The Coast Guard revealed this week that it has contracted for a study of the effects on marine radar from the wind farm proposed for Nantucket Sound. At the end of a radar and navigation forum Tuesday in North Falmouth, Raymond Perry, captain of the port for Sector Southeastern New England, announced the study, Coast Guard Senior Chief Richard Uronis said yesterday. The $100,000 study should be completed by December, Uronis said. It will be performed by Maryland-based Technology Service Corp.

The manufacturer may change, but without major revisions to Cape Wind's plans for a Nantucket Sound wind-energy plant, further complications in the project's regulatory review are unlikely. General Electric - identified earlier as the prospective supplier of wind turbines - appears to have dropped the 3.6-megawatt model Cape Wind had hoped to use, said Rodney Cluck, Cape Wind project manager for U.S. Minerals Management Service. "However, other companies out there are" making similar models, he said.

Visitors to Rehoboth Beach, Del., soon may be greeted by more than sand dunes, seagulls and beach umbrellas. If offshore wind advocates have their way, scores of 140-foot blades will be spinning in the ocean breeze nearly a dozen miles away, barely visible to the sunbathers. Offshore wind has taken a back seat to offshore drilling for oil and natural gas in the current energy debate.

A company that wants to build a floating wind farm off the coast of Martha's Vineyard has received a boost from the state's congressional delegation. In a letter dated June 26, the entire Massachusetts delegation asked the U.S. Minerals Management Service to review an application by Blue H USA LLC for a lease to test floating platform technology and collect data at the site for the proposed wind farm. The company announced the congressional support for its application at its U.S. headquarters in Boston yesterday.

Wind farms are springing up in Midwestern fields, along Appalachian ridgelines, and even in Texas backyards. They're everywhere, it seems, except in the windy coastal waters that lap at some of America's largest, most power-hungry cities. That's partly because the first large-scale effort to harness sea breezes in the U.S. hit resistance from an army led by the rich and famous, waging a not-on-my-beach campaign. For almost eight years the critics have stalled the project, called Cape Wind, which aims to place 130 turbines in Nantucket Sound about five miles south of Cape Cod.

A recent Energy Department report said wind power could supply 20% of the country's energy needs by 2030. Community leaders in this blue-collar town of 11,000 think they might be able to top that by building an offshore wind farm that would supply all of their town's power. That would be a first. ...There are already more than 20 offshore wind farms producing electricity in Europe but, in this country, such proposals have sparked opposition from the Great Lakes states to Long Island. Opponents, including seafront homeowners, say such installations would threaten avian and aquatic life and ruin scenic vistas. With such environmental concerns pitted against the demand for clean energy, there is not a single offshore turbine anywhere in the United States. ...Building offshore would allow developers to produce electricity closer to big cities, particularly along the East Coast. The downside is that it would also boost construction costs by 30% or more. Erecting turbines within view of pricey coastal real estate also increases the odds of a backlash since a typical utility-grade unit includes a tower nearly as tall as the Statue of Liberty and a rotor roughly as wide as a football field is long.

A local company has lost out on part of a $45 million project in the Midwest because federal tax incentives for renewable energy sources - an integral part of the economics of all renewable energy projects - are set to expire on Dec. 31. Roughly $200 million invested in two Pittsfield projects that would produce up to 50 megawatts of energy and 50 million gallons of biodiesel is also likely to be affected. Two wind turbine projects in North County that would collectively produce nearly 38 megawatts of energy could also face significant funding obstacles. ...If the extension fails, Fairbank, of EOS, said, on Jan. 1, "the industry just takes a massive blow because you just can't make the economics of these projects work without incentives."

In Berkshire County, where three paper mills have closed and a water bottling company has balked on plans for a new facility all because of the high cost of power, small and medium-size businesses are reeling. Local economic development officials are seeing the hills that they must climb to attract new businesses — and retain existing ones — grow ever steeper as Western Massachusetts Electric Company (WMECO) continues to increase its commercial rates for power. This is the setting that U.S. Sen. John F. Kerry chose for a field hearing of the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, during which local business leaders will testify on the cost of energy and the effect it is having on their ability to make a profit and maintain employment levels.

Tests on a floating platform technology for wind turbines in federal waters off the coast of Massachusetts will have to wait for the time being. U.S. Minerals Management Service director Randall Luthi announced yesterday that sixteen sites around the country have been selected where companies may compete for leases to collect data and test technology for renewable energy projects. Waters off the Bay State's coast were not among the areas selected. ..."It really has no affect on us," said Martin Reilly, spokesman for Blue H. Because Blue H submitted their proposal later in the nomination process than other applicants they could not be considered in this first round, he said.

It's now or never. The public comment period for a federal report on the wind farm Cape Wind Associates wants to build in Nantucket Sound runs out Monday. While many of the heavy hitters, including the anti-Cape Wind group, the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, will likely hold off until the last moment to submit their thoughts, the lead agency to review the project has already received more than 10,000 comments from the public.

