Obama Administration Approves First Ever Off-Shore Wind Farm for USA

April 28th, 2010 by Susan Kraemer

On a day when further down the East coast lawmakers actually ponder setting fire to an uncontained deep-sea oil spill in the Gulf, the Obama administration just approved the first off-shore wind farm ever for the USA. After nine years of delays and legal battles using part of the $1 billion price tag to build it, the Cape Wind project off the coast of Nantucket has been given the go-ahead.

The potential of off-shore wind energy is staggering: a colossal 330 Gigawatts of potential wind power lies off the Atlantic Coast, or almost 200% of the total amount (185 Gigawatts) needed to supply nine states from Massachusetts to North Carolina.

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Off-shore wind power off even just the (polled) No-NIMBY states of New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia could take one third of the US population off the fossil grid. Today we break ground on the beginning of US off-shore wind power.

The Cape Wind project will supply 75% of the electricity demand for Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket Island. Rated at an average of 183 MW, 130 3.6 MW turbines with 440 foot long blades will be sited in a grid across 25 square miles of Nantucket Sound in Federal waters that lie almost out of sight of residents.

Wind power is clean energy that will never endanger wildlife as the oil spill does now; a mere 20 miles off environmentally sensitive coastlines further down Atlantic coasts. We see today some of the real ecological damage inflicted by dirty energy.

The alternative to dirty energy is clean energy. A clean energy superhighway of 160,000 5 MW off-shore wind turbines spaced about a mile apart down the coast could supply 100% of the electricity needs of five states and a third of the US population.

Image: European wind installer Frogdog*

Source: Department of the Interior

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Tags: Cape Wind, first, Nantucket, NIMBY, Obama Administration, off-shore wind, Salazar, US

About the Author

Susan Kraemer writes at CleanTechnica, CSP-Today, PV-Insider , SmartGridUpdate, and GreenProphet. She has also been published at Ecoseed, NRDC OnEarth, MatterNetwork, Celsius, EnergyNow, and Scientific American. As a former serial entrepreneur in product design, Susan brings an innovator's perspective on inventing a carbon-constrained civilization: If necessity is the mother of invention, solving climate change is the mother of all necessities! As a lover of history and sci-fi, she enjoys chronicling the strange future we are creating in these interesting times. Follow Susan on Twitter @dotcommodity.

Christof

Paul,

Not against wind. I’m simply pointing out that even as we move to wind and solar and geothermal that we keep in mind that ALL human activity has an environmental impact. Ideally, we should always be doing everything we can to ensure that this negative environmental impact is as small as possible. We can’t do that properly if those of us who recognize the basic fact of human impact no matter what we do are shouted down by cheerleaders who shout:

“Energy/Environmental Utopia — we’re already there, stop complaining!”

Stay critical — and don’t stop thinking, while supporting the best possible solutions we can, and acknowledging that we can always, always, always improve upon these solutions.
Stephanie Vollick

Can we ‘start’ introducing some alternative energy without people panicking that we going to suffer like the inhabitants of a third world country. OBVIOUSLY we need to use coal as a baseload or as a ‘suppliment’ to clean energy EVENTUALLY. For now, it is our baseload power.

Can we NOT suppliment the dirty rotten toxic coal with clean energy alternatives? I mean, what to we have to lose from ACTUALLY supplying our own energy needs/comsumption with our own people, our own economy, our own product?

I can guarantee that clean energy creates more jobs than dirty coal plants—and are a lot safer for the MAJORITY of our citizens, not just those who have to look at a turbine (NIMBY’s) while living lakefront.

The nimby’s of powerlines running through their backyard have come to not even see these wires, as we have all become so used to seeing them that we dont recognize them upon immediate site.

Positivity and a little mind shift into the future of our wellness as a country as a feasable alternative to polluting coal can take us far—-we could even catch up with all of the other countries in the world that are blowing us away with welcoming these technologies.
Mary Genoud

Off-Shore wind is great, however, Europeans would never put off-shore turbines in high recreational-tourist areas.

There are a zillion renewable techs, waste from Boston could provide more energy than wind in this area.
- Thomas
  
  Sure they would, and they do; just look at Copenhagen with its intentionally visible (and pretty) off-shore windmills. To most Danes, modern windmills elegantly complement both rural and urban landscapes in Denmark. I’d love a windmill in my back yard, not only for the clean energy that it provides but also for its aesthetic value.
http://cleantechnica.com/author/susan Susan Kraemer

@Roger: But coal also was only able to supply a colossal 50% of US energy (now 43%) with the advent of the railroads to move it to the power stations in towns back then.

Like coal power needed something to make it viable, wind power needs something to make it viable.

