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This is what a retired a New York State, environmental official had to say about that fish farm effort and their compliance with the myriad regulatory hurdles it had to clear:

  "Those folks hadn't a clue how to respond to agency requests for info and how to provide proper assessments and analyses of information…That whole debacle was a shame." (Please forgive our use of an anonymous source. Open the “PR” link above for verification.)

The fish farm folks made news again a decade later this time as Winergy, an upstart wind power company with plans to plant hundreds of wind turbines up and down the Atlantic coast. Upon this announcement, the same New York regulator’s phone was ringing off the hook.

 Then Deepwater Wind buys Winergy and announces plans to build the country’s largest wind farm.

What do we make of all this? Does the Winergy/Deepwater Wind connection suggest those conspiracy theorist from California may not be such maniacs after all? Like our New York State friend suggests these folks are as keen on spending money as they are on making it. At least appearing to spend money. There are no better places to fraudulently inflate investment losses than trying to establish an untried industry in the massively regulated waters of offshore development.  The Winergy/Deepwater Wind thing makes us wonder if there is there really anyway to know how much Cape Wind has spent in its 10year battle with government regulators and local and energy industry opposition? And who spent that money and why. Here’s a NYTimes article suggesting Cape Wind is strictly on the up and up. So, again, what do we make of all this?

Our answer brings us back to Big Oil and Coal. There is no grand conspiracy stopping wind power in this country, rather the industry seems to be suffering under the weight of this motley crew of investors opportunists and the normal cacophony of opposition sure to arise whenever there’s any serious change of course contemplated by a country that makes sure all voices are heard. Big Coal and Oil don’t have to declare war on wind power, they can just strategically throw a monkey wrench in the works knowing every day that projects like Cape Wind are stymied is another day of obscene profits for them. What might fix this is a cohesive national renewable energy policy that discourages frivolous legal action, expedites approvals and sets standards for those seeking those approvals. Such policy could help avoid the decades of delays in establishing a serious renewable energy industry that we’ve seen since Jimmy Carter put solar panels on the White House. Such a policy is something Big Oil and Coal and their lobbyists  have conspired, and always will conspire, to prevent.

Since the emergence of the costly, decade-long battle over Massachusetts’ Cape Wind windfarm project, NBN has struggled to assess the legitimacy of local opposition to windfarms in this country for fear that it’s energized, or at the very least greatly exploited by, big coal and oil interests. Let’s face it, when you’ve got 3 gigawatt wind facilities being proposed, you’re cutting to the bone of the meat these two specials interest have enjoyed exclusively. They should be very concerned and clearly have the money to act on those concerns. So when we came upon this battle brewing over a 60 megawatt—30 turbine—facility for western Pennsylvania, it seemed like a good test case to measure possible outside influence in what’s clearly a local issue with national reach. Pictured here is the Allegheny Front Hawk Watch, a very popular destination for hawk and eagle fans which is part of the proposed windfarm.

NBN started its research into this project with this article in the Tribune Democrat. It notes police have been called in to keep the peace at earlier hearings on this project. What are the chances of outside interests fomenting that kind of passion and the instigators not getting discovered if they are from out-of-town? Not too good, we say. Clearly, powerful local opposition exists to the Shaffer Mountain windfarm. So, we wondered if the coal and oil lobby might be leveraging that opposition into something exaggerating local sentiments. We Googled the name of an opponent quoted in the story: Jack Buchan, of Sensible Wind Solutions. He turned out to be the owner of a large track of land abutting the proposed windfarm. Can’t fault a fellow for a little NIMBY.

 The video, we've got a tiny snippet here, makes clear this technology has some real problems with killing bats, an animal that has no problem killing jillions of unpleasant insects when they are not colliding with turbine blades. If you watch the video, the tiny object that gets swatted out of the sky on the upper left is a bat.The website also notes how the windfarm has shunned suitable development sites atop a former strip mine when another windfarm company nearby found such citing perfectly suitable for their purposes. Sounds like shaffermountain.com has a case that Shaffer Mountain is the wrong place for the right idea.

