While America has been arguing over building its first near-shore wind farm, other nations have been organizing bolder ventures. Cape Wind’s staking a claim on Nantucket Sound seems to belong to the oil wildcatters’ era (“There Will Be Wind?”), not the modern age of cooperative development that calls forth a nation’s resources not just from its corporations but also its government and research institutions.
This is not to say Cape Wind failed to do its homework. It identified and exploited a loophole in the Sound’s protection from industrialization, and its scientists made their case that they could produce energy at that site without significant environmental damage.
Like the wildcatters of yore, Cape Wind acted on its own, sticking to its argument that it knows what’s best. Others have disagreed, and a decade of wrangling has been the result.
With that delay, the project is no longer the modern wonder it appeared at the turn of the century. Elsewhere in the world, near-shore wind farms are starting to look like yesterday’s news.
Take the Netherlands, for example. If any people deserve attention when it comes to such matters, it’s these pioneers of wind power.
In September, the FLOW (Far and Large Offshore Wind) consortium of companies and research institutions presented a plan to the Dutch government to assume an international leadership role in development and construction of far-offshore wind. Members want to build a demonstration installation of 20 to 60 turbines 46 miles off the coast in 114 feet of water.
The report notes that the government wants to produce 6,000 megawatts of power offshore. “Due to limitations such as shipping lanes, oil and gas platforms, visual impact, a maximum of approximately 3,000 MW of the total 6,000 MW can be installed within a 50 to 60 kilometer distance from the shore,” the report states. It adds that, of the 31,000 MW of offshore wind energy expected to be installed in the United Kingdom, Germany, Denmark, and the Netherlands by 2020, approximately 40 percent will be built far offshore [The report can be viewed at www.flow-windpark.nl].
Meanwhile, back home, we argue about whether a decade-old wind park plan is so vital to the national interest that its construction must override all other concerns.
We don’t need a Model T wind farm in Nantucket Sound, especially not one that violates Wampanoag traditions. Let’s lift our eyes from the near horizon and imagine a near-future alternative.