In this case, (not railroads but) storage & transmission and there’s options for developing both now underway by the DOE, that I’ve covered previously – here’s some:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=here-is-the-21st-century-storage-an-2010-03

http://cleantechnica.com/2009/10/05/why-wind-storage-worth-trillions/

http://cleantechnica.com/2009/11/26/california-gets-smart-grid-funds-to-bottle-wind/

and a really revolutionary idea:

http://greenlivingideas.com/topics/alternative-energy/vinalhaven-maine-pioneers-distributed-storage
Roger L

Susan:

Be careful of the claims that Wind power can supply, “a colossal 330 Gigawatts of potential lies” off the East Coast. While technically the wind potential exists (there is no argument there), the electrical design of current wind turbines does not allow them to effectively replace large baseline power plants. Current wind turbine designs cannot provide voltage and/or frequency control of the grid as does hydro, nuclear, gas, oil or coal generated power. Voltage and frequency control is necessary in todays’ modern (or not so modern) grid. As configured today Wind power is a follow power source (i.e, you need the grid to start it up). Cost structures are expensive for off shore wind in comparison to other sources or even on shore wind power. Drastic changes in infrastructure will also be necessary (not impossible to accomplish) to harness the 330gigawatts of wind, just not sure the public is up to paying the increase in associated power costs (which will happen). As to the bird issue some of us in wind just consider it natural selection, the stupid birds run into the turbines the smart ones do not.
- Holkrum
  
  Birds did not evolve with huge blades turning in the air and do not get hit by stupidity, as some ignorant folks would believe. Most get hit during migration (spring and fall), because they migrate at night. Most turbines are also placed along migratory routes which cause a devastating amount of raptor deaths. Another concern is the bat population, which has been affected heavily.
  - Anonymous
    
    Birds also did not involve in a world with cars, buildings and house cats which kill many, many, many times more birds than wind mills.
    
    “Most turbines are also placed along migratory routes which cause a devastating amount of raptor deaths.”
    
    Two incorrect statement here.
    
    Migratory routes are avoided as much as possible and where there is a problem turbines are generally shut down when birds are endangered.
    
    Additionally the raptor problem came largely from the first wind farm at Altamont Pass. Those turbines were lower to the ground, rotated much faster, and used grid towers rather than monopoles.
    
    Raptors would perch on the tower cross bars and then launch themselves toward ground rodents and through the fast-spinning blades.
    
    Bats, the work-around here is twofold.
    
    First, at a couple of areas where bats gather to mate the turbines are shut down during that one to two week span.
    
    Second, almost all of the non-mating deaths occur at low wind speeds when insects are able to fly and bats pursue them. Turning off the turbines during those low wind evenings doesn’t curtail much power, so when there’s only a small breeze the turbines are parked.
    
    Coal kills far more birds than wind.
Paul

That’s got to be the lamest excuse I have EVER heard against Wind turbines… killing birds.

As if these’s actually a shortage of birds, they are often a pest and are frequently population controlled.(witness the increasing frequency of potentially fatal aircraft bird strikes)

BTW how would you ‘properly’ construct an off-shore wind farm to counter-act bird strikes?? What an ignorant comment!

It’s inbred attitudes (i.e. Nit pickingly Negative) that have made the US a laggard in off shore wind!
H.T. Schmerdtz

Gulf Coast, Susan.

[SK: thanks ed]
Christof

This is good news. To the NIMBIES: Air pollution in the form of toxic mercury, particulate matter, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, etc. which results from the burning of fossil fuels foul your coastal views, not to mention your (and my) lungs.

That said, let’s not go completely overboard on renewables. I’m an ardent supporter of renewables, but I don’t want to see completely uncritical thinking on renewables. This potentially precludes us, for instance, from always working to ensure that renewables are in fact as environmentally friendly as they can possibly be.

Although this impact is overstated, wind farms can take a toll on bird life, especially if not properly constructed. Solar panel production produces toxins, and the solar industry still has no recycling plan for the millions of panels going up around the U.S. in a blossoming solar revolution (which will soon see panels on our own home’s roof!)

Greenies (I am one), please don’t only cheer-lead, but remain critical too — so that we can ensure that the methods we use to produce our energy are in fact truly green.
- http://cleantechnica.com/author/susan Susan Kraemer
  
  Wind energy IS truly green. Not like skyscrapers. So we should obviously pull down our cities if we are so worried about bird-kill.
  
  The toll on birds from skyscrapers and cats far exceeds the toll from turbines. Out of 100,000 birds killed by all anthropogenic (human) causes like buildings, cats, turbines etc, only 3 out of 100,000 were killed by turbines. Three. Out of 100,000.
  
  http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=wind-turbines-dont-kill-birds-coal-2009-10
  
  “A study from the National Research Council last year tallied bird kills from total anthropogenic bird deaths, and found collisions with wind turbines comprised a minute fraction of human interaction bird deaths. Only 3 out of 100,000 anthropogenic bird deaths were from turbines.”