcome the plans for expanding offshore wind, though many coastal home owners within view of the projects have expressed doubts.

Cape Wind in the News, Twice

July 12th brings not one, but two articles from Cape Cod Online.com on Cape Wind.

Wind Farm Panel OK'd in Senate by David Kibbe reports that the Massachusetts state senate approved a panel to examine issues associated with wind farms, both on and offshore. The second article,
Wind Farm Savings Disputed by Jack Coleman shares both sides of the debate on the cost of power and true savings that local residents will realize from the Cape Wind project. According to the article, the Alliance to Save the Sound estimates that the Cape Wind project will save New England customers a paltry 35 cents a month. Cape Wind does not dispute this figure, but claims that additional savings will come from attractively priced long term contracts which would result in savings over time (in contrast to say, natural gas, the price of which recently doubled) as well as benefits from Massachusetts' renewables portfolio requirements.

The British Have It All Figured Out

While debate over whether offshore wind developers can and should be allowed to construct sites on the Outer Continental Shelf without payment for leasing rights or royalties (see discussion in prior posting here, the Crown Estate of the United Kingdom owns offshore lands up to twelve miles out and is busy collecting money from leases for offshore windfarms on its offshore real estate - as reported in

Value Of Crown Estatae Rises by L2billion in a decade, Robert Verkaik, Legal Affairs Correspondent, The Independent, (7/9/03).

Another Winergy Application

This article,
Company Files Revised Application for Offshore Windmill Farm, Associated Press, July 10, 2003 reports on a permit application filed by Winergy with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for construction of an offshore wind farm off the coast of Virginia. According to the article, the 50 windmill project would be designed as follows

Each windmill would stand 400 feet above the mean water level in a 25-square-mile area running from one to three nautical miles off Smith's Island near the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay. The project as a whole would generate 560 megawatts of electricity during peak production times.

The Corps has scheduled a public hearing on the project for Aug. 19 at Northampton High School in Eastville.

Guerilla Interconnection

This piece from Mother Earth News entitled
Power to the People by Richard Perez encourages acts of solar civil disobediance whereby small scale renewable generators connect to the grid, notwithstanding lack of utility consent. Perez asserts that guerilla actions are justified until such time as fair laws on net metering and small scale interconnection are enacted and enforced.

What are the Prospects for Hydrogen?

Here's an article that asks
Can Hydrogen Power Solve the American Energy Woes , KansasCity.com, July 9, 2003. It contains a good bit of discussion on different sources for generating hydrogen, including fossil fuels and even nuclear. In other words, hydrogen is not synonomous with renewable.

When the Going Gets Tough, The Tough Get Lobbyists

A brief clip
Cape Wind Foes Add DC Lobbying Firm , Jay Fitzgerald, Boston Herald (7/8/03) reports that the opponents of Cape Wind engaged a DC lobbying firm to help battle the project on Capitol Hill.

Do the Greens Say What They Mean?

Here's an article,
Greens Seeing Red , Lowell Ponte, Front Page Magazine 7/7/03 describing some of the problems that the green movement has contended with lately, including NIMBY issues at Cape Wind and unethical conduct by Nature Conservancy officials.