Not yet content to yield our suspicions that big coal is behind shaffermountain.com, NBN dug a little deeper into the website. We found a page called the “Green Energy Scam” which provides this graph (pdf) suggesting the entirely of Pennsylvania would need to sprout windmills to equal what’s put out by one nuclear reactor. To quote that page:  “Industrial wind turbines are not being built to produce energy - but to reap the benefits of huge federal and state subsidies and tax breaks. The FACT is, industrial wind turbines produce very small amounts of electric power and require huge numbers to generate even modest amounts of electricity.” If this was true, it stands to reason similar motives are driving the global proliferation of windfarms. That doesn’t make a lot of sense. It also flies in the face of this article citing the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory saying one large turbine can power 500 homes.

Next, we found this picture at the bottom of the website. It strikes us as a rather amateurish attempt at humor aimed at raising passions rather than informing the public. And as the involvement of law enforcement in earlier meetings of the project suggests, opposition here focuses at least as much on inflaming passions. So, where do we end up? NBN still thinks shaffermountain.com is shilling for the fossil fuels industry, using a constellation of legitimate arguments, local passions and disinformation to argue its case in a way that only hurts it and the country as a whole. These issues cannot and should not be argued using thuggery, insults and anger. Rather than download photoshoped pictures of the Sopranos and calling local officials stooges and arrogant bureaucrats, they should focus solely on the science. Leave the jokes and the insults for other websites, ya freekin idiots. One more point to put this into perspective. The Shaffer mountain project could put out the same power as the Salem coal fire plant in Massachusetts without the 250,000 pounds of greenhouse gasses every year. Opponents are saying the project will damage .11 acres of wetlands and threaten a nearby trout stream.  This sounds like a no-brainer, yet the project has been stalled for three years.

This LATimes story on California’s largest windfarm project is a bit of a snoozer, until you take a virtual walk about the site compliments of Google Earth. Notice that there is something of a funnel shape to the topography? A funnel 25 miles wide and 22 miles deep. On the northern side, where you see a break in the mountain range, is the Tehachapi Pass which is where the wind farm is being built. With all due respect to the LA Times, this added aerial perspective goes a long way toward fully appreciating the absurdity of this story. From Google Earth, it appears there’s little more than wind in this neck of the Mojave Desert: a lousy place to build a home, but a great place to put up wind turbines. The three-gigawatt facility being proposed will produce 10 percent more power than the 2.7 giga-watts Niagara Falls puts out.

That’s enough electricity to run 600,000 homes, according to the article, without burning a drop of oil. Now consider placing solar panels atop each of those 600,000 homes. That’s power enough to run at least another 100,000 homes. That could be 700,000 homes that are now at least partly, if not completely, dependent on fossil fuels that could be running completely on renewable power supplies that don’t add an ounce of carbon to our air. Let’s repeat that: seven-hundred-thousand homes. Enough to power every home in Maine. It makes you realize renewable energy is not just for granola-eating peaceniks who consult tarot cards. We’re talking meeting the entire energy needs of communities like Lancaster, pictured here, which is about 25 miles southeast of the Pass. And that's with plenty of power left over. We might be playing fast and loose with the numbers, but we're not wrong!

Editor’s note. The 100,000 figure is a completely unverifiable solar energy statistic that comes compliments of many hours combing solar energy websites. For your reading pleasure we’ve condensed that search into another equally unverified statistic: a 300 square foot solar panel array provides just under a fifth of the average home’s electricity use. That’s about 20 percent smaller than the array shown here. There are numerous variables that can send this figure 50 percent in either direction. In the case of these homes in Lancaster, NBN feels comfortable the 100,000 homes figure is a VERY conservative estimate. Last we checked, there is plenty of sunshine in the desert.

Back to our Google Earth tour of Mojave Desert housing. Pictured here are a few blocks of the town of Tehachapi which looks a lot like Lancaster, only less developed. What else do the homes in Lancaster and Tehachapi have in common? Nary a solar panel to be found atop any of them. Isn't the desert an ideal place to have solar panels on your home? Let’s also point out, a group called the Old West Ranch Property Owners Association in Tehachapi gathered 1,000 signatures to successfully block a portion of the windfarm project last year. Do you get the feeling that folks out this way have little use for alternative energy? This is what association president Merle Carnes had to say about alternative energy: "We're not against green energy in any way, but there just comes a time when you say that this is my community and I don't want turbines encroaching in full view. There's room somewhere else." NBN doesn't see this girl slapping solar panels on her roof any time soon.

