AAEA testified at the Cape Wind Project in 2004 and three years later the project is still in jeopardy. The project developers told us at that time they could hold out maybe 2 more years. Well it has been 3 years and they are still fighting for a project that should have been a cake walk. We have lost our backbone in America and cannot even develop wind projects that many once touted as the perfect energy technologies to satisfy our energy needs. Massachusetts is hurting America's 'can do' image by allowing NIMBY elitists to slow or stop this valuable project.
Others are taking the innovation away from us just as France did with nuclear power. Talisman Energy Inc, a Canadian oil and gas company has partnered with the utility Scottish & Southern Energy PLC to proceed with plans to build a 200 turbine wind farm in the North Sea. It would provide enough electricity for one million people, or a fifth of Scotland's population. The only real obstacle is cost. The deeper the water and the longer the distance to land, the more a wind project's installed capacity will cost. The Scottish project will cost about $90 million, or $9 per megawatt compared to $1.5 million per MW for a gas-fired power plant. Yet Cape Wind in Nantucket Sound is planned to have a similar distance to shore as the Scottish project. The water depth is not 150 feet like the Scottish project. [Comparison of planned offshore wind farms] (The Wall Street Journal)
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