Government Approves First US Offshore Wind Farm

RobotRunAmok writes "In a groundbreaking decision that some say will usher in a new era of clean energy, US Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said today he was approving the nation's first offshore wind farm, the controversial Cape Wind project off of Cape Cod. The project has undergone years of environmental review and political maneuvering, including opposition from the late Senator Edward M. Kennedy, whose home overlooks Nantucket Sound, and from Wampanoag Indian tribes who complained that the 130 turbines, which would stand more than 400 feet above the ocean surface, would disturb spiritual sun greetings and possibly ancestral artifacts and burial grounds on the seabed. But George Bachrach, president of the Environmental League of Massachusetts, hailed the decision, saying it was 'a critical step toward ending our reliance on foreign oil and achieving energy independence.'"

Comments

Greed Jobs?

[ElBorba]

Imagine all the money! Awesome that future technologies like wind energy only cost gobs more than all those technologies of the past. Even the article suggests that cost/kwh will go up for consumers. These are being built on subsidized contracts, of course, because the only thing that would make THIS project (not all wind projects) doable is massive cash injections from the feds. Still, with the low cost of "fossil" fuel and the billions of other products (you can't make plastics out of air power) that rely on oil, there is no way that wind and oil even exist in the same product category. Salazar's claim that this will contribute to "America's energy independence" is an empty claim since the energy that is generated by these windfarms will replace exactly zero percent of imported energy! Also, the article lauds this as a green jobs boon which, of course, has been repeatedly disproven a-la Spain's booming "Green/d" economy.