Still, she’s got a point. Wind Turbines have a way of mucking up a view. These are just a few of thousands of turbines positioned outside Palm Springs, CA. But if you take another Google Earth look around the Tehachapi Pass, the place is peppered with wind turbines already. Does it sound like Ms. Carnes and company are being just a little selfish here? Wait, it gets better. As of this writing, wildfires were encroaching on Ms. Carnes’ view. The Govenator has declared a state of emergency. Now, Ms. Carnes and friends can collect tax money to rebuild their homes in a dry windy place, better suited for windfarms than housing, and then continue the fight against windpower plans there. These people can endure the occasional loss of all their earthly possessions for the sake of where they live, but don’t mess with their view. Global warming and dependence on foreign oil be damned.

It’s not like there’s no precedent for ruining scenic landscapes for public power purposes. This is the Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite National Park, before they dammed it. Now the valley doesn’t exist, and the dam that took its place generates 500 megawatts of power, roughly 16 percent of what the Pass project will eventually build out to. We’re not arguing two wrongs here. We just like to point out absurdities when they sometimes subtly slap us in the face. And we’d like to argue that Tehachapi doesn’t compare to Hetch Hetchy in scenic splendor.

The Cape Wind windfarm made it back into the news this week with announcements that various groups have joined in legal action to stop the alternative energy project off Nantucket Island. The claimants are: Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound, the Cetacean Society International, The Lower Laguna Madre Foundation, Californians for Renewable Energy, and Three Bays Preservation. At the same time, green giants like Audubon and Greenpeace support the project. NBN did a quick check of the finances of these plaintiffs and found by far the wealthiest—with a $3.2m budget—is the Alliance, whose sole mission is to stop the Cape Wind project. Combined, all these plaintiffs collect less than $6m in donations while Greenpeace and Audubon collectively exceed $50m. With such a contentious issue as the wind farm, we hate to suggest it but you have to wonder if some of these green groups are getting paid to take positions.

A while back The Nature Conservancy came under fire for contributions it received from British Petroleum, a.k.a. the company that destroyed the Gulf of Mexico. Is it possible Audubon and Greenpeace were paid for their support by Cape Wind? Conversely, were the other green groups paid by fossil fuel interest to oppose the project? As for the former, it’s hard to imagine Cape Wind has millions to greenmail backers for its project. As for the latter, the Cape Cod Times came out with this piece showing the Alliance is clearly beholden to Big Energy donors.

Is it fair to paint all the other groups joining the lawsuit with the same tainted brush? It’s instructive to note receiving donations from big energy interests to oppose Cape Wind may not be all that out of line for these plaintiffs. Decent arguments can be made by these groups that the Cape Wind project could be bad for the whales, migratory birds and the marine ecosystems they are dedicated to protecting. Then consider the prospect that these groups could be hurting for donations in the middle of this recession. It’s got to be awfully tempting not to join the fight against Cape Wind when there’s a sizable donation being made to do so AND it’s essentially within your mission statement. Yet, the more of these groups that jump on board the battle against Cape Wind and the greater their diversity, the more credible the opposition to the project becomes. (Let's not forget, an environmental impact study has been done on Cape Wind and the endorsement of the oldest environmental group in the country, Audubon, is not easily won.)

Hold the Phone! This just in. The Martha’s Vineyard Conch Fishermen have also announced their plans to fight Cape Wind. The organization was founded a year ago and now they are joining the lawsuit? Beginning to see a trend here? There’s only one special interest in the world that can buy this kind of allegiance. Coal. Maybe these plaintiffs should be asked if they’ve received any donations from fossil fuel interests before they joined in on the law suit.

Last week we wrote about the winds of change, this week it's the anchors of inertia. CNN did a great job in this story on the Cape Wind wind farm saga which hit the headlines again this week with the Wompanoag Indians promising to sue if the fed approves plans to plant 130 wind turbines in the middle of Nantucket Sound. In adding our two-cents, we'd like first to distill this argument that's lasted nine years into a paragraph or two of pros and cons. Then we offer about 500 words of reckless speculation.

