Danish developer pushes Massachusetts wind power

BOSTON — A Danish wind farm developer yesterday encouraged Massachusetts legislators to support off-shore wind power, saying concerns about navigation, the view and the environment could be resolved.

Jens Larsen, the director of the Copenhagen Environment and Energy Office and the project manager of Denmark's Middelgrunden wind farm, said it also had to overcome public opposition before it was accepted and built in 2001.

"You know NIMBY, not in my backyard?" Larsen asked, to laughter from the group of 25 legislators and aides at the Statehouse.

Larsen, on a speaking tour of the Northeast sponsored by Greenpeace, will be part of a panel discussion on controversies surrounding wind power from 7-8 p.m. tomorrow at Cape Cod Community College.

The panel includes Jack Clarke, the director of public policy and government relations for the Massachusetts Audubon Society, and Richard Elrick, a Nantucket Sound ferry boat captain for 25 years and the president of Clean Power Now. The panel will meet in the college's Science Building, Lecture Hall A. Parking is in lots 6 and 7.

Larsen literally gave Cape Wind a thumbs up when he was asked about the project after his talk in the House Members' Lounge. But he wasn't surprised that Cape Wind's proposal to build 130 wind turbines in Nantucket Sound was controversial. It is currently under federal review.

"If you ask people, you put them in front of the beautiful sea, and you ask them, 'Do you want this one, or do you want turbines?' If they don't have a feeling of the alternative, that is coal power, nuclear power or something, they would of course say, 'I want no turbines,'" Larsen said. "That is not the question here. It is what do you want to choose?"

Larsen said the 20-turbine project off Copenhagen has not had radar, navigation, visual, environmental or fishing problems, as many predicted.
 
He said computer programs that interpret radar were adjusted to account for the turbines. Radar problems in the United Kingdom led the Federal Aviation Administration to halt work on new wind turbines this summer until the effects could be studied.

After his visit to the Cape on Wednesday, Larsen will head to Long Island to speak about wind power.

Charles Vinick, the chief executive officer of the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound, said in an interview that the Middelgrunden area was vastly different than Nantucket Sound. Middelgrunden was used as a dump site for such materials as heavy metals until 1980, according to Middelgrunden's own Web site.

"I think what's important to really point out is this is not Denmark," Vinick said. "The issue in Nantucket Sound is not an issue of should there be offshore alternative energy or wind projects. It's that the specific site this developer has chosen on Horseshoe Shoal presents a set of risks to the community and Nantucket Sound that is really unique to that site."

Rep. Matthew Patrick, D-Falmouth, who invited legislators to hear Larsen speak, said the Denmark experience offered a lesson to Massachusetts.

"It's been done in other places, and it works," Patrick said. "They had their problems in permitting it, too. There was a lot of skepticism. Now, it's pretty much evaporated. The apprehensiveness has evaporated."