Offshore wind power is coming to the United States.
Two East Coast projects are currently in development, though one has been stymied by strong opposition from local residents who don't want their ocean views spoiled.
The two projects, one south of Long Island, in New York, and one in Massachusetts' Nantucket Sound, are currently moving through the complicated process of securing permits from various agencies, and both could be turning out juice in a few years. Offshore wind farms -- row after row of massive wind turbines sprouting from the sea miles from land -- have become a relatively common source of commercial electrical power in Europe, but these would be the first in this country.
The Cape Wind project, off Cape Cod in Nantucket Sound, filed its first proposal in November 2001 with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which has jurisdiction over construction projects more than three miles from shore. Mark Rodgers, a spokesman for Cape Wind Associates, said the Corps issued a draft environmental impact report last November that favored the wind farm, and is currently evaluating the more than 5,000 public comments that were submitted during the process.
Other state and federal agencies must sign off on the project, and he hopes to complete the entire permitting process and begin construction by late 2006. It could be up and running by 2008.
The $900 million project involves 130 turbines, each standing 247 feet from the water's surface to the center of the blades. It is expected to produce as much as 454 megawatts of electricity -- almost double the 230 megawatts required by people in the Cape Cod region. The nearest land would be about five miles away.
A smaller wind farm has been proposed by the Long Island Power Authority, or LIPA, which submitted its first application to the Army Corps of Engineers in April. The 40 turbines, about four miles offshore, could generate up to 140 megawatts, enough to provide power for 44,000 Long Island homes, according to Dan Zaweski, LIPA's director of energy efficiency and distributed-generation programs. He said that coal and nuclear power plants typically generate 500 megawatts, and many put out upward of 1,000 megawatts.
Though the $300 million LIPA wind farm is years behind Cape Wind in the permitting process, Zaweski said it is moving faster and he expects the turbines to be in operation by late 2008.
According to the American Wind Energy Association, U.S. wind farms were generating 6,740 megawatts at the end of 2004, enough to serve 1.6 million homes. And as more wind plants are installed, the trade group estimates that wind could be producing 100,000 megawatts of power by 2020, or 6 percent of the country's total energy needs.
Much of that potential wind power could come from offshore plants. The Department of Energy estimates there is as much as 900,000 megawatts of potential wind power off the coasts of the United States.
Though the wide-open Plains states still have plenty of area for wind farms, many major urban areas, especially on the East Coast, do not. LIPA's Zaweski said the power company began considering marine wind farms for a simple reason: "There really isn't any space on Long Island to build one." The wind also tends to be more reliable at sea than it does on land.
The LIPA project has received strong support from area environmental groups. Adrienne Esposito, the executive director of Citizens Campaign for the Environment, said that wind power is "our best hope for the future. It's clean and it's safe."
By contrast, Cape Wind has come under fire from Cape Cod residents. Audra Parker, the assistant director of Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound, said the windmills would pose a threat to birds and marine mammals, and the project could affect the region's economy.
She said that about half the fish that commercial fisherman catch in Nantucket Sound come from the area where Cape Wind wants to install windmills. In addition, she said that a commercial wind farm would mar the pristine ocean views, dragging down both tourism and local property values. She cited a study conducted by The Beacon Hill Institute that concluded that total property values in the area would fall by $1.35 billion. "If you have a direct view, the value of your home would go down," she said. The wind farm "would be highly visible. It would change the tranquility of the horizon markedly."
The Alliance's supporters include noted environmentalist Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose family's fabled compound in Hyannis Port would likely have a view of the windmills.
However, Cape Wind's Rodgers downplayed the visual impact of the turbines. "If you look at the horizon, they would only appear about a half-inch tall," he said. Rodgers said "wealthy homeowners and yachters," who don't want to see windmills from their living rooms, back the alliance.
Ingrid Kelley, a project manager with the nonprofit research group Energy Center of Wisconsin, said that aesthetics are a hot-button issue when it comes to wind power. "Because it is new and weird-looking, a lot of people have a hard time accepting them in the landscape."
Citizens Campaign for the Environment's Esposito said her group weighed the aesthetic concerns as well, but felt that the environmental benefits of a sustainable energy source far outweighed the impact that offshore windmills would have on people's views from the beach. "We care about the aesthetic concerns, but we care a little bit more about environmental concerns."
