11/13/2004
Offshore wind power plant in the USA debated
Nantucket Sound lies among Cape Cod, Nantucket Island and Martha's Vineyard, prime vacation spots. Now a private company is proposing to build the world's largest offshore wind power plant in the middle of it all. Depending on who is talking, the results would be either a blot on the landscape or a significant step towards clean power and energy independence for the region. The argument over the proposal intensified last week when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers issued a draft environmental impact statement finding few flaws in the proposal. The 4,000-page draft gives new support to environmental groups that praise the project as a safe, non-polluting and desperately needed alternative to fossil fuel power plants.
However, opponents challenge the report, the process that produced it as well as the idea of building the turbine array. It is just too ugly, they say, an industrial development that would wreck pristine vistas. Many add that no offshore energy projects should be considered until the government establishes a better review process for proposals to use federal lands offshore. The project would be USA’s first offshore wind power plant. A similar proposal is being considered off Jones Beach, on Long Island, and officials in New Jersey are looking into offshore wind power.
The corps' draft concluded that the project, proposed by Cape Wind Associates of Boston, would not unduly hinder ferry operations, commercial and sport fishing, boating, aviation or other activities at its site, a 24-square-mile area in the part of Nantucket Sound called Horseshoe Shoals. It said the project's 130 support towers, turbines and blades, which together would rise about 420 feet above the water, would not seriously affect currents, waves, water quality, sand movement, fishing conditions or noise levels. Adequate steps could be taken to protect marine mammals and shellfish, the report said. Birds would fly into the towers and die, the statement says, but probably at a rate of about one a day, not enough “to cause bird population declines.” And while opponents predict that the towers would drive away tourists, the corps said the project might even attract sightseers.
However, opponents challenge the report, the process that produced it as well as the idea of building the turbine array. It is just too ugly, they say, an industrial development that would wreck pristine vistas. Many add that no offshore energy projects should be considered until the government establishes a better review process for proposals to use federal lands offshore. The project would be USA’s first offshore wind power plant. A similar proposal is being considered off Jones Beach, on Long Island, and officials in New Jersey are looking into offshore wind power.
The corps' draft concluded that the project, proposed by Cape Wind Associates of Boston, would not unduly hinder ferry operations, commercial and sport fishing, boating, aviation or other activities at its site, a 24-square-mile area in the part of Nantucket Sound called Horseshoe Shoals. It said the project's 130 support towers, turbines and blades, which together would rise about 420 feet above the water, would not seriously affect currents, waves, water quality, sand movement, fishing conditions or noise levels. Adequate steps could be taken to protect marine mammals and shellfish, the report said. Birds would fly into the towers and die, the statement says, but probably at a rate of about one a day, not enough “to cause bird population declines.” And while opponents predict that the towers would drive away tourists, the corps said the project might even attract sightseers.
- Source:
- Online editorial www.windfair.net
- Author:
- Trevor Sievert, Online Editorial Journalist
- Email:
- press@windfair.net
- Keywords:
- USA, wind energy, wind turbine, wind power, wind farm, offshore, onshore
