Cape Wind Associates hopes to build America's first offshore wind farm: 130 windmills, spaced a third to a half of a mile apart, across a shoal seven miles off the coast of Hyannis. Embedded in the ocean floor, each turbine would tower higher than the top of the Statue of Liberty's torch, its three 161-foot blades churning at 16 RPM. The wind forest promises to provide Cape Codders, on average, with 75% of their electricity, 1.8% of the total electrical needs of New England. [...]
Soon, the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound was filing lawsuits, mounting political pressure in Boston and Washington and, to bolster its legal case and maximize public anxiety, generating volumes of doomsaying critiques: [...] The yacht-club set opened its checkbooks, donating money and stock to cover the $100,000-a-month bills for rent, three full-time salaries, television and radio time, two lobbyists and three law firms. [...]
"Traditionally, power plants were built in poor neighborhoods, so people living in nice neighborhoods weren't forced to confront the human cost of using electricity," said Greg Watson of the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative, an agency that administers Massachusetts's renewable energy trust. "But unlike coal, oil or natural gas, which you can truck, pipe or barge, Mother Nature dictates where you can locate a wind farm."
dude, you can't build a wind farm where it would mess up the view from the Kennedy Compound!
