Lease roof-top sites with RE tax incentives..or energy swap to owners..
Support our existing economy..

http://www.ratheon.com/newsroom/feature/rtn08_epa_green

Sure, we’re about to brown out and slip behind the rest of the world in terms of our essential infrastructure — our power grid, our transportatation systems are aging and need to be refreshed and expanded. What will the future say of our efforts to modernize and expand?

The wind farm may not make a twenty perfect difference as it has in Denmark, but how to get to 20 without starting with 1? Even half a percent?

http://www.stanford.edu/group/efmh/winds/global_winds.html

It makes me sick to see the world passing us wrt to renewable technology and deployment. The world has woken up about global warming. When will the majority of sheltered couch potato Americans?

See this from the US Dept of Energy on electrical production from petroleum and lilquid fuels… Cape Wind is baing untruthful when they advertise they will lessen our dependence on foreign oil. What else are they being untruthful about?

http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/aeo/index.html Pull down the 4th pdf – “Electricity Forecast”. Also please see: http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/aeo/gas.html

While we’re on the subject, I am vehemently opposed to the current craze for ethanol based on corn, too. Uses almost as much in fossil fuel as it saves; is bad for our already monocultural agribusiness at all levels (other crops, food for animals and humans, tax incentives for the wrong producers, etc.). There are many other crops and weeds that can be adapted to ethanol with much more efficiency.

But we should start by reining in our extreme waste of resources. Indeed, if we don’t, we can hardly influence developing nations’ use of hydrocarbon fuels and rampant pollution.

Cape Wind on the other hand, has gone to great lenghts to study the bird issue. They have paid to put a platform on Horse Shoe Shoals with two types of radar over a number of months. I went out there to see it. They have counted every bird that flew through the area for several months and then extended the study time for many more months. It’s manned by biologists one of whom even powered out to see water birds flying through and landing in the area.

In short the study found that there aren’t that many birds that fly through the area in the course of a year. Massachusetts Audabon Society approved of the project based on the findings of the study. They also insisted that they continue monitoring birds over a longer period of time before and after they wind farm is built. Cape Wind agreed to letting them do that and provided funding for the long term monitoring. For that the opponents refer to Mass Audobon as “on the take” or that their judgment will be clouded because the took money from Cape Wind to conduct the study.

Anyone who knows the people at Mass. Audobon, knows that they will not hesitate at all to take action if they find the project detrimental to large populations of birds. Mass Audobon and others say that global warming kills more birds than wind farms do so they want to be as practical about renewable energy as they can.

Why not other forms of renewable energy that don’t threaten birds? Wind power is the most technologically advanced form of renewable energy and it is the least expensive by far. Solar powered electricity from photovoltaic panels cost upwards of 30 cents per kWh. Wind is about 3 to 5 cents per kWh. That’s not to say that we shouldn’t do both but for utility sized power plants wind turbines are the only thing that can compete.