I read Audra Parker’s April 29, 2010 Opposing View on energy: Fight far from over in USA Today and was amazed at her lack of facts and false statements.
First, she states there is a pending proposal for a project the same size as Cape Wind south of Nantucket Island. Well that is wonderful news but she seems to be the only one that knows about it. We would welcome another wind farm in addition to Cape Wind as it would then provide our region with more than 100% of our electrical needs and we would be the first area in the country to be powered entirely by clean renewable energy.
Next, she claims that “98 endangered right whales were spotted in the area” where the Cape Wind project will be built. The truth is those right whales were spotted in waters that include Rhode Island Sound and Vineyard Sound not Nantucket Sound where America’s first offshore wind farm will be built. And in terms of threatening additional law suits/appeals, the opponents have filed 12 and lost all over the course of the past nine years. Maybe she should use her resources instead of additional filings to something more productive and work to develop a no dumping zone in Nantucket Sound where the ferries and boaters flush thousands and thousands of gallons of untreated wastes into those very feeding grounds she claims will be destroyed by the wind farm – now that would be work truly worthy of her organization the so called Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound.
Barbara Hill
Executive Director
Clean Power Now
Clearly, this means that when they swim in Vineyard Sound, we must ELIMINATE NEW BEDFORD!
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p>Just to be safe…
…”wind generated electricity is to expensive” talking point…that the contracts with the utilities are at 22 cents a KWH, compared to the current 11 cents.
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p>I’m just not smart enough in this issue, so please educate me.
National Grid and Cape Wind are currently negotiating a long term power purchase agreement. We expect an announcement sometime in the next two weeks.
You claim Cape Wind
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p>Baloney.
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p>If by “region” you mean Cape Cod, isn’t this project able to provide power for about half of the Cape’s load? I haven’t seen the 100% number.
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p>And besides, you need 100% conventionally-powered back-up capacity (quick start gas turbine, or idling oil-fired plants) to provide generation for those days when Cape Wind is producing less than its maximum output, or not producing at all.
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p>A conventional power generation plant has a 95% to 99% “capacity factor”, while a 50% capacity factor for wind is excellent (and rare), and 30% in New England is more typical…i.e., two thirds of the time, wind isn’t producing enough electricity to meet demand.
Read it again:
đŸ˜‰ n/t
“Average expected production will be 170 megawatts which is almost 75% of the 230 megawatt average electricity demand for Cape Cod and the Islands.”
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p>Yes, other forms of energy will also be needed, to deal with peak demand, and for when the wind don’t blow. Nuclear power or natural gas come to mind — and the good news is those would only need to meet 25% of the Cape and Island’s energy demands.
They are building Cape Wind, and I say THANK GOD
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p>I am a strong supporter of what is called “renewable” electricity, but for different reasons than most. I believe it should be called “electricity without fuel”, because that is what it is.
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p>My concerns are not about the environment, but are about who some “oil people” in the world are.
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p>This nation “butters up” Saudi Arabia, as does the rest of the world, because Saudi Arabia has OIL.
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p>There seems to be a correlation between oil producing areas, and areas that favor war and reactionary social views.
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p>Something like Cape Wind gets us electricity WITHOUT BUYING FUEL. And I am strongly in favor of that.
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p>Would it be better if it was handled differently? Absolutely.
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p>I would have “Cape Wind” get founded by a corporation that is a wholly owned subsidiary of the federal government. This organization would be funded by Congress and would be told what to do by Congress.
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p>This company would hire unemployed people to build equipment for the turbines HERE, and to put it up and maintain it.
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p>But that is not how things work these days.
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p>Fine.
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p>We are MUCH better off with Cape Wind than without it.
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p>Think of members of the military who have DIED around the Persian Gulf. Because the Persian Gulf has oil, our foreign policy “experts” lie us into bloody, idiotic, undeclared wars. Doing that would still be possible, but it would be MUCH harder if there was less demand for oil because we get electricity from Cape Wind.
in New England. Every drop of oil and gas, every lump of coal, is imported. Whether we import it from Saudi Arabia, Canada, Norway, or the Republic of Texas doesn’t matter; it’s money that flows out of New England to someplace else.
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p>We can keep that money here using our own renewables, especially if we learn how to make the stuff here.
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p>Invest in ourselves.
We have nuclear power plants in New England. For better or for worse.
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p>And a lot of knowledge of how to build those plants — here in New England.
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p>You may or may not like it, but it’s a local source of energy.
that although we have nuclear power plants here (and oil, and gas plants), the uranium that powers it (like the oil and gas for those facilities) comes from elsewhere.
I thought they harvested it from the subterranean catacombs beneath MIT!
We have forests, which can be burned. Not that I recommend it as a fuel, but it is a local fuel if we want to burn something. Also, we have trash that we can (and do) burn to produce power. If you’ve ever tried to keep maples out of a yard, you know how fast forests spring up around here. And I don’t think we’ll run out of burnable trash anytime soon either.
Burning trash is a shockingly bad way to produce energy, in large part because it’s so wasteful. Recycling materials saves about 3-5 times the amount of energy incinerators produce. Not to mention the gases and toxins that are produced along side that meager energy output.
burning of wood and burning of trash.
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p>Regarding wood, there’s waste wood and pulp from other processes, ranging from furniture making in Newburyport to sawmills in Hopkinton. Furthermore, there are areas in MA which may be appropriate for the planting of fast growing woody material to be harvested and burned for electricity generation. Biomass currently accounts for about 4% of our energy nationwide, and very little of that is for motor fuel — most is industrial, some is electrical.
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p>As for trash, it’s true that recycling is better, no question. But the sad fact is, our cities and towns aren’t particularly interested in recycling more. Study after study shows that pay-as-you-throw reduces trash and increases recycling rates; only about 1/3 of MA cities and towns use it, and few of them are large. We know that expanding the bottle bill to include water, tea, and juice bottles would drive the recycling rate of containers upwards, but the lege votes it down overwhelmingly.
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p>Given that we’ve got this waste stream, and given that landfills are filling up and new ones aren’t bloody likely, we’ve got two options; ship our crap to another state, or burn it. If we burn it, we ought to scrub it the best we can, and we ought to capture that heat and generate electricity with it. Burning trash to create electricity is a heck of a lot better than burning trash and not creating electricity!
Most folks (nationally, anyway) also aren’t interested in shifting off of coal, but we push for it because it’s safer and necessary. There’s a certain irony in pushing to replace polluting power plants while throwing up our hands about toxin producing incinerators. Communities with incinerators often suffer significantly higher rates of asthma and other disorders, just as those near power plants do.
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p>There are a host of alternatives to our current methods of waste disposal. The bottle bill and PAYT are some, as well as extended producer responsibility and more statewide emphasis on recycling and waste bans. It’s not instinctive for many people/communities, but both a necessity and a viable option.
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p>Full disclosure, I currently work for an organization that helps neighborhoods clean up and prevent toxic pollution; much of our work in recent years has centered around the problems our waste disposal methods have caused.
… was going backward as far as carbon released per unit energy. (I think it was Rifkin from whom I first heard the concept of the ‘de-carbonization’.)
it’s going to produce CO2 whether you burn it or not. It would not be so good to grow trees specifically to burn, because that produces more CO2 more rapidly.
… naturally decomposing wood will both produce CO2, but that doesn’t make them equally desirable because the two scenarios have disparate effects on the concentration of carbon in the air. As you point out, the rate of atmospheric absorption of wood carbon matters and burning is the fastest of all.