America's First Offshore Wind Farm Starts Delivering Power

Off Rhode Island, Deepwater Wind's Block Island Wind Farm is now online, providing enough clean energy to power as many as 17,000 homes. Three years ago, I visited Block Island and wrote about how offshore wind would benefit Block Island.

Watch this report from Jerika Duncan of CBS News:

Cape Wind Signs New Bedford Deal. Will Koch Keep Fighting?

Cape Wind has signed a lease agreement to stage its 130-turbine project in Nantucket Sound out of New Bedford's South Terminal, reports Ariel Wittenberg in the Standard-Times:

Cape Wind will pay a total of $4.5 million in rent to the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, which owns the 28-acre facility, for two years. During that time, Cape Wind will be the only operator of the facility and the terms of lease allow for two one-year extensions.

Cape Wind has said that the assembly, staging and ocean construction of the project will create 600 to 1,000 jobs. Once in operation, the project is expected to employ 150 people, at least 50 of whom are expected to be based in Falmouth to do maintenance on the Nantucket Sound turbines.

The lease agreement is significant not just for Cape Wind but for New Bedford and the commonwealth's future involvement in the offshore wind industry. City officials have long stated that being the first port to stage an offshore wind farm will help the city to attract future projects and industry manufacturers.

Cape Wind also had held a lease option in Quonset, Rhode Island. Audra Parker of the William Koch-funded "Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound" had been trying to use the Quonset option to divide Massachusetts on Cape Wind, warning Cape Wind would dump New Bedford for Quonset. Various local anti-wind activists like Frank Haggerty joined Parker in pushing the talking point, demonstrating their reasonableness in the comments of Parker's letter:

Y'know, the Nazis had solar panels that they made the Jews wear.

The bottom line here is that Cape Wind is delivering on its promises to harvest clean offshore wind energy for Massachusetts and to bring new, long-term jobs to New Bedford. Meanwhile, the polluter blockade of New Bedford wind energy jobs has finally and fully crumbled. If Bill Koch wants to keep fighting to protect his beachfront estate views from the horrors of distant windmills, it's going to mean putting real people out of work in a city that desperately needs the jobs.

Will Koch carry on his quixotic crusade, or will he finally tell his army of lawyers and lobbyists to stand down? We're about to find out.

A Bipartisan Win for Wind Energy in Virginia

Virginia's insane General Assembly schedule just produced an absurdly heart-warming outcome: Two smart Republicans blocked a bill that would've put up an unnecessary new hurdle for wind energy.

When it comes to clean wind power, Virginia remains a black hole. Republican State Sen. Tom Garrett thinks the problem is that it's not being regulated heavily enough:

A proposal by Sen. Tom Garrett, R-Louisa, to protect birds and bats from wind turbines passed a committee vote Thursday and was referred to the full Senate.

Garrett said some advocates for wind-generated electricity had criticized the bill.

“I want to make this abundantly clear — and I’ll speak really slowly — this bill is in no way, shape or form designed to be an anti-wind bill,” he said. “We will, I hope, generate a greater and greater percentage of our power in the coming years via renewable energy resources whether it be solar, etc. That doesn’t mean we should do so irresponsibly.”

Wind energy is already heavily regulated by a range of officials and agencies charged with making sure its siting is as friendly to communities and wildlife as possible. Is it more likely Sen. Garrett was standing up for wildlife, or using anti-wind talking points pushed by polluter front groups to try to kill wind before it even gets off the ground?

Also, I have three reallys:

• Really, Virginia is now solely concerned with how energy impacts wildlife? Virginia has already lost 156,000 acres on 67 mountains to mountaintop removal coal mining, but now that people want to build wind turbines to compete with coal energy, suddenly protecting birds and bats is the top priority? Really?
• Really, Sen. Garrett's commitment to advancing our energy future? Really? The same Sen. Garrett who last year sponsored a bill to put onerous new regulations on energy-saving smart meters? Really?
• Really, Sen. Garrett is completely dedicated to the health & well being of Virginia's wildlife? Really? His only other wildlife-related bill is to allow the hunting of coyotes on Sunday.