The Interior Department’s Minerals Management Service (MMS) is extending the public comment period on the draft environmental impact statement (DEIS) for the Cape Wind Energy Project for an additional 30 days. The extension is in response to requests from the public for more time to review the document. The MMS released the Cape Wind DEIS for public review on January 11, 2008.

A key federal agency said Monday that a proposed wind farm off Cape Cod would pose no major environmental problems, giving a boost to the project that has sparked a long and bitter public fight. A draft environmental report by the Minerals Management Service said plans by developer Cape Wind Associates to build 130 windmills across 25 miles of federal waters in Nantucket Sound would have mostly 'minor' or 'negligible' effects on wildlife, ocean navigation, fishing and tourism. ...A spokesman for the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound, the leading opposition group to the wind farm, said the report underestimated the project's environmental threats. 'We're disappointed because there are still gaps in what's been put in the report,' said Glenn Wattley in a phone interview with The Associated Press. 'Statements that there is minimal environmental impact, we think are wrong. There are very important and serious impacts.'

Gordon expects the federal report to closely parallel the state's positive environmental impact report issued by Bowles. But even if the federal report is favorable toward Cape Wind, it does not mean an end to the fight, something Gordon readily admits. "I don't want to be naive about legal challenges," he said in a telephone interview yesterday while on a family vacation in Vermont. But with public opinion polls indicating majority support for the project statewide, he imagines a day when even his detractors will come around. "I'm hoping that even the opponents, diehard opponents, will hopefully have a shift in their attitude and hopefully stop trying to delay and obstruct a project that is needed and enjoys growing support," he said.

Offshore wind projects such as Cape Wind would certainly feel the effects of a delay in the renewal of PTCs, said Glenn Wattley, chief executive officer for the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound, an anti-Cape Wind group. Without support from the federal government, such as is found in European countries, the project could fail after it is constructed and the public might be left holding the bag, Wattley said. ...The credits — which provide a 2 cents per kilowatt-hour incentive for the first 10 years of wind energy projects — expire at the end of 2008, she said. The missing PTCs were not the only blow to renewable energy in the bill. To get it past the president's pen, Democrats agreed to remove a federal version of renewable energy certificates for utilities.

WASHINGTON-A key federal agency says it won't issue its report on a plan to build the nation's first offshore wind farm off Cape Cod until next year. The United States Minerals Management Service, the agency that will decide the project's fate, says its draft environmental report will be delayed due to a lengthy and complex review process. The agency had expected to issue its report by year's end.

WASHINGTON, DC, United States (UPI) -- Multiple reports and studies, especially those published in the last year, suggest the United States, specifically the East Coast, has great potential for offshore wind. The politicized debate over whether to develop wind power offshore has dragged on since the late 1990s, when the first project was proposed in Cape Cod, Mass., off the Nantucket Sound. Since then there have been several other proposals, none of which has been completely approved.

The Energy Department announced Monday it will provide $4 million to two projects in Texas and Massachusetts for research into designing and building the next generation of large wind turbine blades.

A long-awaited Department of Defense report has determined that commercial wind farms like the one proposed for Nantucket Sound could affect defense radar installations like the Pave PAWS site on the Upper Cape. The nine-page report, issued by the DOD's Missile Defense Agency, states: "Utility class wind farms could have significant impacts on radars, including the missile defense early warning radars."

Boston has the reputation of a civic naysayer, with a culture so cranky that good ideas get rejected as a perverse ritual. The political graveyard is filled with ideas that seemed so good when announced, but then suffered nasty deaths. Remember the grand plans for reviving City Hall Plaza? The new Back Bay-style neighborhood on the South Boston waterfront? The Cape Cod wind farm? One 2004 report by the CitiStates Group called the region "fractious, exclusionary, and lacking the collaborative gene." But in a new book, Harvard Law professor William Ury shows that Boston needs to learn, of all things, to say "no." In "The Power of a Positive No," which Ury calls a "prequel" to his classic "Getting to Yes," he says that rejecting ideas is not such a bad thing. The problem is that Bostonians, and many people, do not always say "no" in a constructive way.

Cape Wind's project has been rocky, with a vocal opposition expressing concerns about the effect off-shore wind turbines would have on fish and bird populations, tourism and property values and fighting the project in court. It is also the first proposed off-shore wind project in the country, raising many questions about the permitting process. But whether the situation in Massachusetts will affect Bluewater Wind's project remains to be seen. "I think it's too early to tell whether it helps or hurts, but any momentum will support additional off-shore wind projects," said Jim Lanard, a spokesman for Bluewater Wind. "We do not expect to run into the major hurdles that Cape Wind has experienced, and therefore predict that our approval process will be considerably shorter than theirs."