In his recent letter ("Wolf showed courage in supporting Cape Wind"), Elrick misrepresents the FAA's current position on Cape Wind and totally ignores the safety concerns of all three local airports. In fact, in a January 2008 letter to Rep. William Delahunt, the FAA cited a "presumed hazard determination" for Cape Wind due to concerns for local air traffic and radar interference to air traffic control systems.

There is a face-off brewing between two federal agencies over the fate of birds in Nantucket Sound, centering on the Cape Wind energy project. At issue is whether the U.S. Minerals Management Service defers to the cautionary advice of its expert peer, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, or will it ramrod the Cape Wind project forward, driven by political considerations? ...In the apparent hurry to permit the Cape Wind project this year, Minerals Management seems poised to ignore the Fish & Wildlife Service. Citizen action is needed to get the message across to Minerals Management: "Proceed with caution. Do not play 'wind turbine Russian Roulette' with endangered species. Move Cape Wind elsewhere, out of harm's way!"

Often, the visual impact of 130 wind turbines as tall as the Statue of Liberty in the middle of Nantucket Sound is presented as a clash of aesthetic sensitivity vs. alternative energy reality. But the National Trust for Historic Preservation has reminded the U.S. Minerals Management Service that real laws and mandates exist, and it says MMS is not going by the book in its evaluation of the Cape Wind project. ...Nobody, the National Trust included, expects that the views at the Kennedy Compound or the Nantucket historic downtown will remain forever unaltered. But Congress has decreed that all efforts must be made to preserve the integrity of historic sites, and the MMS must comply.

But here in Gloucester, it seems that government is "by the developer, for the developer." The City Council has cast a unanimous vote to grant a special permit for a private-use wind turbine that Mac Bell plans to install on the banks of the Annisquam River, rising 240 feet into the air and only 315 feet from a playground. Sixty neighbors who live in the immediate vicinity of the proposed turbine site signed a petition opposing it. Ward 3 Councilor Steven Curcuru dismissed this number as "insignificant."

Following an overwhelming display of project opposition at the March public hearings, Cape Wind is now attempting to spin a batch of seriously critical comments into good news. Cape Wind's Mark Rodgers recently claimed that the vast majority of the public comments supported the project. But an MMS spokesperson has since confirmed that Cape Wind's claim is merely "their interpretation" of the comments available for review on the MMS Web site. "If a respondent replied that he or she ‘favored the project,' that has little use to us for analytical purposes," wrote Drew Malcomb, MMS chief of public affairs. "If the respondent replied that additional information or data exists on commercial-fishing runs, for example, that would be of great interest to us and useful as we develop our final EIS."

The state ocean management bill, a compromise hammered out by a conference committee last week and approved by the House and Senate this week, is a mix of good and bad. On the positive side, the compromise scuttles House-passed legislation that would have opened Buzzards Bay and other state ocean sanctuaries to unlimited renewable energy development. If Gov. Deval Patrick signs the new bill, the state would only allow "appropriate scaled" projects in ocean sanctuaries. Of course, "appropriate-scaled" still needs to be defined. ... Given the need for renewable energy, the bill is a good compromise, and state Sen. Robert O'Leary, D-Barnstable, should be commended for his role in securing the positive aspects of the legislation. ...At the same time, Patrick could make the bill even better.

These days we read and hear more and more about the exponential increases in renewable energy, particularly large wind farms such as those sprouting up on Colorado's front range and eastern plains. Colorado's Amendment 37 requires the state's largest utility companies to produce 10 percent of their energy from renewable sources by 2015. A subsequent legislative action doubled that to 20 percent by 2020. ...This is all great news, right? Not if you are an independent grid system operator, and not if you're expecting all of this large scale wind power to help reduce global warming carbon emissions. Wind power is by nature a notoriously intermittent source of power. Wind simply doesn't blow steadily all of the time. Therefore, the power output of all large scale wind farms goes up and down dramatically throughout the day, regardless of the demand for power on the grid. ...Without energy diversity, the more renewable power we mandate, the more unreliable the grid will become. The laws of physics simply can't be amended.

But a new proposal for a deep-water, off-shore wind farm answers all the skeptics' objections and, in addition to its environmental benefits, could be an economic boon to southeastern Massachusetts. Blue H USA LLC has recently installed the world's first deep-water windmill off the coast of Italy and now wants to bring that technology to the South Coast, which has been referred to as the Saudi Arabia of wind energy because of its dependable North Atlantic winds. Rather than fight critics, Blue H has embraced their concerns and worked to satisfy them, maximizing the positives of the technology while minimizing the perceived negatives. The solution? Locate the turbines out to sea on floating - but stabilized - platforms similar to oil rigs, far away from any people or animals.

The [New England] region's power system has had a long history of dependability, but electricity costs have been an issue for businesses and residents for decades. As the region plans ahead, New England's policymakers face a series of decisions that will have an abiding impact on our energy future. ...Economic, reliability and environmental goals are not always perfectly aligned when it comes to electricity generation and transmission. Whatever path policymakers choose to take will require trade-offs. How New England officials balance these sometimes conflicting goals will demonstrate our priorities, impact the regional economy and determine which objectives we can realistically achieve.

Wind energy opponents often rattle off a litany of objections: Windmills aren't aesthetically pleasing (a notion many dispute); they pose a danger to migrating birds; they're noisy; they're inefficient and expensive. But a new proposal for a deep-water, off-shore wind farm answers all the skeptics' objections and, in addition to its environmental benefits, could be an economic boon to Fall River. Blue H USA LLC has recently installed the world's first deep-water windmill off the coast of Italy and now wants to bring that technology to the SouthCoast ...It turns out answering the critics is actually a benefit to the technology, as 90 percent of the potential energy from wind is well offshore in deep water.