And last year the General Assembly passed and Gov. Bob McDonnell (R-Federal Court) signed a bill that Sen. Garrett introduced to spend taxpayer dollars promoting nuclear power. Remember this when Republicans try to tell you they're pro-business or anti-regulation. In reality, they're pro-their preferred industries.

The bill actually passed out of committee with the support of some of the most progressive Democrats in the Virginia Senate. I'm hoping they didn't fully understand it - that they just saw a bill that claimed to be good for wildlife and voted yes. Virginia's horribly dysfunctional General Assembly session is just 6 weeks long, requiring legislators to file, consider and vote on bills in less than a month. Again: Insane.

But fortunately it was saved on the Senate floor by two Republicans who know wind power means jobs in their district:

Sens. Frank Wagner and Tom Cosgrove, both Republicans from Virginia Beach, opposed the bill on the Senate floor.

Wagner said a wind-turbine park off the Virginia coast is awaiting a decision by federal agencies, bird-flight patterns already were considered, and adding new regulations would harm the project.

Here's hoping yesterday's vote is one of many that bring together clean energy jobs-loving Republicans with climate change-fighting Democrats.

Block Island Wind Would Cut Climate Pollution and Power Bills

I have an op-ed in this month's issue of WindCheck Magazine on a proposed wind farm off Rhode Island's Block Island:

Block Island has some of America’s best breezes, a natural resource that's lured sailors for generations. Now the community is on the verge of harnessing that resource in a new way with offshore wind energy.

One of those unique New England treasures, Block Island hits a perfect balance – close enough to the mainland to warrant a daysail, while its pace and landscape assure you that you’re on vacation. Yet somewhere along those 13 miles the price of your Mudslide, and everything else, managed to skyrocket. No one would expect bargain basement prices in a vacation paradise adjacent to Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket, but then you get to your hotel room and realize there’s no air conditioner. “If we put an air conditioner in your room, we’d have to double your rate,” the desk clerk tells me. “We pay some of the highest electricity prices anywhere in the country.”

While offshore wind energy is usually talked about as a higher-priced electricity source, on Block Island the five-turbine, 30 megawatt project proposed by Providence, RI-based Deepwater Wind will be a huge money saver. Americans pay an average of 12 cents per kilowatt hour for their electricity and 15 cents per kilowatt hour in Rhode Island, but out on Block Island, thanks to the community’s antiquated and highly polluting diesel electricity generator, electricity averages an incredible 47 cents per kilowatt hour. Some hotels pay as much as $50,000 per month in electricity bills. Offshore wind is projected to save Block Island residents and businesses 42 percent on their electricity bills – even more when demand is high.

Read the whole thing at WindCheck Magazine.

Jobs and a Safe Climate or Bill Koch's Estate View: Whose Side Are You On?

When Cape Wind begins construction, it will be the leading edge of an offshore wind industry that's already created 35,000 jobs in Europe. As Cape Wind's Hannah Wood writes in the Cape Cod Times, those jobs are critical to a region in transition:

I know for some, concerns about Cape Wind stem from a desire to keep the Cape as it is. But, like it or not, climate change is already affecting the Cape.

The question for all of us is whether we try to control the change or let it control us. If we don't start using cleaner sources of energy, we are on a course to see much more severe erosion from our beaches and dunes and continued harm to fish and other wildlife, as well as to the plants and trees that we all enjoy.

Constructing this offshore wind farm is the type of change we need to ensure that future generations can appreciate the Cape as much as we do now.

Young people on Cape Cod also need more sustainable industries here that pay decent salaries year-round so more of them stay here to raise families of their own. Offshore wind is a move in the right direction, and Cape Wind is a crucial first step.

But what about the view from Bill Koch's vacation estate? And what about all the other wealthy Cape Cod landowners hiding behind front groups to attack Cape Wind? What should come first - our economic development, public health, and long-term climate security, or their pristine estate views?

Sign the Conservation Law Foundation & MoveOn.org Civic Action petition to stand up to Bill Koch and build Cape Wind now.