cape wind

Wind Farm via Shutterstock

The nation’s first offshore wind farm could soon be under construction—bringing good jobs and clean, renewable energy to the people of Cape Cod—if it weren’t for obstructionist lawsuits filed by a group with deep financial ties to the dirty energy industry.That’s the point the new Cape Wind Now campaign makes on its website: capewindnow....[read more]

Last year, the courts told the Federal Aviation Administration to go back and take a better, longer look at the wind turbine array proposed for Nantucket Sound in Massachusetts. And once again, the FAA has determined that the Cape Wind project — which could well become the nation’s first offshore wind farm — is A-OK as far as it is...[read more]

One of the most prominent arguments against expanded oil and natural gas drilling and major infrastructure projects like Keystone XL is that the United States should for environmental reasons focus on production of energy from renewables rather than sustain the use of oil and natural gas. But the reality is that local community activists...[read more]

Offshore wind has two strikes against it in New Jersey and Delaware. Cape Wind off Massachusetts’ Nantucket Sound is fighting to stay alive in extra innings. Now Maryland is trying to get ‘on base’ with a second bid by Governor Martin O’Malley.[read more]

Governor Deval Patrick’s administration and other key players have advanced a plan to allow two major utilities to merge on the condition that the resulting utility agree to buy part of Cape Wind’s output.[read more]

Take a look at the two areas above. The top one represents Cape Wind, about which we’ve posted several times. Now, a new area has been set aside for a wind farm which, according to a story in today’s Boston Globe, “could produce as much as 4,000 megawatts, 10 times as much electricity as the proposed Cape Wind project, which is slated to...[read more]

Despite the mounting evidence of severe climate change, there is a funding crisis for potential solutions. The Department of Energy released data at the beginning of November showing that global emissions of CO2 rose 6% in 2010, despite the ongoing economic recession. This trajectory is higher than the worst case projections from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in it’s 2007 Fourth Assessement Report. The impacts are already being felt. A new IPCC report concludes that climate change is causing more extreme weather, especially heat waves, heavy precipitation, and coastal flooding (though the super-cautious IPCC hedged on hurricanes).[read more]

The Raging Grannies

Recent polling said 63 percent of Americans support renewable energy investment…in theory. But in practice, Not-In-My-Backyard (NIMBY) opposition to new energy infrastructure prevents about 45 percent of renewable energy proposals from being built across the country, according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. NIMBY opposition to utility-scale renewable energy projects is well-known, like the Cape Wind offshore wind project in Massachusetts, which took nine years to obtain permits because of opposition from local residents. But what about small-scale renewables – does NIMBYism threaten them as well?[read more]

Texan wind energy developer poised to construct first U.S. offshore wind turbine, even as policy uncertainty and tricky project financing harries competing projectsWith some five gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind energy projects in the works, the long-promised dawn of offshore wind in America could be at hand. And although the most...[read more]

The famous project to install 130 massive industrial wind turbines in the Nantucket Sound off of the coast of Massachusetts has hit another stumbling block. Financing for the project was dependent on approval of an application for a large Department of Energy loan guarantee, but the project has been notified that their application is no...[read more]

...the more they stay the same. In the year since I started this blog, we've witnessed many substantial changes, events, and progressions on the energy/climate frontier. And yet, on the whole, it seems American policy hasn't evolved much at all. Three examples illustrate this frustrating truth*.As you may have heard, this week is the one...[read more]

This morning I spoke with Stuart Varney and Company about the Cape Wind project. Cape Wind is proposing America's first offshore wind farm on Horseshoe Shoal in Nantucket Sound. Miles from the nearest shore, 130 wind turbines will harness the wind to produce up to 420 megawatts of clean, renewable energy. The developer has sealed a...[read more]

The race to get America’s first offshore wind farm up and running continues, with Massachusetts beginning to cement its leading position. The state’s Cape Wind project received a partial green light yesterday for its 15-year power purchase agreement with National Grid, although one of the two proposed contracts was rejected by the...[read more]

National Grid has said that it will buy clean power from Cape Wind, US' first large-scale, off-shore wind farm, which is expected to come online by the end of 2012. Both the companies will file a contract with the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities (DPU) for the power purchase agreement. The contract will be filed under the...[read more]

Our favorite climate de-crocker, Peter Sinclair has now started putting together videos on clean energy solutions.  Here’s his latest: Wind Power is truly a core climate (and peak oil) solution.  If you want to know more, here’s where to start: Wind Power — A core climate solution NREL: US has three times...[read more]