Let's start with our own summary of the CNN summary concerning the non-Indian issues that have kept the wind farm in the news for nine years: Critics say the windmills from the windfarm might impede already heavy commercial fishing and ferry traffic in the area. They also say the turbines might also reduce visits to this tourist Mecca and the blades might interfere with radar systems at nearby airports. Apparently environmental damage like killing fish and birds doesn't enter into the equation anymore. In response to the boat traffic question, project proponents point out the turbines will take up 25 of Nantucket Sound's 500 square miles. As for the threat to air craft radar, this story cites experts saying better technology could solve that. The weakness of these arguments is leading to speculation—and this hilarious Daly Show segment—that the windfarm opponents are just wealthy Nantucket landowners worrying over their water views. (The federal Advisory Council on Historic Properties said the views from some 34 historic properties, including the Kennedy compound, will be effected by the wind farm.)

So far it sounds like full steam ahead for the windfarm, right? Enter the Indians. The Wompanoag are pretty much the last hurdle Cape Wind has to clear. The Indians are claiming Cape Wind will ruin a centuries-old ceremonial landscape and they are promising to sue if the project's approved. It's hard to say how far that suit will go when a Cape Wind attorney who is also son of prominent Wompanoag tribe members, is saying the ceremonies are baloney. So who do we believe here on this pivotal Indian issue? Before we make up our minds, there's one more thing to consider.

If Cape Wind is approved it could clear the way for large scale windfarms being proposed from Maine to North Carolina and probably elsewhere in the US. Do you think Big Oil and even Bigger Coal in this country might have been on the phone with the Wompanoag in the past few weeks? Reading between the headlines invites speculation that Big Energy is leveraging a molehill of an Indian tribe into a mountainous impediment to a seachange in the nation's offshore energy policy. (How's that for surplus superlatives and similes in one sentence.)

Is it unfair to assume the Indians are in line for a lot of money if their opposition works. There is a huge amount of money and industry involved. Is it also unfair to think the rich folks are acting out of pure self interest when they say the windfarm will spoil the view for everyone. The answer maybe partly yes  on both counts. Anyone who has not seen the windfarms near Palm Springs, shown here, might want to think about this. These turbines can definitely alter a landscape. Clearly, these arguments against the project give the oil and coal companies the moral muscle to make a mess out of Cape Wind. And they have. But the arguments above, when seen under the glare of global warming, make you wonder for how long? As the momentum builds behind alternative energy, Cape Wind will clearly be a turning point in this nation's energy policy. Let's get on with it.

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When we first saw this piece about the long-delayed Cape Wind wind turbine farm off Nantucket Sound possibly seeing major new delays over federal plans to draft an ocean zoning map, we prepared to pounce. What, we thought. Another delay foisted on a clean energy project by feckless politicians acting at the behest of coal and oil interests? If only it were that simple. Cape Wind, more than any other of the many contentious and politically charged issues swirling around the nation's energy policy, seemed a particularly glaring example of big-money thwarting a plan that was good for the environment and the economy. Arguments against the project always seemed weak: bird kills are much worse around glassed-in high-rise buildings, short term damage to the ocean floor will be countered by long term enhancement to marine habitat surrounding these turbine stanchions. That left less environmentally important arguments like the view from Nantucket Island and impinging on a seascape spiritually important to an Indian tribe no-one every heard of. Despite the tentative arguments against Cape Wind, one group with a $3 million budget has managed to stall the project for nearly a decade. It smacks of political payoff.

So, when these politicians and lobbyists proposed Cape Wind be shelved until the ocean zoning map is in place, it just seems like more powerful special interest stalling a profitable project with public benefit. Time to introduce a company called Winergy, which sprang out of no where about eight years ago and filed paperwork with various government agencies announcing intentions to build windfarms from Virginia to Maine. Pretty much everywhere but Nantucket Sound. What made Winergy so interesting was they started out as fish farming business called Mariculture Technologies Inc. (Not these folks.)

The point is nothing ever happened with MTI. They talked about spending massive sums of money but you could never really see where it all went. MTI eventually placed a few nets off New York's Plum Island, that got chewed up in a storm. End of the story. Then the officers of that company suddenly turned up in stories involving Winergy and all the wind turbines they planned on building. It appears these fellows specialize in navigating bureaucracies, not developing alternative energy. They get in there, buy up the rights and auction them off when the technology becomes more viable. They may not have had too much success with the fish farm, but if their expense sheets were to be believed they certainly produced massive (inflated?) tax write-offs for unknown investors. Winergy is now this company. Google News produced a smattering of headlines for the latest incarnation of my fish farm friends, but nothing like the press Cape Wind has generated.

