Is Hot Air Killing Wind Power?

By Justin Rohrlich The executive director of Massachusetts' Clean Power Now says we need to stop talking and start doing. The US Interior Department released a preliminary assessment yesterday which found little expected environmental impact from 354,000 proposed acres of wind farms off the coast of New Jersey, 139,000 acres off of Virginia, 103,000 acres off Delaware, and 80,000 in the waters off of Maryland. Is this good news for turbine manufacturers such as General Electric GE, Thomas & Betts TNB, and Siemens SI? Perhaps. But not for quite a while. “This starts the public comment phase,” explains Barbara Hill, executive director of Hyannis, Massachusetts-based Clean Power Now. “It's a good step; certainly Secretary Salazar has moved the conversation on wind forward. Still, the caveat for me is there are no turbines in the water yet.” (To read Gary Kaltbaum's thoughts on the worrisome marketplace, click here.) Hill says “we can have conferences, workshops, and memorandums until the cows come home,” though “the fact remains that we're still looking for surety in the regulatory process -- the investment community needs that consistency before it will commit to wind.” It's an issue that extends far beyond the United States. Stefan Batzli of Switzerland's Agency for Renewable Energy and Efficiency believes wind investment will happen only when the “rules become clearer.” “Politicians should make more resources available for the promotion of renewable energy,” he recently told a reporter. “Then the procedure to obtain authorisation will be simplified. We'll need to wait two to three years before the domestic market becomes attractive.” In Hungary, the “lack of ambition and all the legislative uncertainty and delays are making investors much more cautious,” said Pierre Tardieu, regulatory affairs advisor for the European Wind Energy Association. Romania is also struggling under the weight of its own bureaucracy. (To read Todd Harrison's thoughts on Ben Bernanke, click here.) Otilia Loidl, a Munich attorney specializing in renewable energy tax issues writes, “the bureaucracy dominating the application procedure and, in some cases, the non-transparency of the selection process have proved to be an obstacle large enough to prevent Romania from becoming an attractive investment target in this sector.” (Of course, some don't think the regulations go far enough, like the American Bird Conservancy, which believes the US Fish and Wildlife Service has “historically been reluctant to prosecute companies for bird deaths.”) Hill says the seven to nine years wind projects can take to work their way through the regulatory system will make it impossible to fulfill the government's goal of generating 80% of all energy from clean sources by 2035. “On a slightly smaller scale, the Department of Energy wants to be generating 54 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2030,” says Hill. “That's over 120 Cape Wind-size projects. And they haven't even started building Cape Wind.” When Cape Wind was first proposed, it ran into fierce opposition from a well-funded group called the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound. Its mission statement reads: (To read Adam Katz's piece on house flipping, click here.) “The Alliance is a nonprofit environmental organization dedicated to the long-term preservation of Nantucket Sound. It was formed in 2001 in response to Cape Wind's proposal to build a wind farm in the Sound.” The wind farm will be comprised of 130 turbines, five miles offshore. The Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound's website features a statement from the Barnstable Land Trust that says:

There is no other part of our community that offers more sweeping vistas, wildlife diversity, and a place of refuge from the steady march of development.

It also loudly proclaims: “OUR QUALITY OF LIFE SHOULD NOT BE FOR SALE!” One of those dedicated environmentalists is none other than Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council and author of Crimes Against Nature: How George W. Bush and His Corporate Pals Are Plundering the Country and Hijacking Our Democracy. Kennedy, of course, has campaigned aggressively for renewables, like a 400-megawatt solar power complex in the California desert being built by BrightSource Energy, with backing from names including Google GOOG and Morgan Stanley MS. Strangely, he has fought “tooth and nail” against Cape Wind, which could produce, on average, 75% of the electrical needs of Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard, and Nantucket. (Also read Big Oil Blows Wind Power Out of the Water.) Why? You can't see the solar complex from the Kennedy family's beachfront compound. To read the rest, head on over to Minyanville.