Cape Wind agrees to reduce cost of offshore wind

[Lightning Count]

Source: CNET

Striking a deal with the state's attorney general, the developers of Cape Wind has agreed to cut the price of electricity from the proposed offshore wind farm in Massachusetts.

Massachusetts attorney general Martha Coakley on Friday said that it had negotiated a ten percent price reduction in the price Cape Wind will charge to utility National Grid for electricity. Over the course of the proposed 15-year contract, the reduction will save $456 million, according to Coakley's office.

The deal highlights how cost remains a large barrier to building offshore wind farms in the U.S. Added construction costs means that offshore wind is roughly twice the cost of onshore wind, according to analysts. A proposal to build a pilot offshore wind farm in deep waters off Rhode Island was rejected earlier this year as being too costly by state regulators.

The state utility regulators in Massachusetts are now considering whether to approve Cape Wind, which is vying to be the first offshore wind farm in the U.S. Supporters of Cape Wind argue that it will bring more renewable energy to the U.S. and will help establish a foothold for the nascent industry.

Opponents of the controversial project argue that it will hurt property values because the turbines, which will be five miles from the coast of Cape Cod, will be visible from the shore. Detractors now appear to be increasingly seizing on cost of the project. (more)

Read more: http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-20012330-54.html?tag=cnetRiver

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I fear this will never be built due to the NIMBY's.

[Submariner]

1. Turbine noise ruffling feathers in Falmouth

It ain't working out land-side either. A neighbor is complaining about the turbine blade noise.

http://www.capecodonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100801/NEWS/8010336/-1/NEWS01

I guess nobody on the Cape is happy about these things.

[Lightning Count]

2. Selfish people.

Why won't people make minor sacrifices?

[groundloop]

3. If these projects were located in low income areas....

none of this would be an issue. Landfills, dumps, etc. etc. automatically get brought to the lowest income areas and nobody says a word.

[AlbertCat]

5. Turbine noise ruffling feathers in Falmouth

So.... they never suspected this?

Were they lied to? Was the company itself misinformed about the noise level? Do the homeowners have a case for the company, or whomever, to help them move? (In this market they could probably get a nicer home!)

Would they rather have a nuclear power plant next door? How about a coal burning plant?



Y'know, there seems to me to be no need to have turbines, or any of the other plants, right next door to anybody. Do you have to make the power a stone's throw away?


Jess askin'.

[Recursion]

7. The yuppies out on the cape and south shore have always opposed this

NIMBY mother****ers.

[AlbertCat]

4. A nuclear power plant is quieter!

and won't spoil the view. Just perhaps irradiate it.






Seriously, the huge turbines I saw driving though PA where beautiful, I thought. Everything was green. The hills were solid green and so were the growing fields. And on the ridge were these huge, slowly turning white things. They were awesome and, with the slow turning blades, dreamy. Like some CGI shot in a sifi movie.

[jwirr]

8. That is how I felt driving through the Iowa countryside. They are amazing. nt

[KamaAina]

9. Ditto on Altamont Pass

at the edge of the Bay Area.

[FailureToCommunicate]

12. Ditto in eastern Colorado. The blades were HUGE... awesome... and...quiet. (Even IF

they made some noise, few people live there. And they look like they could be dismantled and the high plains would look the same as before.)

[zenprole]

6. Swift Resolution

This project is still stuck? Tell the greedy hypocrites on Nantucket and the Vineyard that some eminent domain seizures are in the offing. Then see if they'll get out of the way.

[KamaAina]

10. If offshore wind costs twice as much as onshore wind,

why don't we just build twice as much onshore wind? :shrug:

[newscott]

11. It shouldn't belong to the private sector anyway.

It should belong to EVERYONE.

[daleo]

13. Britain seems pretty serious about offshore wind

I don't see why North America can't do the same.

[auburnblu]

14. Explains JFK keeping his boat in RI

Perhaps John Kerry is keeping his boat in RI not for tax dodging as the rethugs are saying, but because of the long-term desire to do his sailing elsewhere once Cape Wind is built.

[suston96]

15. I hate the idea of desecrating one of the most beautiful spots on the planet....

I lived on Cape Cod for 45 years and raised my children and grandchildren there, and made many trips to Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket. I have traveled to many places from sea to shining sea in this land and the Cape is up there with the prettiest.

Oh, 10 miles up wind from the Cape there has been a nuclear power plant for many years. 1972? So the Cape will be surround with obscenities from the north and from the south.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilgrim_Nuclear_Generating_Station

If they build it, I hereby curse it and the greedy dicks who are building it for only one reason - money! They don't give a shit about the ecology or foreign oil dependence. Only profits.

I hereby instruct hundreds of nor'easters to take aim and send them all to the bottom of the ocean.

[Lightning Count]

18. Wind farms are not desecration. nt

[Kringle]

16. paying 3 times normal price for electricity, is insame .nt

[Jack_DeLeon]

17. Hopefully the regulators will end up debating longer, that way Texas can be first...

with the offshore wind farm.