What does all this have to do with a federal zoning map possibly being the latest effort to stall Cape Wind. Sadly the MTI/Winergy types point up exactly the need for such a zoning map, even if it means a good project, Cape Wind, could get killed as a result. Do we want a Wild West mentality when it comes to developing our national alternative energy policy? The Wingery folks freely admit they are open-ocean real estate speculators. There is no way to know how, or if, the proposed ocean zoning map will affect Winergy's windfarm claims. But, it's kind of like the folks who bought website domain names like Coca Cola for pennies in the early days of the internet hoping to force the legitimate soda maker to pay a fortune for the domain name later. If the proposed ocean zoning map enforces certain standards that weed out the fast-buck artists, even at the expense of legitimate alternative energy companies like Cape Wind, perhaps that's a good thing. It helps us take a more deliberate stab at what will hopefully be a very decisive change in this nation's energy policy. Any takers?

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Tabloids should just stay away from science stories. Case in point, this Boston Herald headline bellowing about the “Big Secret” in the Cape Wind windfarm project: millions, in “Hidden Costs.” The story cites the “hidden costs” that cropped up in a similar windfarm plan farther south to support the hysterical headline. That southern windfarm, according to the Herald, will add about $20 to the average annual electric bill in that area. Are we to assume then that these hidden costs in Cape Wind will translate into $20 annually for Bay State rate payers?

Somehow, “hidden millions” sounds a lot worse than “$20 annually.” Is the Herald deliberately distorting the story in the headline to sell papers? Perish the thought! Reading deeper, clearly the story is more tepid than the headline prompting you to read it. It goes on to point out that the hidden millions estimate is also based on unusually low natural gas prices this winter driving the windfarm's comparative power price higher. The story also notes that because the windmills tap a renewable source of energy, the prices of that wind energy will only go down over time while natural gas-generated energy prices will only rise. No mention of the fact that the windfarm will also be less polluting. Hey, if the headline doesn't draw you in, you don't read the story. And, despite the headline, it's a good story.

While we're on the subject of windfarms here's an article saying wind power could replace 20 to 30 percent of the world's oil use. However, all that wind power will do less than previously thought to curb greenhouse gases. The article adds that a lot more improvements are needed to the country's power grid before we can use all that wind power efficiently.

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The windmills proposed off Cape Cod are getting yet more ink today over a local agency's decision to challenge the state over the bundle of permits needed for the clean energy project. This time the objection is not whether the project is clean. The objection is over a state decision to allow the developers of the wind farm to seek one approval from one agency for all the various local permits needed to get the project off the ground. Once again, both sides have a point: do we really want state government preempting local authority? In this case the windmills themselves will be in federal waters, while the power lines delivering the electricity will run across communities each with their own set of zoning laws governing such projects.

The point here is the hypocrisy. Or is the word disingenuous-ness? How much local say was there when Shoreham Nuclear Power plant was built and then scuttled on Long Island in NY? Where were the local environmental commissions and planners when Spectra Energy leveled a 670 mile swath of New England wilderness to deliver natural gas from Nova Scotia to Boston? How many dozens of towns did that pipeline cross through, wiping out sensitive forest wetlands.

Forest wetlands, a.k.a. Vernal Ponds are the unsung heroes of forest woodlands, Yet entire swathes of sensitive forest wetlands and uplands were neutered to accommodate these pipelines. Just below is a Google Earth image of a section of the pipeline where it runs through Boxford, MA. Note that there is an intersection in this image, so two swathes of woodlands were cleared here. If you ever get a chance, drive through Boxford, there's a reason it's some of the priciest real estate in Massachusetts. How much say did the Boxford Conservation Commission have over this destruction?

Back to the point. In terms of sum totals, how can the environmental impact of accommodating these windmill transmission lines even compare to Spectra Energy's 670-mile right-of-way, which is maintained like a country road.

This doesn't even address the long-term benefits derived from the windmills which are a renewable resource,. The gas pipeline delivers fossil fuels. Again, the argument that local folks should have a say in regional matters is a powerful one, but you have to wonder why it's gaining such traction here when historically huge power companies have gotten what they want regardless of local objections, thanks tin large part to federal support. The feds don't appear to be getting into this Cape Wind fray.

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