The Zoning Board of Appeals made some important decisions last month (April 17th) based on verbal assurances from the developers. ...The skyline of our city is at stake, the protection of neighbors from catastrophe and the potential of wind energy to be a key part of the future economy of our city. Both our architectural legacy and wind energy are among the most important assets that we own as a city and that we share with each other. They are, in a sense, like our commons. We should have proof, before we give them away, that they will be used to their best advantage.

Royal Dutch Shell took a lot of flak when it pulled out of the huge "London Array" offshore wind farm in the U.K. last week. The prevailing explanation for the withdrawal? Higher oil prices make old-fashioned energy a more attractive investment than still-immature renewable energy. Perhaps there's a less-conspiratorial explanation. Maybe offshore wind power just isn't up to snuff yet. Denmark's Vestas, the world's biggest wind-turbine maker, today said Europe should curb its enthusiasm for massive offshore wind farms, and focus on regular onshore wind power.

The Environmental Policy Act signed into law in 2005 called upon the secretary of the interior to promulgate regulations by May 5, 2006 to site offshore renewable energy projects. And still there is no regulatory process under which the Cape Wind precedent-setting proposal for alternative use of the submerged public land, Nantucket Sound, is being reviewed. Therefore, the reviewing agencies are incapable of providing our/their informed consent regarding the Cape Wind application ...The Cape Wind project is being reviewed within the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). ...Absent standards and rules that will apply to the Cape Wind permit review, the public and agencies are denied meaningful participation in this NEPA process.

I think the first letter written by state Division of Marine Fisheries director Paul Diodati regarding Cape Wind, dated Feb. 20, that recaps many of the fishing industry's concerns, should be given more weight than the second version. I think observation of the president of Massachusetts Fishermen's Partnership, Ed Barrett, regarding the long arm of Deval is spot-on, as Patrick has demonstrated a propensity to change laws if necessary to help his friends overcome obstacles. Deval raised eyebrows when he recommended changes to Chapter 91 to accommodate Cape Wind.

There is nothing "laughable" about the biological significance of avian mortalities by wind turbines. As Donald Michael Fry, Ph.D., director of pesticides and birds program of the American Bird Conservancy testified to Chairwoman Bordello and members of the House Subcommittee on Fisheries, Wildlife and Oceans during the Oversight Hearing "Gone with the Wind: Impacts of Wind Turbines on Birds and Bats" on May 1, 2007: "While the actual number of birds killed by wind turbines is unknown, estimates have been made in the range of 30,000 to 60,000 per year at the current level of wind development."

The United South and Eastern Tribes, an organization of 25 federally recognized Indian tribes in 12 states, has joined with the Wampanoag of Gay Head (Aquinnah) in their opposition to the wind factory on Nantucket Sound. The board of directors of the organization called upon the U.S. Minerals Management Service, which is reviewing the Cape Wind application, to "respect the Traditional, Cultural, Spiritual and Religious beliefs of the Wampanoag People and preserve the spiritual integrity and sanctity of the eastern horizon, vista and horizon viewshed; and to deny the permitting of such a devastatingly and destructive experiment, which will adversely affect and destroy the essence of tranquility, sanctity and spirituality of this sacred place for all time."

One litre of solid or liquid fossil fuel contains tens of thousands of times the energy of one litre of wind-turbine air moving at 20 knots, the speed needed for viable large wind turbines. A 2000mw steam station using compacted fossil fuel can be housed in a single building. Large turbines in suitable wind can generate about 10mw per sq km of land, so it needs 200 sq km to replace that coal station if wind blew continuously, but more to compensate for periods when some turbines are becalmed. ...The above large magnitudes should be borne in mind. Solar energy cannot be harvested in small structures, so they will always be highly visible.

I respectfully disagree with Councilor George's conclusions regarding the Emerson Avenue wind turbine project and the Gloucester Zoning Ordinance criteria. First, Section 5.22.3(c) clearly states that the location must minimize "adverse visual" impacts. The City Council certainly had visual impacts in mind, or they would not have approved including the word "visual." Additionally, the applicant has not met all the criteria, because they are unable to meet the setback requirements. They are seeking an exception to the current law. If they truly met all the criteria, a waiver would not be necessary.

The recent Planning Board vote against recommending a citizens petition (Article 29) permitting the erection of wind turbines in Harvard was a correct decision. It was clear that the board was not against wind turbines, but that any bylaw be developed with consideration to existing bylaws, abutters rights, impact on the town and strike a balance between a property owner's rights and all other parties. The Planning Board is in the best position to accomplish this after thorough research, input from the entire community and consistency with our current bylaws.

While it is correct that wind, wave and other renewable energy can save on CO2 emissions synchronizing demand and output to protect the grid comes at a heavy price. In a report by David White, Reduction in Carbon Dioxide Emissions: Estimating the Potential Contribution from Wind-Power, commissioned by the Renewable Energy Foundation, December 2004, White found that, "Fossil-fuelled capacity operating as reserve and backup is required to accompany wind generation and stabilize supplies to the consumer. That capacity is placed under particular strains when working in this supporting role because it is being used to balance a reasonably predictable but fluctuating demand with a variable and largely unpredictable output from wind turbines. "Consequently, operating fossil capacity in this mode generates more CO2 per kWh generated than if operating normally."