Cape Wind Ready To Bring First Offshore Wind Farm

An anonymous reader writes "The Cape Wind Project, a wind farm of 130 turbines to be built in Nantucket Sound off the coast of Cape Cod, can finally move forward as they have been given a green light by the US Minerals Management service. Leaders from labor, civic, and environmental groups across Massachusetts and the country hailed the release of the report, as it is the final federal environmental report needed for the long delayed and much scrutinized project to finally move forward. When completed, Cape Wind will be capable of supplying up to 420 megawatts of electricity, potentially offsetting as much as a million tons of carbon emissions and saving more than 100 million gallons of oil every year. But the environment wont be the sole beneficiary of Cape Wind. It will likely be a boon to out of work Massachusetts residents, as well, given that as many as 1,000 green jobs could be brought to the Bay State in addition to a significant supply of clean, renewable energy."

Comments

Economics in one Lesson

[brian0918]

Please, sweet jebus, read Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt. You cannot advance an economy by moving money and jobs from the private sector to the public sector. Every dollar that goes into this project through taxpayer money is a dollar not spent on food, clothing, haircuts, etc. All those local businesses will eventually see that reduced income and be forced to downsize. With government services, the most you can hope to do in the long term is break even. There is no competitive incentive to drive the service provider toward efficiency, and so public services tend to be the least efficient out there, as well as being the most prone to corruption.

Any thing can be made to seem cheap if you subsidize it with tax money. People only look at that one thing, and not at all the other things that are negatively impacted.

Re:Economics in one Lesson

[Rycross]

How would the private sector fund, build, and run a wind farm? They'd pool capital from a group of people and pay that money out to local businesses to build the wind farm, then operate it with their own employees and charge for the electricity.

How would the government do it? They'd collect taxes from citizens (in other words, pool capital from a group of people) and pay money out to local businesses to build the wind farm. It may be operated by their own employees, and they'd likely still charge for the electricity.

The only thing that changed is that the group of investors changes from a small group of people taking a risk with their own money to a large group of people collectively (via proxy) to pool their money to get a service. Government is not some magical entity that springs forth from the nether, nor is it some evil bile-dripping monstrosity. Government is simply the people working together, either literally or by proxy, to accomplish some social goal not being satisfied elsewhere.

The way the money flows through the economy doesn't change just because you call it government instead of corporation.
All those private companies and their employees are still going to be payed, and they're still going to contribute to the local economy. The only difference is that the risk and reward is socialized, rather than owned privately. The people obviously demanded it, and since no private company stepped up to the plate, they decided to handle it themselves.

Re:Economics in one Lesson

[idontgno]

Businesses have to answer to the customer EVERY DAMN DAY.

That's the most persistent illusion about business responsibilities in this sad sad world, and probably the primary source of dissonance between business theory and practice.

Large businesses have to answer to the shareholder. Every quarter. And they have to pacify, mislead, or (if large and predatory enough) ignore the customer. Continually. While spending a relative (and relatively effective) pittance on PR and marketing, to cover the fact that the customer is the least important participant in the process.

In this latter fact, they share uncomfortable resemblance to the "public sector."

Re:Economics in one Lesson

[Kenrod]

Most people exchange what they produce for money, which is almost universally exchangeable for something else of value without carrying the risk of a non-cash type of asset. The parent's point is that in a free market people exchange their work for something of value which is owned and controlled by them. People care more about that which they own than that which they do not own.

And most Fortune 500 companies do just fine in good times and bad. If you are thinking of that the banks have been mis-managed lately, think again. The banks adapted high-risk, high-return strategies because there was an implicit guarantee that the Feds would bail them out. Guess what? The Feds bailed them out. The banks would likely not have engaged in such risky behavior without the meddling of the Federal government through institutions like Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, and insipidly poor oversight by the SEC and Congress.

Re:In related news...

[Crazy Man on Fire]

What you forgot to mention is the wind farm you're talking about was built over 30 years ago and uses outdated technology. The multitude of smaller turbines turn faster and are much more dangerous to birds than today's larger, more efficient, and slower turning turbines. In fact, the older turbines are being slowly replaced with newer ones to produce more electricity for less money while also killing fewer birds.

From the Wikipedia article you linked:

Considered largely obsolete, these numerous small turbines are being gradually replaced with much larger and more cost-effective units. The small turbines are dangerous to various raptors that hunt California Ground Squirrels in the area. 1300 raptors are killed annually. Among them are 70 golden eagles that are federally protected. In total, 4700 birds are killed annually.[2] The larger units turn more slowly and, being elevated higher, are less hazardous to the local wildlife.

Re:They Still Need to Employ People To Build/Maint

[Rei]

The biggest problem with this argument is that it's completely inaccurate. Its not being paid for with taxpayer money... now. It's being paid for with taxpayer money a couple years from now, plus a couple years worth of interest. The extra things that people are buying with their salaries from this are not coming at the cost to someone else *now*.

That may seem like a trivial distinction, but if that raises consumer confidence and restores the US (and world) economy even just a little bit sooner, then it's absolutely a good thing. Plus, unlike the other oft cited case of this (war spending), we actually get something out of it other than craters and rubble -- in this case, wind turbines.